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

[Jimmy Wales]

Erik Zachte wrote:
> 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.

You make yourself perfectly popular with me, because I could not have
said it better myself.  I think one of the most important things that we
can recognize about this conversation is that I do not expect my own
perspective to be absolutely definitive.  I do not think that the
foundation is something I have special rights to, not forever, and not
even right now.

As it stands right now we have a real board of 5 members, of whom I am
only one.  In our internal board work, everyone has an independent voice
and vote, no problem.

I am an advocate of two basic principles with respect to the longterm
governance of the foundation.  First, the board must carefully defend
the values that have brought us together, including freedom of content,
openness to participation, an atmosphere of human dignity and respect,
and a slow reasoned approach to change.  Second, the board must have a
diversity of mechanisms for participation, and a diversity of membership.

There are great Wikimedians who are willing to go through the trollfest
of an election.  There are great Wikimedians who are not.  There are
amazing people with a passion for our mission who are inside the
community, and there are amazing people with a passion for our mission
who are not.

There are great editors who become famous within Wikipedia and who can
be elected to the board.  There are great business people, great
lawyers, great thinkers who are not editors and not so widely known to
the community.

My view is that a majority of the board should always come from within
the community, some by election, some by appointment.  But my view is
also that a healthy organization should have brilliant people with
specialized knowledge and skills who are also outside the organization,
to give a strong outside perspective, to help prevent the board from
going over a cliff of group-think, etc.

As with most things, I think that a cautious hybrid approach works best.

--Jimbo
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