[Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:


>
> Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential
> in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates.

Jeebus, if that was the goal, it signally failed. I never saw so much
equivocation, pussy-footing and politicing in my life... I am a grown
up man and it takes a lot to reduce me to tears, but this pretty much
takes the cake, to riff on Christopher Hitchens...

> It was
> felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in
> contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community
> elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than
> would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't
> want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have
> happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater
> intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does).

To be free and frank, I don't see how that relates to any past,
present or future real life fact on the ground. Firstly, the
candidates were pretty much the usual suspects that would have been up
for community seats. Secondly as past practise has shown, we really
don't want thin-skinned people on the board. That leads to escalation
of drama, not reduction of it.


-- 
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Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]