[Foundation-l] Restricting Appointed members (Proposal).

[Brian McNeil]

That was certainly not what I'd intended nor was it, I believe, how Geoffrey
was interpreting it.

Let's say someone has a family crisis that appears to be ongoing and
time-consuming, and thus quits the board. The existing board can appoint
someone. No problem, they don't have to - it might be pointless if elections
are only a month or two away. This was why I said "may appoint" and
anticipated this being the normal action. The decision is left to the board.
It may also be influenced by the following point, in that an appointment may
unbalance the board.

Where Geoffrey and I disagree slightly is that I believe the majority of the
board, i.e. > 50% must always be elected members. This is to say, when the
balance of power shifts from elected to appointed, then a special election
should be called to give people who have been appointed to replace departed
elected members a chance to obtain community backing, and thus restore an
elected majority. If you go with a 40/60 appointed/elected situation and a
board of 10 people, you'd need to lose two or three elected members between
sets of elections before you had to hold a special election. This seems a
highly unlikely scenario, but I believe it is one to have a solution to
written into the bylaws.

Like Geoffrey, I am cognizant of the fact that the board will not be able to
function well without a number of unelected positions; the treasurer being
the prime example.


Brian McNeil
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton
Sent: 17 March 2008 18:37
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Restricting Appointed members (Proposal).

> This provision is meant to close the loophole of appointments to
resignations.

Are you suggesting all resignations of elected members lead to
immediate by-elections, or am I misunderstanding you? Do you really
think it's necessary to have by-elections when we have regular
elections every year? Elections take a lot of organisation and time
and having one every time there's an empty seat seems inefficient. It
also means the board could fall below minimum of 7 members required by
Article IV Section 2 and it would take a significant amount of time (a
month at a bare minimum, I would think) before that could be
corrected, I don't think that's a good thing.

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