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

Mon Feb 18 20:09:07 UTC 2013

Hi

On Feb 18, 2013, at 8:52 PM, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

But it wasn't intended to repair any possible divergence, this is what the five community (s)elected seats are for… if there is a divergence you can (s)elect different people for those five seats. The appointed seats are intended to help add specific skills/expertise to the board to make sure that it can perform its governance tasks effectively….

> 
> 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.

Simply don't agree with that reasoning. The point of trustees it to provide governance and direction to the WMF. The five community (s)elected seats and the founders seat select four others to help them perform this task. They will look for skills and expertise that they find lacking within their composition. If you cannot trust them to select the right people, how can you trust them to do anything? Which leads to … why vote for them at all?

> 
> 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.

I don't think it does, or should. If it does then I think its worth explaining (like I have hopefully done above)

> 
> 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.
> 

I, and most of the non-profit world (not to mention the law ;)  respectfully disagree and would argue that the main function of any board of trustees is more governance related. For a good summary of what our Board of Trustees' function is I would refer you to:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_board_manual#Roles_and_responsibilities

Jan-Bart

> 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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