[Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way

[Erik Zachte]

> > We can expect two resignations in the year coming. And expansion of the
> > board by 2 more members.
> > Last proposal by Jimbo is 2 elected members, 4 appointed and himself.
> > There is no mention in bylaws of way to remove appointed members.
> > Elected are renewed every 2 years.
> >
> > My proposal is to have 4 elected members and 3 appointed ones.
> To have a
> > clear renewal (or removal) of the appointed every 2 years. To have the
> > elected renewed 2 one year, 2 the next year. And preferably to have the
> > ones elected by a sub-group of the community (Foundation members).
> >
> > Angela wishes us to keep some elected members. I am not exactly sure of
> > more.
> >
> > Tim and Michael did not give their opinion.
> >
> > My proposal implies a modification of the bylaws. So, it implies a new
> > proposition AND that board members vote.
> > Jimbo's proposition is consistant with current bylaws I think.
> >
> > So, if there are no new bylaws, by default you may expect 2 elected and
> > 5 appointed soon. Possibly next year, 2 elected and 7 appointed.
>
> Oh, an important clarification.
> Naturally, appointed may be from outside of the community or from the
> community. On this matter, Angela, Jimbo and myself agree that at least
> the majority should be from the community.
>
> The major benefit of "appointed" is there is more chance to get a united
> team with complementary skills.
> The major drawback is to risk similar-thinking people and limit
> diversity of view points.
>
> Ant
>

Apart from persons named above I believe only Delphine made a strong case in
recent discussions against voting for all board members? Am I right?

For me the major drawback to "appointed" would be that the community (the
people that made Wikimedia happen) is not acknowledged for what it achieved
so far.
The community has been and is competent enough to build a encyclopedia in a
few years that ranks among the best. The community has been competent enough
to elect two worthy representatives. Most community members have higher
education (unproven, but I doubt many would contest this).

I probably won't make myself more popular with what follows, but I favour
candidness, while being respectful: I think Jimbo is a great guy, with
tremendous vision and drive, and a friendly person. But with all that Jimbo
did for Wikimedia, which is a tremendous amount and which may indeed lead
him to the Nobel Price some day, it is still an undeniable fact that others
(read: the community) did collectively much more, orders of magnitude more.
Jimbo invested huge sums of money. Volunteers might have made huge amounts
of money had they not spent so much of their free time on this project, I'm
sure again orders of magnitude more than Jimbo has. For me it would be great
if Jimbo kept his life long membership to the board, as a sincere token of
appreciation, but I feel it is over the top, if he treats the foundation as
something he has special rights to forever, at least morally.

It can't be that a single person, and members from his close inner circle,
be it business partners or other people he knows and values, formally have a
final say over a global movement indefinitely, and extend their grip on the
organisation through co-optation indefinitely.

I can imagine three reasons why Jimbo would want to bypass elections for at
least part of the board:

1 Concern that the community does not have all required skills, and
therefore experts from outside need to be imposed.
2 Concern that the community does not have all required
information/knowledge to make wise decisions.
3 Concern that the community or possibly a future community does not have
the best of motives and wants to hijack the organisation.

ad 1: It is imaginable that the community lacks certain skills. To me it
would help if the community thinks so too. If this is not the case, and the
board decides to overule the community, how else to call this than
'paternalism'? If board and community agree on this, outside candidates for
the board could be proposed, discussed and elected like any internal
candidates. No need for appointments.

ad 2: This is probably true, and I still fear becomes more true all the
time. I'm cautiously concerned when a non-profit organisation can't discuss
most deals in the open, at least in general terms, and has no approved
guidelines for which issues can be settled behind closed doors. As stated
earlier, to me it would be OK to delegate authority from the community to
the board, but delegation is what mattters here.

ad 3: This would be a major concern for me too. But I tbink reasonable
precautions can be taken to avoid that say Greenland or the veganist society
(to name two unlikely examples deliberately) launches a dedicated attack to
take over the foundation by ordering all its inhabitants/members to sign up
and vote. At least if we discuss this fear in the open we can discuss
appropriate precautions.

Erik Zachte