[Foundation-l] 2011 Board Elections: Input needed

[Ray Saintonge]

On 03/20/11 7:13 AM, FT2 wrote:
> That's a different possible category. Should people who do not have capacity
> to vote as editors, but are paid-up members of a chapter, be able to vote in
> that capacity? (Alternatively, are chapter members' voting rights and
> involvement limited to the chapter if they haven't taken part in any wider
> activity?)
>
> I don't have a problem with it, provided their membership is long enough (6+
> months?) before the election.
>
> There are probably good arguments both ways.  A lot depends on personal
> philosophy: whether you see the foundation and chapters, as effectively
> different arms of the same thing or as distinct. For example, if they are
> "different arms of the same thing" then there would be commonsense reasons
> to share donor lists (as John Vandenberg raises) as there is no reason why 2
> parts of the same project would withold information from each other. If they
> are distinct then paying membership to one may not lead to voting franchise
> for the board of the other. There's considerable philosophy here that
> spreads far beyond the election, it may be better to discuss it before it's
> a problem in any way while it's fresh and malleable, but the board election
> isn't really the context to do so.

There are legal issues here too,  WMF is not a membership based 
organization; even those who are elected from the community need to be 
appointed by those on the existing Board.  On the one hand it means that 
the editors have no legal right to representation on the Board.  On the 
other it allows for an arms length relationship between Board and 
editors that strengthen its status as an ISP instead of a publisher.

The situation is different for chapters; they are legally independent 
entities founded on the laws of their respective countries. They are 
often member based organizations, whose legal ties with the WMF are 
purely contractual within the Chapters Agreement. As such the Agreement 
cannot override the laws of the chapter's country, and among those laws 
are privacy provisions which prevent the sharing of membership lists 
with non-members.  Without the ability to share those lists the flow 
through of voting rights would be impossible.

Ray