[Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 96, Issue 95

[Craig Franklin]

>
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:48:55 +0100
> From: Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
> Message-ID:
>        <CAFche1q0KhJtZK2MyPK1SsKKxK0H3EebfiAf_1uMGaCiV1tbXQ at mail.gmail.com
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:56 AM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> I have never heard of this idea before - where did you get it from?
>
> People with votes on all kinds of bodies abstain on things all the time,
> for all kinds of valid reasons. The most prominent recent example I can
> think of is that Sivlio Berlusconi's government in Italy was brought down
> by MPs he expected to support him abstaining instead.
>
> We don't know why Arne and Bishakka abstained, or why SJ voted against - it
> is only evident they did not feel able to support the motion as it stood.
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris
>

For the record, those who did not vote in favour of the resolutions, this
morning explained their reasons for doing so.  I'm sure someone more
eloquent than I can summarise those reasons, but I think that they were
valid.  John Vandenberg is correct that if people are consistently
abstaining to avoid making hard or unpopular decisions then that is a
problem, but I do not think that this is presently the case with the BoT.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin