On 22 February 2016 at 22:00, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I also hope that the current Board members will thoughtfully consider whether it's in the best interests of the Wikimedia Foundation and the larger Wikimedia movement for them to continue as Board members.
The instability that would result from large scale resignations of Board members would be devastating to WMF.
That aside, under the best of circumstances, the volunteer BoT of WMF are faced with an extremely demanding and challenging work load. And, no volunteer board has the skill set to manage the problems that have come up over the last few months and have escalated out of control.
I strongly encourage giving the BoT time to react to the most recent comments, and develop a responsible plan of action.
I also agree with Sydney, and will point out that in the past year, we have had brand new board members in 3 board-selected seats (one of whom only participated for a few weeks), and 3 community seats (two of whom remain in place, the third being replaced by a former board member. That is at least five new members in a single year, no matter how one cuts it - and it doesn't even take into consideration the ongoing process for chapter-selected seats.
This past year has already seen the largest turnover in board membership that the Foundation has ever experienced; it was unusual to have more than two seats change incumbents in all the past years. We have already seen very significant change in the make-up of the Board, and half the board is still learning the ropes and responsibilities. This level of change is likely to be at least partly responsible for some of the unfortunate situations we have seen in the last several months. But those who are seeking a new board...well, you already have one.
Risker/Anne