[WikiEN-l] Anonymous page creation will be reenabled on English Wikipedia.

[Florence Devouard]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 28/10/2007, Kwan Ting Chan <ktc at ktchan.info> wrote:
>>> Was hardcoding the banner necessary?
>> The whole point was specifically so an admin can't just remove it.
> 
> Says who? Sounds like an odd intention.
> 
>>> The Foundation is generally very good, but I'd just like some formal
>>> restrictions in place (and more accountability to the community).
>> The board of trustees can't reasonably be expected to be restricted by
>> what they can or cannot do (except by law) in the interest of the
>> charity. The members by law have to put the charity interest first and
>> foremost, even if it means possibly going against the wises / view of
>> the wider membership. The membership can of course decide to remove the
>> board / member(s) though.
>>
>> And yes, more accountability is always good.
> 
> We can't remove the board, our only option if we disagree with them is
> to fork. We aren't members of the charity in the legal sense, legally
> speaking the board appoints all board members itself. The "elections"
> we have are purely advisory, there is nothing legally stopping the
> board from ignoring them.

Hmmmmm. More or less, Thomas is correct. Legally speaking, you may not 
remove a member. And even if you vote, I think we can legally choose to 
refuse the elected person. And of course we may at any time decide to 
remove the voting system and rely only on 100% appointed members.
Legally speaking, this is true.

However, I think you guys have a huge power nevertheless, and would be 
largely responsible if such a mess occurs :-)

First, you guys chose, at some point or another, 4 of the board members 
currently on the board. Hence, a majority. So, if the board was right 
now deciding something very shocking to you (such as deciding to stop 
the entire election system altogether), you would only have two approaches
* Either remember that you elected these guys, so whilst you might 
scream after the board, not forget YOU chose these people. So, you are 
responsible for choosing the wrong ones :-)
* Or remember that you elected these guys, and trust them, and delegated 
them the responsability of making the right decisions at the right 
moment. So, their decision seems odd, but maybe is it the best one ?

To be fair, I hear from time to time some criticism, but I hear no one 
saying "The board is just doing an horrible job and just taking all the 
wrong decisions, it is a disaster; how could we get rid of them ?".
Generally, I see support for what we do (which is reassuring). Some 
people would have done differently (which is fine), but generally, most 
are okay.


Second, I think that if you guys, for whatever reasons, decide that one 
board member you elected is really really really wrong, you have the 
power to make his life a misery. You really do :-)
And do not forget that board members are volunteers. Without financial 
compensation, what they get as benefit is mostly
1) the warm feeling that they are doing the right thing,
2) the public recognition ?
3) "business" connexions ?
Well, you have the power to work on any of these three points if you 
really want to :-)
For example, if 500 people start harassing me publicly and says "she is 
so stupid, it is a disaster we have such a bad person on the board", I 
will not try to stick to the job. I'll resign, no hassle. If only 1 
person complains, why should I care ? If 50 people complain, it is 
certainly worth listening.


Third, the Foundation has few staff members. Which means that most of 
what it succeed to do rely on volunteers from the projects. Without even 
talking of forking, simply stopping to help on such areas that the 
Foundation needs, can do wonders.


Never undervalue group power :-)

As for now, I will just keep for me this little sentence "The Foundation 
is generally very good". Thanks :-)

ant