[Foundation-l] The fallacy of power

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Both Erik and Anthere indicated their wish that the communities, the
projects organise themselves. The one big thing missing in the WMF is that
the  community looks after itself. All projects are isolated, do not
cooperate, think the other projects scary. Holy cows like the English notion
that Featured articles are NPOV are routinely slaughtered in other projects.
The notion that an article sourced to the hilt can be POV as it does not
address what is written in other scholarly traditions is a notion that is
hardly considered.

When there is fear about interference of the board in the projects, then the
only reason why the board can do and would do such things is because there
is a big vacuum. The projects are not organised. The community has no voice
and as Anthere put it, when a council is started by fiat of the board, it
defines the relation.

The board of trustees and the WMF organisation enable our projects but
because of the lack of evident organisation, the autonomy of the projects is
fracrtured. There is no voice of the community, all that can be done is post
a question and find that entropy establishes itself so what is the point ?

When criticism of the board centres around fear, fear of what a future board
might do, then the only reasonable answer is to ensure that there is no
reason to fear. This is done best by organising a community / project
council, the place where the policies of the projects, the communities are
managed. When the community lookst after itself, there will be less room for
the board, the organisation to interfere.

This does not mean that a council cannot go rogue. However, they would be
completely and utterly our own rogues.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> > Samuel Klein wrote:
> > > My case for the converse is a worry about corruption.  Community
> members
> > who
> > > have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and
> > > demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity
> of
> > the
> > > projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented
> > outsiders;
> > > while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit
> of
> > > contributions from experts from all walks of life.
> >
> > I see no reason to think this is true or false.  It is an interesting
> > speculation.
> >
>
> Perhaps I should start with the simpler claim that talented people who
> have
> already given of their energies to contribute somehow to the projects make
> more devoted stewards than those who bring talent an 'outside perspective'
> but don't get where the projects originated.
>
>
> > > This is a strawman.   The current board is a good one, and recognizes
> > that
> > > the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and
> > creative
> > > content movements lies with the community.  The /reason/ that this
> board
> > is
> > > wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the
> projects,
> > and
> > > its community membership.
> >
> > And that board, with all that experience, has come to an understanding
> > born in a long process of work that we need some outside expertise on
> > the board, and that we have not managed to get the kinds of expertise
> > that we need solely by drawing from a community process that has tended
> > to choose excellent community members and editors (who we also need).
> >
>
> You distinguish the current process from the community itself -- which I
> posit contains all of the skills so far suggested as needed.
> I think that a year spent immersed in one of the projects is a better
> preparation for board membership than many other pasttimes, and think that
> dedicating some resources to being able to effectively seek out specific
> talent within our community is something those concerned about
> hand-picking
> talents for the Board should consider.
>
> SJ
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