[Foundation-l] Breaking promises (was Re: Where we are headed)

[Troy Hunter]

Austin Hair wrote:
> On 6/4/06, Troy Hunter <troyhunter0 at lycos.com> wrote:
> > Anthere wrote:
> > > Tim and Michael against. Angela and I for. Jimbo abstained.
> >
> > This is a violation of Jimmy's promise to never vote against 
> > Anthere and Angela except on matters of grave importance. The 
> > September 2004 Wikimedia Quarto states:
> >
> > "To date, Tim and Michael have played a minimal part in board 
> > discussion and decisions, and there is no plan to change this. In 
> > order to ensure that the community voice is real, Jimbo has 
> > pledged, as a matter of convention, never to vote against Angela 
> > and Anthere, unless he feels that it is an issue of an absolutely 
> > fundamental change of direction for the project -- which is not 
> > likely to happen, since Angela, Anthere and Jimbo share the 
> > essential values of the community and the project. So as a 
> > practical matter, power is in the hands of the two democratically 
> > elected board members on most issues, and Jimbo defers to that."
> 
> I don't really see the argument, here.  Abstention from a vote in
> favor of others is the usual manner of "deferring" in any
> pseudo-democratic system, and certainly doesn't qualify as "voting
> against" anyone.

There was indeed some ambiguity in the phrasing of the statement in the Wikimedia Quarto, as to whether abstention is a loophole. However the second statement I quoted, which was directly from Jimbo, had no such ambiguity, to my reading. I'll quote it again since you've snipped it.

"Angela and Anthere are unbelievably good as board members, and we have
a casual agreement between us that if the two of them ever vote in one
direction, I will defer to them, so that it does not matter how Tim
and Michael vote.  The only exception I would make to this is if they
wanted something that I felt endangered us in some very extreme way --
but this is basically impossible because they are so good at what they
do."

Abstention is clearly not a way to make it "so that it does not matter how Tim and Michael vote". Jimbo promises to defer to Angela and Anthere's judgement, not to the judgement of all 4 remaining Board members. An abstention does the latter, not the former.

Are you saying that while "deferring to the judgement of Angela and Anthere", the three unelected Board members nevertheless reserve the right to veto any of their proposals? In what way is that deferring?

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