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.

But sometimes, the Trustees have to make decisions on behalf of wikimedians without clear concensus - just like wikimedia administrators are pressured to do sometime. There may be no clear concensus. The matter is kind of urgent that there is no time to consult with wikimedia community. There may be some technical dimensions regarding how to interpret the concensus into concrete actions and technical choices.

Because of these situations, we elect someone we can trust. Someone who knows wikimedia better, someone who is not likely to abuse the discretionary power. Like the admins for wikimedia projects, they do handle important matters. But they do so according to community concensus.

So the answer to the first question is no.

Of course, there is a hierarchical structure to an extent. But this is supposedly a positive move from the Jimbo's dictatorship to more democratic governance.

And as in the case of administrators' actions, transparency is important so that we can monitor and give feedback to the Trustees whenever it is beneficial.

Regarding the second question, it seems that this is more of a matter of belief so far.

- Some believe that face-to-face meeting is very important. It is even a matter of principle for some - Trustees expenses should be reimbursed, that is the way it is supposed to be. - Others believe that compared to the cost, it has merit. - Others may believe that compared to the cost, it does not have enough merit. - Yet others believe there are always better ways to spend money than this.

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.

Best,

Tomos

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