[Foundation-l] Policy modification (was possible reconsideration)

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> Ray as a candidate to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, you
> are now in the race to win votes.  That makes you a politician and you have
> to say and do the political things in order to win. I know and respect you
> enough that I expect different shades of grey as a consequence.
> 
> When you ask people to do a task, when you give people the responsibility to
> do a job you either give the authority to do the job or you do not. The
> language committee has as its task to be responsible for the process to
> create functioning projects in new languages and new projects in existing
> languages. The objective is to create new languages that are objectively the
> language they say they are and to ensure that there is a reasonable chance
> for these projects to succeed. As a consequence a policy was formulated.
> This policy has clear benefits. There have been people pushing their point
> of view to change the policy. Solutions have been proposed that have as a
> consequence that people have to do things in order to have their POV taken
> in consideration. When they do not want to do this, It is their choice and
> it is for them to live with the consequences.
> 
> It is exactly because the language committee has the authority to insist on
> the implementation of its policies that it is a functioning committee. When
> the community is free to discuss and force changes to the policy at all time
> because they do not like that their exception will not be granted, then the
> amount of time spend on endless talk will kill off the interest in being
> part of what will become a dysfunctional committee.
> 
> Ray my question to you: are we a talking shop or are we to do what we aim to
> do.
> 
> NB I am extremely happy and grateful that the new projects that have been
> approved by the board have been created.
> 
> Thanks Tim !!
> 
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
> 

Without commenting on any of the contentions between Ray and Gerard
apparent in this message, it does highlight a glaring omission in
the relative powershareing definitions in bylaws of the foundation
and committee and communities and projects and individual
contributor relations.

No one has ever clarified what the precise role of the committees
is. Not as a general case. Each one seems to have been generated
as a special case, with diverging operative assumptions. This
confusion sorely needs to be clarified in the future.

Yours

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen