[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Tim Starling wrote:
>
>   
>> They are serving the interests of who? And who can revoke
>> the trust upon a specific trustee, or the entire board, in the event
>> it was misused?
>>     
>
> As a non-membership non-profit corporation, federal law dictates that
> it must have a Board and that the Board has final responsibility.
>
> The Articles of Incorporation could have specified means for oversight
> of the Board, say by the community, but this was not done. They simply
> say that the Board will make its own rules for how its members are
> replaced.
>
>   
Yes, this is how it is organizationally. The white elephant
in the room though is that this is all pretty academic
because of the fact that Wikimedia projects operate
under a Free Licence.

What ever the legal situation is organizationally, it is
very near suicidal for the foundation to have any larger
disconnect with the community than which happened
just recently. It would only be an act of self-preservation
for the Board of Trustees to seek to find ways to decisively
prevent a recurrence.

As per Jimbos instruction to look to the future than the
past, I would suggest that the Board look post-haste into
instituting some form of institution that can offer (perhaps
under a similar confidentiality agreement that the board
itself operates under) constructive advice in a timely
manner (rather than after the fact), when it deliberates
which direction the Board of Trustees wants to take
things.

My suggestion would be that as a first, rudimentary
step, such a Community Advisory Group consist of
one person of known communicative ability and
insight (as determined by the Board of Trustees
themselves) from each Project, when feasible
representing more than one language in the overall
distribution. That is to say, one person each, from Wikipedias,
Commons, Wikinews projects, Wikiquote projects, Wikibooks
projects, Wiktionaries, Wikiversities, the Wikispecies,
Wikisource.  Assuming I haven't forgotten any projects,
that would make a nine member group.

> The law gives us some protection, in that it prevents Board members
> from running the Foundation for their own personal gain (aside from
> reasonable salaries and expenses). However, it's still very important
> that we pick Board members carefully when we have community elections,
> and that we encourage the existing Board to make good choices for
> appointments.
>
>   
This is of course indisputable.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen