[Foundation-l] Future Board election procedures and guidelines

[Brion Vibber]

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GerardM wrote:
> Hoi,
> I have supported and do support that employees and ex-employees should not
> be eligible to stand for an elected function of the Wikimedia Foundation.
> Ex-employees would become eligible again after a year.

I definitely do not support this; it unnecessarily punishes community
members who have become involved in the foundation's corporate
operations without similarly punishing those who have been active in
other ways (chapters, community projects, etc).

I appreciate that you guys want to try to keep Danny out because he
ruffled some feathers, but let's not take it out on the rest of us, please?

Plenty of companies have even *current* employees on the board, such as
the common chairman/CEO combinations and employee/trustees of
employee-owned companies; I definitely don't buy the idea that having
knowledge of the operations of the organization from working inside it
would somehow make it bad for someone to become involved in running it,
and the idea that having been an employee makes one "unfairly" visible
is just plain silly.

(Disclaimer: as a community member who is an employee of the Foundation,
this proposed policy shift would obviously affect me personally. Even if
I never intend to run for the board myself, being preemptively
restricted in this way feels like an attack on my credibility and that
of my fellows.)

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> I think the proposal has it backwards.  I would be more concerned when a
> person who has just left the Board is given employment by the Board.
> There can be exceptions here to, but the details must be all there for
> everyone to see.

Agreed -- that's where the conflict-of-interest question would lie.

- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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