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

[Theo10011]

Hi Cyrano

I generally agreed with your underlying sentiment in the earlier email. I
do believe the board or any internal power structure of an organization,
has a self-perpetuating nature that preserves itself from outside
influence, and at times re-affirms its own direction. But what I do
disagree is the trajectory you are taking the argument in now.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 2:42 PM, cyrano <cyrano.fawkes at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, in the best of cases, they are a tiny subset of the user and editor
> community with a strong bias towards political organization, administrative
> responsibilities, decision taking, vote collecting, power assuming. Maybe
> they're needed, I'm not discussing that, but they can't impersonate the
> community as if they were the community.
> Their voice is their own. They won't give up their two seats to the
> community because "they're one with the community". They won't, and it
> means that they're different from the community, no matter how you try to
> think about this fact.
> They have their own agenda, which may coincide or not with the interests
> of the community at large. There's no guaranty of an alliance. There may be
> conflicts.
> Saying that "the community has 5 seats" is thus misleading. It has 3
> seats. Saying that the community has "an absolute majority guaranteed" is
> simply false. Trying to analyze the Board of Trustees and its process with
> the belief that the community's interests are guaranteed is a mistake.


I think its a trivial argument. In practice, appointed trustees have
sometimes defended community interest better than elected ones, there have
been times when the elected community trustees have been at complete odds
with their electorate. If you deduce the underlying argument here, it would
be that the community elects 3 trustees to the board, and a certain subset
within the community elects 2. While the division might not be equally
representative of the size of the electorates or the interests, a stronger
distinctions here is between elected and appointed members.

The fact of the matter is the community itself being as large as it
is, chose to re-elect the incumbents. Some elected trustees have been there
for 5 years at this stage, rivaling the oldest ones. It is a viable
argument to suggest that whatever internal structures or influences at
play, they are the oldest form of the establishment.

On the other side, the chapter elected appointees have gone through a
relatively healthy tenure. It could be argued that a smaller voting pool
ensured that the candidate are well known and researched by their
electorate. I see benefits and risks to both sides.

If I had to argue, I'd say a community elected seat is easier to insure,
and has kept the same power structures in play longer. In large
electorates, incumbents always have the advantage, when you add the
impersonal nature of our elections, this issue is exacerbated further.


>
> Objectively, the Board of Trustees cannot guarantee a majority to the
> community. Its design makes it vulnerable to other influences, and possible
> schemes, alliances, power struggles and political moves. Maybe it's not
> bad, I don't know. I just think that things should be clear to the
> community, since they're the one being tricked by the words.
>
> My claim is that in a context of no majority guaranteed for the community,
> injecting third parties (which are layers of opacity) and money  in the
> process of appointing new board members is a risk for the community.
>

I'm confused as to who is injecting money in this scenario. I am under the
assumption that a service is being sought from a professional firm to help
recruit and vet the candidates. It seems like standard procedure for highly
visible positions to ensure that the opening is advertised as widely as
possible, a large pool of candidate is prepared and they are throughly
vetted before joining.


>
> There is no guaranty that a third party understands or shares the values
> of the community; there is no guaranty that giving it influence over the
> candidatures for five seats will serve the cause of the community. That's a
> risk. I'm not to say if it should be taken or not, but we should be aware
> of that risk. It sounds reasonable to engage the scrutiny of the community
> when such risks are about to be taken.
>

Again, the alternative would be WMF or the board itself appointing someone
without due process. Would that be more agreeable to this alternative?


>
> I would also like to underline that paying someone doesn't necessarily
> make things better done. A professional mercenary has skills, but doesn't
> necessarily share internally the cause of the community, or understand it,
> or even care to know it. In fact, giving money - or any other form of power
> - to someone to execute a task creates money-driven goals, which can be in
> conflict with the ideal-driven goals of the community.
>
> That's why in think that the more you rely on third parties or paid
> professional, the more you need to reinforce your control over them. The
> community's control through the Board of Trustees is too weak to guarantee
> its interests, too weak to relinquish power as it's currently done and
> planned.


You know you can make the same argument about WMF itself, and I think
that's been done before. I think its about getting someone else to assume
responsibility, someone uninvolved in the matter who does it for a living,
rather than change your own nature. (as far as the mercenary argument goes)

Of course, you can't pay someone to care, which I think has been a large
point that you have been trying to state.

Regards
Theo