[Foundation-l] What the board is responsible of (was Re: Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions)

[Mark Ryan]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 7:24 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To be fair, I am *extremely* disturbed by the above statement.
>
> Since when is the board DEFINING the scope and basic rules of the
> projects ?
>
> As a reminder, the WMF was created two years after Wikipedia. The scope,
> the basic rules did not need WMF to be crafted. Over the following
> years, the scope and even the basic rules have evolved, usually for the
> better. The WMF certainly pushed on some issues, but largely, the rules
> and scope have been defined by the community.
>
> And this is the way it should be.
>
> You are shifting the role of the WMF in a direction that I find greatly
> impleasant.
>
> The original reason for creation of WMF was that we needed an owner for
> our servers, we needed a way to pay the bills. We needed a way to
> collect money. WMF was here to support the project and to support the
> community dealing with the project. It was here to safegard our core values.
>
> When I joined the board, I really felt WMF had to play the role of the
> mother toward a child. Listening to its stories, making suggestions,
> giving advice, providind food and shelter. Offering little presents,
> encouragement certainly. And tending the wounds.
> But a mother that would let its child decide of its own future. Letting
> the child decide of its own path and make its own experiments. Do
> mistakes, learn about mistakes, try again.
> That's what parenting is all about. Not defining the future of the
> child, but providing advice, support and helping to avoid the worst.
>
> I feel the role of the WMF is shifting. It is shifting because some
> board members and some staff members are mislead about the role of the
> WMF. Thank god, most staff and board are still on the right track.
>
> But a serious warning to me is when board members make statements such
> as yours above.

I have to agree with you, Anthere. It's starting to look like over
time the role of the board has evolved from broad guidance and
administration to some sort of twisted version of enwp's Arbitration
Committee. When the board was first created, it wasn't particularly
political and its members were simply those who were most well-known
and respected from across the Wikimedia communities. Now, at least
some of the board members appear to be of the opinion that they have
become the ultimate arbiters of what should be included in Wikimedia
projects. They are not, and this will eventually become patently clear
to them when their seats are due for re-election.

As for Jimbo, this is not the first time he has ignored community
consensus and processes because he is of the clear opinion that he is
right and everyone else is wrong. However, it is the first time I've
seen him using his Founder flag to do it. The founder flag is a bad
idea, because it gives Jimbo the false impression that he can in fact
do whatever he likes. He cannot. When he created the Foundation and
later stepped down as Chair of the Board, he effectively gave up the
right to intervene on his own whim. I think the right thing for him to
do now would be to voluntarily turn off the founder flag, and
participate in community discussions like everyone else.

~Mark Ryan