[Foundation-l] The role of the board

Mon Apr 18 00:56:29 UTC 2005

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Delirium wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
>> The board doesn't represent the community, per se, but rather has a
>> legal responsibility to carry out our charitable mission, which of
>> course involves profound respect for the community.
> 
> 
> That's only true for the unelected 3/5 of the board---two of the board
> members very explicitly represent the community, and indeed the
> community can replace them at the next election if it dislikes how it's
> being represented.

Board members, elected or unelected, have a duty to the organization's
charitable aims, not to the members who elected them.

Over the very long haul future, I anticipate increasing community
participation on the board, in some fashion, but I do not anticipate
that this should ever be allowed to give rise to the idea that Wikipedia
can be whatever the community wants it to be, no matter who the
community is.

This is not as simple as "voting versus not voting" for board members.
The exact _mechanisms_ by which we (in the long run) organize the board
can have a huge impact on the project, and I intend that we slowly and
carefully modify and test and design those mechanisms to ensure that we
continue to hold to our fundamental ideals.

Let me give a very simple example to explain what I mean about it not
being as simple as "voting versus not voting" -- it is not hard for
anyone who has studied a little bit of election theory to come up with a
plan for electing board members which would guarantee a victory only for
people who are either en.wikipedia users or are somehow famous in the en
community.

This would lead to no representation for other languages, etc.

Alternatively we can design processes which somehow guarantee diverse
representation at the board level.  This is not easy.

This is particularly not easy because it would be undesirable from a
fast decision-making point of view to have a board of 75 people.  And so
long as we have a manageable group, of course it is hard to get proper
representation for different languages.

We also have to be very concerned about the possibility as we become
more important of outside groups trying to control the content of
Wikipedia by controlling the votes.  I think this is a very easy thing
to deal with, so I only mention it to mention yet another way in which
the question of "elected or not" doesn't really get us very far.

If your question is: will there ever come a day when the community
undertakes a vote of some kind to do away with neutrality or the
principle of free licensing, then my answer is: not if I can help it.
And this is not me _against_ the community, but rather this is my
promise to the community, to defend it and not make hasty decisions that
would lead to the potential corruption of our ideals.

- --Jimbo

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