[Foundation-l] Board-announcement: Board Restructuring

[Nathan]

I don't know why discussions on this list and elsewhere always devolve so
quickly to revolutionary ultimatums. The board has not 'betrayed the
community' - it simply took a step, regarding its own composition, that took
a portion of the community by surprise. Many would have liked to hear about
these changes in advance, to discuss them and potentially influence
alterations to the changes before they became fait accompli. This doesn't
translate to "We must eliminate the Board and start over with people who
don't totally ignore the will of the community."

As a matter of fact, I think those sorts of comments are untrue, unnecessary
and insulting to the members of the Board who do, I believe, try very hard
to do what benefits the projects and the community and try I imagine very
hard to anticipate and understand the goals and beliefs of our community -
and not just those few of us who post to Foundation-l. Confrontational
statements and belittling and minimizing the efforts and commitment of those
people we have elected to the Board is unhelpful and to be avoided. We can't
require you to assume good faith on this list or outside of en.wikipedia,
but you might take under advisement the fact that it would be a good idea
nonetheless.

Nathan



On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:51 AM, Jason Safoutin
> >  You are the board of trustees. And as I see it, the board has done
> >  nothing but abuse the word 'trustee'. They have made, as a whole, no
> >  attempt to get any community input on anything from this, to Kaltura.
> >  The constantly leave the communities out of the loop and make decisions
> >  with total disregard as to what we might think.
>
> I don't necessarily want to be as confrontational as Jason is here,
> but I agree with his sentiment completely. The board is not some
> competely separate entity from the community at large. The board is
> just another group of volunteers who want to help manage the legal and
> financial logistics of this foundation, instead of writing content or
> blasting vandals, or whatever. Volunteers decide their own level of
> participation, and such decisions are not demonstrations pf any level
> of quality, commitment, expertise or intelligence.
>
> Maybe the current board forgets it's own humble origins as a select
> group of highly-motivated community members. I would like to cite an
> old adage that says "It is never likely that you alone are correct and
> that everybody else is wrong." Taken in context here, I think it's
> highly unlikely that the board is so aloof and so omniscient that they
> can safely disregard the opinions of the community at large. Or, it is
> highly unlikely that what the community at large wants or does not
> want should be ignored off-hand.
>
> Since emails, complaints, discussion have done nothing to turn the
> creeping tide of secrecy and separation on the part of the current
> board, perhaps the best recourse is for community members to speak
> with their votes. Board members who have been acting in a way contra
> to the will and benefit of the community should be systematically
> removed, and replaced with community members who are actually
> dedicated to this community. Most voters will probably agree that
> board members without such dedication do not belong on the board
> beyond the next election.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
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