[Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - A shot for a resolution

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

> I agree with Mark.
>
> I think trying to vote to give representativity along linguistic lines
> would result in much distress
> * deciding of the number of representant for each language (likely to
> create tensions between languages, 2 for you, 3 for me etc...)
> * might result in poor candidacies in small languages/projects (limited
> pool of candidates)
> * will result in an unworkable set (300-500 representants)
> * will prevent cross pollination of candidates (an english native might
> prefer to vote for a french speaking candidate, but will not be able)
> * will result in a new board member (or council member) thinking he
> represents only a language community rather than the entire community.
>
> I also think that many of us would prefer to vote for someone who has a
> view beyond his native community, who has already made the effort to get
> involved at the meta level.
>
> I am fully sensitive to discrimination issues. But I do not think that
> the solution to discrimination is to reserve places to the discriminated
> ones (or perceived as such). The solution is to make sure so-called
> discriminated are given the opportunity to join the meta level, and to
> communicate with other linguistic communities, and to promote themselves
> through the type of activities they are involved in (perhaps helping to
> handle the press, perhaps helping in organizing Wikimania, perhaps
> helping with translations, perhaps helping to provide leaflets) etc...
>
>
> ant
>
>
As I have written previously today, and also at the Meta talk page, I
think it is unreasonable to expect that a really functioning (not just
voting) body could consist of 500 representatives, and it is not realistic
to expect that every even major language will be represented. On the other
hand, I can not really agree that there should be no places reserved at
all. For instance, I think many of the smaller Wikipedia problems are
similar, and thes problems need to be addressed by the Council, but unless
a seat is reserved for all smaller projects, there is probably no way
somebody will be elected since the smaller Wikipedia participants are
virtually unknown to anybody. Of course if we need to reserve such a seat
we also have to do a great deal of work preparing the rules and designing
a system how say Ossetian, Irish and Swahili Wikipedia can elect one
representative between themselves, but I think it is a worthwhile
investment of time. This is just an example, may be not the best one. But
I still think the best combination would be to have a fraction of reserved
seats and a fraction of directly voted seats.

Cheers,
Yaroslav