Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
I think there are two separate issues on this debate.
1. Are the Trustees expected to serve as the "top" for us?
2. Is the meeting of the Trustees that important compared to others?
For the first question, I think the majority opinion is that the
Trustees are supposed to listen to us, serve as, and act upon our
(multilingual wikimedia communty's) concensus. And from what Angela
and Anthere expressed when running for the election, we can believe
that they want to do that.
Mark should not worry that much, and I think many people are not that
different from Mark's view on this issue.
Tomos is very insightful here. While I sympathize with Mark's concerns
about top-down decision-making by the board, I am quite surprised that
he apparently considers it such a significant present danger. I have yet
to see any indication that Angela or Anthere are going to start
dictating decisions to the community, and they have gone to considerable
lengths to solicit community input so far. And from what I can judge of
their personalities, Angela and Anthere both are among the last people I
would expect to adopt a top-down management style, which may have
something to do with why we elected them to the board.
Regarding the second question
...
I am surprised to see that so many on this list seem
to be on the
strong supportive side.
In the future, there might be a meeting in the U.S. Is it okay to pay,
say, 1500 dollars to reimburse the travel expenses of the two Trustees
from Europe? I don't know. I would like to know the agendas for the
meeting and think how important it is, rather than to say "Trustees
should always be paid for that."
But if we decide not to pay, it means that some quality people might
not run for the next election because they do not have enough money to
attend the meeting. This is not a happy consequence for us, either.
I think that as to this second question, Tomos, most people understand
that we have an extraordinary opportunity (in terms of physical
proximity), that the cost will be minimal, and that there are real
benefits to having the Trustees meet in person at least once. That is
why so many people are willing to be generous with their money. If we
can show this kind of value and efficient use of donations in all our
fundraising efforts, getting the funds we need should be a
straightforward proposition.
This is not a precedent that the Foundation will start paying travel
expenses for all meetings, because it is also not a precedent as to how
future meetings will be held. I'm sure that Angela, Anthere, and Jimbo
will have several more meetings during the year, but they will probably
conduct these by telephone or IRC or some other means.
--Michael Snow