[Foundation-l] Board voting system

[Chris Jenkinson]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Chris Jenkinson wrote:
>> Angela raised the point during the IRC meeting last night that the Board
>> is unable to make decisions due to the requirement for 5 affirmative
>> votes before something is implemented. She also mentioned that Michael
>> Davis and Tim Shell are typically "silent" and due to this it's
>> difficult to reach decisions.
> 
> Actually, Talrias said it, not Angela.  Angela did repeat it more or
> less a few minutes later, but I think that was a typo.  Michael Davis,
> at least, is a very active board member, and he has been for the past
> several months extremely busy for the foundation on a daily basis.

That would be me. :) I wrote it how I did above due to Angela's use of 
the phrase more or less how I said it.

>> Rather than discussing forming an "executive committee", which I think
>> is sweeping the problem underneath the rug, would it not be better to
>> instead change the voting system used by the Board, so they only need a
>> simple majority (i.e. 3 votes out of 5) in order to enact a change?
> 
> Having an executive committee is part of a longer term restructuring to
> scale the organization better.  The board is working on a change to the
> bylaws, though, to enable us to work more effectively.  (And this isn't
> really about 'silent' members, but rather a technical change so that we
> do not have to have every member vote on every single thing.)

What kind of changes are you thinking of making?

> I think it is totally not accurate to think of Michael Davis as
> inactive.  But the technical issue, yes, should be resolved soon.  Even
> so, that's not really what the whole Executive Committee thing is about.

What is the Executive Committee about, then? I was under the impression 
it was to streamline decision making.

Chris

-- 
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra