My issue with the current proposal on Meta is that it creates a body which works towards the Board.
This is, in my opinion, a fundamental mistake: it perpetuates the idea that the Board is the major governing body of the movement at large.
I would very much prefer an independent and strong body that can speak and represent the communities but is not subordinate to any bodies of the Wikimedia Foundation, including its Board.
I see how the community council as currently suggested in
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_Council_Compact
can be useful, but I am not sure whether that would resolve the kind of conflicts that we are seeing currently and which arise from the perception that the Board is the top body of the Movement, but instead it has legal obligations to the Foundation.
Am I the only one who would rather see an independent body represent the communities than one subordinate to the Board?
On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 5:28 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 11:17 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru
My impression is therefore that some sort of a preparatory work is
needed
to avoid these two traps. Ideally, there would be a drafting group with
a
broad representation (possibly the members of the group will be
prohibited
to sit in the first edition of the elected body), and the Board will preliminary express an interest (so that the group knows the chances are not zero). Of course we can just agree on electing the representative
body
witout actually asking the Board, but I am not sure this would be the
right
way of doing it.
Agreed. A mixed working group could be a way to go.
From my perspective, anything which would move the situation from the status quo would work.
Presently, the discussion has been started on Meta and it would be good to see your input there. I don't see the proposal as anything in the form take it or leave it, but as the beginning of the discussion (or reloading it after a lot of time).
Working group could be created based on that discussion; the other option -- and I'd like to believe in it -- is to create the final proposal based on completely public discussion.
Significant difference between the previous attempts to do something like this is the fact that at least three Board members (Denny, Dariusz and Guy) support something similar to this idea. Previously, Board was the body which at least passively obstructed the idea. That means that we have much better chances for success this time.
So, please join the discussion; if you have a different idea as the whole proposal, write it there, so we could discuss. We could rearrange the page into the set of relatively coherent proposals and discuss about the proposals integrally, about their features and finally find the best possible solution, which would be the product of as wide as possible consensus.
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