[Foundation-l] The role of the board

Mon Apr 18 07:05:48 UTC 2005

Jimmy Wales wrote:

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>Delirium wrote:
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>>Jimmy Wales wrote:
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>>
>>>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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Hoi,
In your reply, you mention how the voting system will decide how the 
Wikipedia community is represented on the board. The Wikimedia 
Foundations does however not only represent the Wikipedia communities, 
there are the other communities as well. They are equally deserving in 
having some representation on the board. In my opinion we are fortunate 
that the current board is open to the needs of the other projects. This 
does not mean that more could be done for the other projects, it means 
that I am happy with our board and if anything I hope that we will find 
both Anthere and Angela on the board after the elections because some 
stability is a good thing in our current form of organisation.

Thanks,
    GerardM