I have not devoted much time to governance issues over the past year, so I wasn't sure at first how this latest change came to pass. The more I read and think about it, the more the pit in my stomach grows... Anthere: too horrible, but perhaps not in the way you meant. On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 6:09 AM, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote: This was indeed an extraordinary change, and not signalled in advance. The alteration of the latest two community seats into something more restricted feels wrong to me... like a committee compromise between two better alternatives. Procedurally, this wasn't even brought up in the March minutes and makes me very nervous about what else might happen without notice or consultation. Effe notes this sets a poor precedent. It also shines a light on the elephant in the room, which we have long ignored -- our community is dissipating, our Foundation is not designed or motivated to deal with this, and yet we are distracted from finding a solution; but more about that in a moment. Community representatives on the board are literally supposed to be that, and I don't see how they could represent us without direct input and engagement. For curiosity's sake, I would be interested to know what outside advice was solicited on the restructuring. Frankly, I haven't felt 'represented' since the Board stopped holding open meetings and inviting discussion in advance of proposed agendas. ((trivia: how long has it been since there was a commentable public version of a board meeting agenda?)) I would also like to hear individual perspectives. This shift suggests a weakening, not a strengthening, of the Board's ability to effectively carry out its role and its duties to the Foundation. I would like to see dissenting opinions posted for all resolutions and opinions, but especially for this one. More importantly, for those on this list who haven't noticed yet : the wikipedia community is weakening. This is not inherent; we are nowhere near our potential even as a meme; it is due to restriction and neglect. This is also not new; though easier to see over time -- the community has been on a broad decline since 2006. We have stopped founding major new projects, poured cold water on various community initiatives in the spirit of unification of brand, and generally eroded the community's boldness, authority, and implicit entrustedness with the success of the projects. I saw "we" here because all 750+ people reading this list have had some say in this as it has happened. Wikipedia-l traffic is down to 15k a month; wikien will drop below 300k this month for the first time since the Indian Ocean Earthquake. There are fewer and fewer newbies who post to lists such as this, or feel they can have a say (or have a stake!) in project governance. It embarrasses me every time a wikimedian I respect trashes the foundation-l list, as this is one of our few thriving community channels, something we should all respect. The community's sustainability been hampered by a foundation structure that regularly sees itself at odds with its communit[ies], has arrogated authority for various tasks away from community members, and has absorbed some of the best community members and then slowly, unwittingly incented them not to speak their mind.[1] The foundation has faced its own internal struggles, so there are of course reasons it has not balanced its necessary bureaucracy with transparency, or been open about its direction and priorities[2]. However, the result is current priorities that (as might be expected) match the needs of the new bureaucracy -- including funding, expedient decision making, and professional staff -- and not those of the projects.[3] ((trivia: how long has it been since the last open board meeting?)) If we don't aggressively address this, the Foundation will soon oversee a useful, grantor-friendly, but increasingly ossified set of works; no longer one of the active wonders of the world. This is the sort of thing that Board, advisors, and all 800 people reading this list should care about[4]. Worrying about minimizing public discussion and criticism when we face a fundamental crisis with no obvious solution is misdirected. Decisions like the latest board revision, made in haste, without discussion, and viewing the community's interests as secondary to expedience, are felt throughout the projects! and are a major part of this decline. SJ ((answer[s]: 1. since before the start of the community's decline | 2. far too long )) [1] another part is the rise of a generation of newbies that no longer has the bold founding spirit and has not been imbued with it by others -- something a greater focus on project sustainability could address. Jimbo, among others, used to be very good at this. As for absorbing good community members : the foundation's take on privacy and control filters out, into the projects and chapters and into community bodies such as arbcomms, and contributes to the rise of local, ehm, cabals. [2] the major exception was the public discussion of the revision of the foundation's mission and vision statements. presumably a board that chooses to restructure without public discussion would feel free to change other founding documents without public discussion. [3] Perhaps this simply means that the foundation does not wish to address the specific needs of the projects, and instead wants to be a self-sustaining pillar handling funds and professional relations with other organizations. Perhaps we need a separate concept, if not a body, to represent the core social and practical needs of the projects is needed. I don't know., and I'm on the fence about proposals I have seen for the latter. But avoiding stagnation should be foremost on everyone's minds, and this board restructuring and shift away from public board deliberations feel like steps in the wrong direction. [4] is there a public place to contact our advisors? if not, can someone forward this to them?

I don't know if others are simply not reading the situation as I have been but I though I would share my impressions here. The restructuring strikes me as being a difficult compromise. Overall I am happy with it considering what I imagine some of the extreme positions to have been. I don't believe anyone went into board meeting anticipating the outcome that was just announced. My impressions from reading this list for years is that most people had much more extreme positions. I imagine that some want something close to a 10-member board with 3 traditionally elected members and others wanted close 80% traditionally elected members. Some people want to have Jimmy's seat to be "community elected", while others feel doing that would be stealing a seat from the community since there is little chance anyone could beat him. I imagine the "chapter election" scheme was a creative compromise to allow the majority of seats some insisted to be from the community while addressing the distrust others have for the results of our traditional community elections (i.e. Danny was nearly elected last run and that obviously cannot sit well with some board members). If there had been a large discussion on board restructuring before the meeting I doubt that the current compromise would have even been on the table for us to discuss. And let us not forget the numerous threads on board restructuring from Florence which received little or no responses. If there had been a discussion beforehand, I think it would have focused on extreme positions rather than anything close to a workable compromise. And most board members would not share on this list what issues are deal-breakers for them, so we would be unable to offer anything specific for a proposal that would having any hope of passing. And I think in general, community concerns over the board have been discussed enough in the past to ensure the board was not uniformed. On the other hand, I do not see why the board cannot treat the current proposal as in a "community comment period" right now before making the actual amendment to the by-laws. For one thing I would suggest that the "expertise" seats constitute "up to four seats" rather require four seats to always be filled. Birgitte SB --- On Sun, 4/27/08, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote: ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ