[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/8/26 Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com>:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> On Aug 26, 2009, at 2:48 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Wikimedia is a community driven movement, big decisions should be made
>> by the community.
>
> Those are undoubtedly interesting assertions. Assuming the second one
> is the case (big decisions should be made by the community), it raises
> even more the question of why it is necessary or appropiate for the
> selection of Foundation board seats to be discussed with the project
> communities, doesn't it? That would really only make sense if you
> expect the Foundation to make decisions that significantly impact
> activities within the projects, something you just ruled out. So why?

I consider "big" to be a stronger term than "significant". There are
significant decisions that aren't big enough to need community
consultation. What individuals to appoint to expert seats falls under
that category, for example. I'm not suggesting the community should be
making the actual decisions on who to appoint, but we should be the
ones deciding on basic values, etc. Whether or not it is appropriate
to sell seats on the board is something so basic that I think it
should be decided by the community (or, at least, decided after
consulting the community, it probably doesn't need an actual vote).