[Foundation-l] Foundation Discretion on Personnel Matters

[Nathan Awrich]

Thank you, I appreciate the response. I wonder if perhaps the
formation of governance policies (which in my mind should perhaps be
included in the bylaws rather than as corporate policy) to cover
contingencies like this might be an area where the community could
provide assistance. I realize that the Board is composed of volunteers
and the Foundation staff are still new - I suppose I still expected
that there would be a deeper level of experience with standard
management practices like background checks.

I hope that the next six months - with new staff, a new location and
somewhat of a fresh start - allow the organization to reach a new
level of professionalism that will hopefully forestall future similar
problems. In the mean time, I'm sure that there are non-profit
management experts who contribute to Wikimedia projects - perhaps the
Foundation could use the deep experience of the community to assist
the Foundation at a higher level.

In tangentially related governance issues - I notice that the bylaws
specify Florida in at least two places and demonstrate compliance with
specific Florida law. Will there be a new set of bylaws issued for
reincorporation in California (if that in fact is going to happen)?
Will the community have the opportunity to review/comment on these
bylaws? Also, I noticed that the bylaws provide that a majority of the
members of the Board must be appointed or elected from the community -
but that 'community' is defined by the Board prior to an election. Why
is community not broadly defined in the bylaws themselves?  There is
also no requirement that any members of the Board actually be elected
- the bylaws leave open the possibility that all trustees are
appointed.There is finally no provision for the community to propose a
recall or removal of any single or group of trustees. Can anyone point
me to the location of the community review of these bylaws, if it
happened?

Thanks,

Nathan

P.S. As a technical question, when the Board meets on IRC - how are
identities verified?

On Dec 14, 2007 8:16 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nothing could have hurt her future more than what was actually done.
> The board was undoubtedly thinking also of what would hurt the WMF
> least; that is certainly appropriate. But it chose wrong with respect
> to both. It would have been much better had the publicity not come
> from hostile parties.
>
> Yes, the board must have the discretion to choose the appropriate
> course, and in this instance it chose wrongly.  It takes good
> judgement to know how much to release, and the judgment proved not to
> be good.  The bias towards secrecy would be the apparent reason.
>
> On 12/14/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> > ...once we start dealing with personnel issues, it involves people
> > lives and future. We can not treat that lightly.
>
> > _______________________________________________
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> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
> --
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
>
>
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