[Wikimedia-l] Your support is wanted: The WMF Board of Trustees is looking for a new Board member

[cyrano]

To ensure a representation of the interests of the community, the 
determination of a new Board Trustee cannot be influenced by the people 
within the Board Trustee (and even less by the WMF itself). Otherwise, 
it would boil down to a disguised form of cooptation.
  Cooptation is a way to absorb new elements into a structure without 
threatening it, which is good for stability, but bad if changes or trust 
are needed. In particular, if the community differs  from what the WMF 
or the Board of Trustees are doing, cooptation cannot repair the 
divergence. In fact, it tends to aggravate it.

Now, if the Board of Trustees sets requirements, or pays the people who 
will recommend the candidates, it immediately breaks the guaranty that 
there is something else than people in power keeping their power 
structure intact. It doesn't mean it is happening, but it can't guaranty 
it's not, which defeats the point of having Trustees.

That's why, even if you agree with the strategy behind the current 
proposal and its advantages, you should be aware that it decreases the 
legitimacy of the governance structure to the eyes of the community.

Personally, I think the main function of the Board of Trustees should be 
to increase the trust of the community, thanks to a rigorous and 
transparent scrutiny of its internal processes.


Le 18/02/2013 14:14, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit :
> yes:
>
> this bit:
>
> "
> I don't think it's about childish beliefs about "evil". Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can.
> When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises.
> "
>
> I don't understand what you are trying to say or imply?
>
> Jan-Bart
>
> On Feb 18, 2013, at 3:30 PM, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jan-Bart,
>>
>> can you be more specific?
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>>
>> Le 18/02/2013 10:55, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit :
>>> Hey
>>>
>>> I seriously can't follow this, could you explain?
>>>
>>> Jan-Bart
>>>
>>> On Feb 18, 2013, at 2:11 PM, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think it's about childish beliefs about "evil". Money has a real influence, conflicts of interests are a real thing, and opacity at any stage allow abuses. It has been shown countless times in countless situations, empirically and scientifically, that people in power WILL use it to keep it, as much as they can.
>>>> When an entity is using its influence to determine who will supervise it, it's a matter of keeping the power of self-determination. You may agree or not with this strategy, but there is no way to lift doubts about the fairness of such appointment and obtain a clean cut legitimacy from such premises.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Le 18/02/2013 09:52, Jan-Bart de Vreede a écrit :
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> Sounded like good intervention, thanks for reminding me :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Truth is of course that board Governance Committee is driving this process together with Gayle. That means that multiple community (s)elected board members are involved in the initial screening and that the whole board will be included in the final selection.
>>>>>
>>>>> This would also be a good opportunity to make a small point: not all external consultancy is evil :) As a community we tend to be naturally suspicious of people that get paid "a lot" of money for tasks that theoretically "could also be done my the community"… There is a good reason why we sometimes rely on paid external advisors, some of which were given by Gayle.
>>>>>
>>>>> m|Oppenheim in particular has been a great partner in WMF hiring with great results, and I hope that they can be as effective in this search (which we hope you can help out with by suggesting good candidates to them)
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>>
>>>>> Jan-Bart
>>>>>
>>
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