[Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

John Vandenberg, 31/03/2012 06:56:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 31 March 2012 02:03, John Vandenberg<jayvdb at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the
>>> board.  If not, then the board should put in place procedures to
>>> prevent abuse of abstains.
>>
>> Could you elaborate on what you mean by "abuse of abstains"?
>
> An abstention is a refusal to vote.  By doing this, a trustee must
> have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be
> minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and
> should be removed.

The meaning of the abstention varies wildly among bodies, so I doubt you 
can say so. It's currently unclear what an abstention means in the WMF 
board, see 
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_board_manual#Votes_vs._resolutions.2C_quorum_and_required_majority>.
The refusal to vote is always explicit and stated as such, often with 
implied reasons (e.g. voting on the appointment of yourself somewhere), 
and where not explicitly allowed can simply require the member to 
temporarily go out of the room during the (discussion and) vote.
It's true that sometimes policies say that members can be requested to 
explain their abstention, given its controversial nature, but it's 
usually voluntary.
Moreover, I think that in this case the reasons for abstentions are 
quite obvious, just knowing the persons or looking at the public 
discussion. On the contrary, it's quite hard to understand the votes in 
favour added to the bunch by the trustees who didn't engage in the 
discussion or seem to have a strong opinion. That's why a summary of the 
discussion in the minutes is useful, it explains why the decision has 
been taken.

MZMcBride, 31/03/2012 06:12:
 > I'm not sure I agree with encouraging Board members to explain their 
votes,
 > though. I think the idea deserves further thought and consideration. 
Perhaps
 > there would be more value to doing so than I anticipate. Personally, 
I think
 > having Board members respond to direct follow-up questions regarding
 > specific votes that community members are interested in (on the 
mailing list
 > or on Meta-Wiki) would be more useful.

The summary of the discussion is often more useful than the actual text 
of the resolution to understand what's been decided and why. There are 
many ways to do it and I'm sure the board would be able to find a 
suitable approach and stick to it.

Nemo