[Foundation-l] Greg Kohs and Peter Damian

[Risker]

On 20 October 2010 16:47, Muhammad Yahia <shipmaster at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > The board defines both "community" and "chapter". I'm not sure that the
> > board does ultimately answer to the community; there's nothing in the
> > bylaws
> > to indicate that.
> >
> >
> Section (G) states: Board Majority. A majority of the Board Trustee
> positions, other than the Community Founder Trustee position, shall be
> selected or appointed from the community and the chapters.
>
> I think this directly says that the board ultimately answers to the
> community. Now you may say that the definition of community is not as broad
> as you may like given that some seats go to the chapters , but that still
> means that our community -as organized in a certain form given the chapters
> are all community controlled AFAIK- holds power to elect the board
> majority.
>
>
>

Three board positions (30% of the board) are elected by the community at
large. They are the only members of the board who have a direct
responsibility to the community, and there is no method for the community to
revoke their representation.

Two board members (20% of the board) are elected by a tiny number of
representatives of chapters (the chapter representative election process is
very opaque). I can't find any numbers that confirm exactly how many people
belong to chapters, and whether or not all of their members would otherwise
meet the definition of "community member", but it is widely acknowledged
that only a small percentage of Wikimedians (i.e., those who would meet the
definition of "community member") are members of chapters.  I have a hard
time understanding why people think chapters are representative of the
community.  They're representative of people who like to join chapters.

Risker/Anne