[Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community

[Ray Saintonge]

Michael Snow wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>   
>> Michael Snow wrote:
>>     
>>> If you have more questions (preferably open-ended ones that promote 
>>> reasoned thought and discussion), you're welcome to ask them and I will 
>>> try to answer as I have time.
>>>       
>> For my own part (not pretending to speak for anyone else) the question
>> I would most like to see answered by each of the board members is:
>>
>> "What in the proposal of the exploratory body do you think was
>> for you the thing that made you support/demurr its implementation
>> by the board directly?"
>>     
> For me, it was the fact that it sought to rely on the board's blessing 
> in order to organize and do its work, which I believe would defeat the 
> purpose. The essence of my opinion is what I wrote a little earlier in 
> response to Lodewijk:
>
> "I think it likely that if the board creates a council, that will end up 
> defining its relationship to the community and the world at large, and 
> it will be perceived as a creature (literally, "thing created") of the 
> board. If so, it would lose nearly all the value hoped for in its 
> development."
Perhaps "create" was a poor choice of words to put in the resolution, 
and I would have been quite content had the Board substituted more 
propitious terminology.  Whatever becomes of such a Council it must be 
prepared to work amicably with both the Board and the community. I 
certainly do not envision a rogue organization that is constantly 
butting heads with the Board. 

An atmosphere based on the premise that community members have the 
*right* to set up whatever organization they want, or on a Board that 
dwelling upon its right not to pay attention to what the group says puts 
too much emphasis on confrontation.  Both of these premises may be 
legally correct, but that does not make them constructive.

Somewhere between outright creation and insurgency there is bound to be 
a balanced structure.

Ec