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

[Thomas Dalton]

On 14/03/2008, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> no English means no participation?  That part I definitely disagree with.

What's you alternative suggestion, then? Are you willing to pay for
all the real time translators?

> How about all languages having as many representatives as want to and
>  have time to participate?  What is the advantage of shutting people
>  out?  Please help me understand a single use case in detail.

The whole point of this idea is to have a group of limited size that
can decide things that is isn't practical to have decided by a
consensus of the entire Wikimedia community. If you let anyone in,
then it's precisely equivalent to having the entire community.

> Since we're already talking about this with some relish, how about
>  making this the jof of People Who Care About The Idea, without waiting
>  for the bureaucracy and lossy intermediation of setting up a
>  provisional council?

Because a discussion of random people isn't generally a good way to
actually get something done. It generates ideas, but it can be very
difficult to implement those ideas. Sooner or later, someone has to
stand up and declare "this is how its going to be" - the provisional
council is intended to be that someone (well, someones).

> How about "at least 1, and as many as are interested and able"?
>  Unless you mean for this to be a body dedicated to numerical voting...

Like any similar body, it will be discussion followed by a vote.
Discussion is impossible in a very large group - see my reply further
up in this email.

> I don't know what to say to this.   These are things that every
>  community member on every project participate in now.  Why would you
>  want to disempower them?

Logistics. At the moment, nothing much gets done since its impossible
to truly establish a consensus.