[Foundation-l] VC - alternative resolution

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 4/4/08, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> > On 4/4/08, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Nathan, all,
> >>
> >> I appreciate your efforts, and thank you for thinking with us. Although
> I'd
> >> like to leave it up to the Board what they vote on, I have to say I have
> >> some thoughts on this version.
> >>
> >> As I tried to explain in my recap email, I think that it would actually
> be
> >> good to make a clear statement that we create a VC (but not defined yet,
> you
> >> could say we "reserve the seat") because that seems to be the general
> >> consensus. However, at the same time, we create a provisional council,
> which
> >> will give advice on the details.
> >>
> > I definitely agree with this point. On the theory promulgated by Admiral
> Grace
> > Hopper that it is easier to gain forgiveness than it is to gain
> > permission, it were
> > best that the establishing were done right away, rather than having to
> > bring it up
> > another time later on.
> >
> > I think instead of removing the part about establishing the institution of
> the
> > council (by whatever name - personally I don't like "Volunteer Council",
> but
> > that is by the by, and a matter for the board), a more useful thing would
> be
> > to add a method for the dissolution of the Council, should it not turn out
> to
> > be useful in the end.
> >
> > The actual language need not be more formal or complicated than something
> > like inserting the following phrase somewhere where it is appropriate:
> >
> > "The Council shall serve at the pleasure of the Board of Trustees, until
> > such time as by a vote of [insert voting threshold here] of serving
> Trustees
> > it is relinquished of its duties, and either permanently dissolved or the
> > Board shall formally decide replacing it with new Council by a method
> > of its choice."
> >
> > This would also serve as providing the mechanism for setting up
> > elections for the council, should such a method be deemed useful.
> >
> > This is purely my personal suggestion for the Board to ponder,
> > before it finalizes the language of its resolution...
> Although I'm naturally partial to the resolution as presented by
> Lodewijk, I'm not so fixated on a specific resolution as to lose sight
> of the principal aime of this exercise: establishing a credible group to
> develop solutions to a wide range of governance issues.  If doing so
> means that Nathan's proposal is the only one that will fly, so be it.  A
> hybrid resolution is also possible, but the final form of the resolution
> is up to the Board.
>
> I don't think that a dissolution clause is necessary.  Let's remember
> that what this Council needs from the Board is not so much legal
> authority as it is public credibility.  If the Council ceases to act
> responsibly a simple statement from trustees that it no longer has the
> confidence of the Board would be devastating.
>
> Ec

There is a weird symmetry at play here that you may not fully grasp
all the nuances of.

I can equally consider a Council that had no other authority than
moral suasion, recieving word from the Trustees taht the Board no
longer held them in esteem, forming a viable nucleus of a fork - ghod
forbid it should ever come to pass!

Really, it has been validly pointed out that currently forking the English
Wikipedia is untenable by nearly any actor. If however - and we are
dealing with very clearly hypotheticals here - there would ever be a
council that had some trust with the wider communities, and a Board
that had lost its focus; the Board and the Council clashing, in any
shape or form; might serve as a nexus for forking the whole foundation.

A council would have some critical mass of people able to organize
widely around the projects, and perhaps even organize for fund-raising
to accomplish a middling viable fork.

This kind of logic is not a problem in my mind, but would serve to
keep both honest, the Board *and* the Council.

That said, a much more significant feature of the dissolution clause
is that with it, the Board would be determinative as to the way new
Councils are constituted in terms of their membership, be it elections
or whatever. I find the idea of the Council self-regulating who joins
itself (that is beyond the very earliest days, while it is still a pre-liminary
body), very incestous method, and any council of this ilk, a Worm of
Ouroboros kind of animal.

Yours Truely:;

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]