Kurt Jansson wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Anthere wrote:
When the next elections take place, will there be 2 trustees to elect, or 4 ?
Two (2) to be elected. If there were any more there would be a serious risk that democratic control would subvert the purposes of the organization.
Thanks, Ray, for putting the cynicism into words.
I think it's mostly a moot point as long as we ensure that the trustees are people who have no interest in doing anything actually relating to Wikipedia itself. I don't expect the Board of Trustees in the near future to be making pronouncements about banning users or article disputes (that's the community and the mediators' and arbitrators' job) or technical type issues (that's the developers' job), or really anything other than legal and foundation type stuff.
I'm not sure how this could be codified though. The board of trustees probably *should* have the authority to do something if necessary, but it shouldn't use that power unless it really is necessary. It should also be made up of people who we know though--Jimbo I'm perfectly comfortable with, but I don't really recognize the other three as active Wikipedians (unless they go by a different name here?). Which is fine for a start-up phase, but eventually I think we should have people on there who we can trust to "not do anything unless really really necessary".
Actually I'm confused about how the selection takes place. As far as I can tell, the board has *five* members; two members of the Board will be elected "within 90 days" of the adoption of the bylaws, and then re-elected periodically. The other three are initially Jimmy Wales, Michael Davis, and Tim Shell. When do we get to elect these three slots? Are they permanent life members of the Board? I'm fine with Jimbo being a permanent life member, but I'm not sure I even know who Michael Davis and Tim Shell are, let alone know them well enough to feel comfortable giving them a seat on the board in perpetuity.
-Mark