[Foundation-l] Bounties and expenses

Thu Jun 24 00:15:25 UTC 2004

--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> No, the board emphatically should not handle any of those things you 
> listed.  These are decisions to be made by the Wikimedia community, not 
> a committee.  Top-down committee decisions are not the wiki way of doing 
> things.

The 'committees' you talk about will be almost entirely composed of non-board
members. But the board provides the legal and financial backbone. Somebody has
to sign the checks and somebody has to be held responsible for making sure
progress is being made on projects. That is where the board comes in. 

> How are they going to come to the users?  Are they going to have 
> thousands of meetings?  It would take about 5-10 meetings in the US 
> alone to come within range of a decent majority of users, another 10-15 
> in Europe, 5-10 in Asia, and so on.

Individual users would travel to the meetings. A day of driving or on a train
can cover a large geographic area. Other international groups also rotate where
they meet in order to cover as much of the world as possible. But creating
these kind of ties is needed for the long-term survival of the foundation. 

> No, having local chapters to make tax deductions work more smoothly is 
> perfectly fine. 

Wow - how very minimal. Like it or not but chapters are going to be much more
than that. 

> Real world by definition means only a small group of users will 
> participate in the decision-making.

No it does not. Anybody who is interested can help with the work. The trustees
are also elected representatives so they already have the authority to make
decisions as needed and with the consultation of the membership. Again, this is
true if you like it or not. 

-- mav 

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail