[Foundation-l] Re: Power of the Board and wikimedians (was Re: Bounties and expenses)

[Michael Snow]

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