[Foundation-l] board candidacies

Sat Aug 12 00:02:13 UTC 2006

Anthony wrote:

>On 8/10/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>As for project representation, I don't think board members should be
>>representing individual projects in the first place.  Wikipedia is by
>>far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't surprise me
>>that board candidates use that project for their discussion pages.
>>    
>>
>By the way, I also think this has a lot to do with the fact that this
>election appears to be a winner-takes-all election of a single seat
>Having representatives from different languages/projects doesn't
>make sense when there are only two elected members.
>
Of course, but for now we have to live with that and hope for better in 
the by-law revisions that are yet to come

>Almost all the discussion on this very list takes place in English.  I
>don't know what percentage of people who discuss on this list
>participate primarily on Wikipedia, but I'd guess it's at least a
>simple majority.  Changing that, I believe, would require a major
>overhaul of the entire organizational structure of Wikimedia.  But I
>suppose I shouldn't make such comments without first knowing what that
>percentage really is.
>
It's not just a matter of the English language.  Angela was elected 
despite the fact that she is from England.  The simple fact that 60% of 
the current board is from the same country may be more significant.  
That carries with it a lot of unwanted political baggage.  Redressing 
these imbalances in a way that will be fair to all concerned calls for a 
lot of careful consideration that does not fit into the heat of an 
election compaign.

Ec