Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
My personal view on this John is that abstaining is appropriate in a couple cases: - you truly don't have an opinion and trust those who do have opinions to make the decision. in that case it's really a decision to support the majority view of the others who are voting. - you don't particularly like a decision but don't hate it enough to vote no. again, this ends up being a decision to support the majority view of others. In the end I think it comes down to personal choice. Some people see the world as more black and white and are comfortable with a simple yes or no (i tend to be in this camp). Others feel a yes/no vote can lack nuance and respect for the gray areas in between and prefer not to unnaturally push themselves to one extreme or the other. One note. I do view a recusal as something completely different. You should recuse yourself if you have some kind of personal conflict of interest with a decision. That's different than an abstention. On Mar 31, 2012, at 7:45 AM, John Vandenberg wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 06:13, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: if you cant decide whether something is good or bad for the organisation, you are ill prepared for the vote (a procedural problem), or you are incompetent. Either that, or you're honest. Nobody knows everything (except me, of course!). There is no requirement to know everything. There is a requirement to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation, *as you see it*. If a trustee persistently abstains on the big decisions because they cant see *it* (no vision), or wish to avoid scrutiny, they are abusing their right to abstain and failing the organisation as a trustee. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 31 March 2012 06:45, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: There is no requirement to know everything. There is a requirement to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation, *as you see it*. If a trustee persistently abstains on the big decisions because they cant see *it* (no vision), or wish to avoid scrutiny, they are abusing their right to abstain and failing the organisation as a trustee. If they do it persistently, then sure. Is there a board member that is doing it persistently? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:07 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 06:45, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: There is no requirement to know everything. There is a requirement to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation, *as you see it*. If a trustee persistently abstains on the big decisions because they cant see *it* (no vision), or wish to avoid scrutiny, they are abusing their right to abstain and failing the organisation as a trustee. If they do it persistently, then sure. Is there a board member that is doing it persistently? How could I know that as previously abstainers were not recorded as such. My hope, expressed in my original email to this list, is that looking forward abstentions will be well explained in the minutes or forcibly curtailed if abused. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
John Vandenberg, 31/03/2012 06:56: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 02:03, John Vandenbergjay...@gmail.com wrote: I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to prevent abuse of abstains. Could you elaborate on what you mean by abuse of abstains? An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and should be removed. The meaning of the abstention varies wildly among bodies, so I doubt you can say so. It's currently unclear what an abstention means in the WMF board, see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_board_manual#Votes_vs._resolutions.2C_quorum_and_required_majority. The refusal to vote is always explicit and stated as such, often with implied reasons (e.g. voting on the appointment of yourself somewhere), and where not explicitly allowed can simply require the member to temporarily go out of the room during the (discussion and) vote. It's true that sometimes policies say that members can be requested to explain their abstention, given its controversial nature, but it's usually voluntary. Moreover, I think that in this case the reasons for abstentions are quite obvious, just knowing the persons or looking at the public discussion. On the contrary, it's quite hard to understand the votes in favour added to the bunch by the trustees who didn't engage in the discussion or seem to have a strong opinion. That's why a summary of the discussion in the minutes is useful, it explains why the decision has been taken. MZMcBride, 31/03/2012 06:12: I'm not sure I agree with encouraging Board members to explain their votes, though. I think the idea deserves further thought and consideration. Perhaps there would be more value to doing so than I anticipate. Personally, I think having Board members respond to direct follow-up questions regarding specific votes that community members are interested in (on the mailing list or on Meta-Wiki) would be more useful. The summary of the discussion is often more useful than the actual text of the resolution to understand what's been decided and why. There are many ways to do it and I'm sure the board would be able to find a suitable approach and stick to it. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 5:56 AM, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 02:03, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to prevent abuse of abstains. Could you elaborate on what you mean by abuse of abstains? An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and should be removed. I have never heard of this idea before - where did you get it from? People with votes on all kinds of bodies abstain on things all the time, for all kinds of valid reasons. The most prominent recent example I can think of is that Sivlio Berlusconi's government in Italy was brought down by MPs he expected to support him abstaining instead. We don't know why Arne and Bishakka abstained, or why SJ voted against - it is only evident they did not feel able to support the motion as it stood. Regards, Chris ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 3/31/12 8:07 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: On 31 March 2012 06:45, John Vandenbergjay...@gmail.com wrote: There is no requirement to know everything. There is a requirement to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation, *as you see it*. If a trustee persistently abstains on the big decisions because they cant see *it* (no vision), or wish to avoid scrutiny, they are abusing their right to abstain and failing the organisation as a trustee. If they do it persistently, then sure. Is there a board member that is doing it persistently? No. --Jimbo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
Dear members of the community, After having discussed the final aspects of this today I would like to announce the following three resolutions 1) Board of Trustees Voting Transparency: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Board_of_Trustees_Voting_Transparency 1) Fundraising 2012: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Fundraising_2012 2) Funds Dissemination Committee: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee For those of you who are currently in Berlin, we will have a 2 hour window tomorrow to discuss this together, we invite you to send questions for this session to Harel Cain (harel.c...@gmail.com mailto:harel.c...@gmail.com) He will be moderating tomorrow's session which will be similar to the QA session we had in Paris. We are currently working on a Question and Answer document which we will publish as soon as possible. Although the decision has now been made, we have a large number of challenges ahead of us and I hope that we as a movement will come together to make the Funds Dissemination Committee a success by working with us to come up with answers tot the questions that we still have and helping to make it work! -- Ting Chen Member of the Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. E-Mail: tc...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
We ask the Executive Director not to allow any additional chapters to payment process, until the Board revisits the framework for fundraising and payment processing in late 2015 in advance of the November 2016 fundraising campaign. This is very disappointing. It's a real shame that chapters aside from WMDE, WMFR, WMUK and WMCH aren't being given any encouragement to develop their capabilities for handling donations. I have to say that I think this is a fundamental misstep for the Wikimedia movement, and one that we will come to regret in the future. On voting transparency: this is a great step forward. However, I would encourage the WMF to take a further step, and to explain why trustees voted approve/abstain/against. This could potentially be done by (for examples) adding notes next to votes explaining reservations or key supporting factors, or by making resolutions more focused (e.g. the fundraising decision could have been split into four: principles, chapter payment processing, four chapters, and additional chapters, which would have provided more insight here). Thanks, Mike Peel (Personal viewpoint) On 30 Mar 2012, at 22:42, Ting Chen wrote: Dear members of the community, After having discussed the final aspects of this today I would like to announce the following three resolutions 1) Board of Trustees Voting Transparency: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Board_of_Trustees_Voting_Transparency 1) Fundraising 2012: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Fundraising_2012 2) Funds Dissemination Committee: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee For those of you who are currently in Berlin, we will have a 2 hour window tomorrow to discuss this together, we invite you to send questions for this session to Harel Cain (harel.c...@gmail.com mailto:harel.c...@gmail.com) He will be moderating tomorrow's session which will be similar to the QA session we had in Paris. We are currently working on a Question and Answer document which we will publish as soon as possible. Although the decision has now been made, we have a large number of challenges ahead of us and I hope that we as a movement will come together to make the Funds Dissemination Committee a success by working with us to come up with answers tot the questions that we still have and helping to make it work! -- Ting Chen Member of the Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. E-Mail: tc...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
Michael Peel, 30/03/2012 23:52: On voting transparency: this is a great step forward. However, I would encourage the WMF to take a further step, and to explain why trustees voted approve/abstain/against. +1 (as on the other topic). I hope this will done, at least for this particular resolution, in the QA. This could potentially be done by (for examples) adding notes next to votes explaining reservations or key supporting factors, or by making resolutions more focused (e.g. the fundraising decision could have been split into four: principles, chapter payment processing, four chapters, and additional chapters, which would have provided more insight here). I hope that if a trustee wants to vote separately/differently for each item or to formally express disagreement over a part of the resolution he's allowed to do so! The board would look like a very dysfunctional and anti-democratic body otherwise (unless there's a clear policy and process to reject such requests). Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
I just sent this to internal-l, because I hadn't seen this thread. This discussion should, of course, happen in public, so I'll repeat myself here: Thank you very much for this prompt announcement. I am glad to see the WMF board is open to some fundraising by chapters, but I would appreciate some more detail on what you intend to happen over the next 3 years. It sounds like the intention is that having a small number of chapters fundraise is an experiment and what happens after 2015 will depend on the results of that experiment. Is that an accurate interpretation? Will the parameters of that experiment be spelt out somewhere? The Wikimedia movement has a tendency to run trials and experiments without any clear planning and the result is invariably that nobody knows what to do at the end because we haven't actually collected the information we need and we aren't clear on what questions we were actually trying to find answers to. Can you provide some assurance that the same thing isn't going to happen here? On 30 March 2012 22:42, Ting Chen tc...@wikimedia.org wrote: Dear members of the community, After having discussed the final aspects of this today I would like to announce the following three resolutions 1) Board of Trustees Voting Transparency: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Board_of_Trustees_Voting_Transparency 1) Fundraising 2012: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Fundraising_2012 2) Funds Dissemination Committee: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee For those of you who are currently in Berlin, we will have a 2 hour window tomorrow to discuss this together, we invite you to send questions for this session to Harel Cain (harel.c...@gmail.com mailto:harel.c...@gmail.com) He will be moderating tomorrow's session which will be similar to the QA session we had in Paris. We are currently working on a Question and Answer document which we will publish as soon as possible. Although the decision has now been made, we have a large number of challenges ahead of us and I hope that we as a movement will come together to make the Funds Dissemination Committee a success by working with us to come up with answers tot the questions that we still have and helping to make it work! -- Ting Chen Member of the Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. E-Mail: tc...@wikimedia.org ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 5:52 PM, Michael Peel michael.p...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: We ask the Executive Director not to allow any additional chapters to payment process, until the Board revisits the framework for fundraising and payment processing in late 2015 in advance of the November 2016 fundraising campaign. This is very disappointing. It's a real shame that chapters aside from WMDE, WMFR, WMUK and WMCH aren't being given any encouragement to develop their capabilities for handling donations. I have to say that I think this is a fundamental misstep for the Wikimedia movement, and one that we will come to regret in the future. On voting transparency: this is a great step forward. However, I would encourage the WMF to take a further step, and to explain why trustees voted approve/abstain/against. This could potentially be done by (for examples) adding notes next to votes explaining reservations or key supporting factors, or by making resolutions more focused (e.g. the fundraising decision could have been split into four: principles, chapter payment processing, four chapters, and additional chapters, which would have provided more insight here). Thanks, Mike Peel (Personal viewpoint) Since payment processing is not contemplated as a vector for receiving funds, either in 2012 or beyond, it makes sense to permit processing only where it provides a significant advantage in raising funds and where the reliability and integrity of funds processing is not in doubt. As the resolution states, all entities are permitted (and, I'm sure, encouraged) to raise funds in other ways. While I personally believe that the FDC model is flawed, and that the concept of the wiki way is not helpfully transferable to managing large amounts of money, I think that under the circumstances the Board has taken the best possible steps with these three resolutions. ~Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 30 Mar 2012, at 23:17, Nathan wrote: Since payment processing is not contemplated as a vector for receiving funds, either in 2012 or beyond, [citation needed]. Also, [attribution needed]. There are those that are contemplating this, and those that aren't - it's not as clear cut as you imply. it makes sense to permit processing only where it provides a significant advantage in raising funds and where the reliability and integrity of funds processing is not in doubt. I can't disagree there. But there should be clear routes to ensuring that reliability and integrity, and to foster it where it is currently being developed. Those routes are currently rather conspicuous by their complete absence, and by the lack of WMF interest in fostering these. I hope that the chapters council can play a big role here, but worry that it will be handicapped by this decision by the WMF. As the resolution states, all entities are permitted (and, I'm sure, encouraged) to raise funds in other ways. So ... entities are trusted to receive donations by one method, but not another? That makes no sense whatsoever to me. Either they're trusted to handle funds and resources donated to the Wikimedia movement, or they're not. I'm probably ranting against a fait accompli here. But I'm deeply saddened and depressed by this outcome. Thanks, Mike (Personal viewpoint) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 30 March 2012 23:17, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Since payment processing is not contemplated as a vector for receiving funds, either in 2012 or beyond, it makes sense to permit processing only where it provides a significant advantage in raising funds and where the reliability and integrity of funds processing is not in doubt. As the resolution states, all entities are permitted (and, I'm sure, encouraged) to raise funds in other ways. I would advise caution when thinking about other ways to raise funds. Chapters certainly should think about it, but given how easily we, as a movement, can raise so much money with the annual fundraiser (no other charitable movement has their own top-5 website to campaign on), there aren't many other fundraising options that make sense for us. There is no point devoting a large amount of effort to other fundraising options when they won't raise anywhere near as much. Chapters would be better off devoting that effort to programme work and just requesting more funds from the FDC. By all means pursue other fundraising options, but only when it is actually an efficient use of your time. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
The diversity and the variety helps to react in a better way to the changes. The reduction of the ways to donate helps to control and to monitor, but gives less variety. Ilario On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:17 AM, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote: Since payment processing is not contemplated as a vector for receiving funds, either in 2012 or beyond, it makes sense to permit processing only where it provides a significant advantage in raising funds and where the reliability and integrity of funds processing is not in doubt. As the resolution states, all entities are permitted (and, I'm sure, encouraged) to raise funds in other ways. While I personally believe that the FDC model is flawed, and that the concept of the wiki way is not helpfully transferable to managing large amounts of money, I think that under the circumstances the Board has taken the best possible steps with these three resolutions. ~Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 31 March 2012 01:37, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: Thomas, I think 2015 is chosen because FDC is set to be evaluated at the end of 2014, following which, either it would act as the buffer on those issues or get back to the drawing board. But evaluated against what criteria? And what data is going to gathered during that time in order to feed into the evaluation? In this is intended as a trial, then it needs to be a well thought-out trial. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 11:37 AM, Theo10011 de10...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 3:22 AM, Michael Peel michael.p...@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: On voting transparency: this is a great step forward. However, I would encourage the WMF to take a further step, and to explain why trustees voted approve/abstain/against. This could potentially be done by (for examples) adding notes next to votes explaining reservations or key supporting factors, or by making resolutions more focused (e.g. the fundraising decision could have been split into four: principles, chapter payment processing, four chapters, and additional chapters, which would have provided more insight here). Agreed. I'm really glad to see the individual voting on those resolution. I would love to know more about the mind-set as well, it seems like a reasonable request. This helps explain the current mentality and stances within the board. I had a couple of wrong impressions about the current trustee stances before seeing the individual votes, this helps clear things up. My thanks to Sj for being alone in opposing this, now I'm curious about the abstains; back to conjecturing, I suppose. I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to prevent abuse of abstains. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 31 March 2012 02:03, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to prevent abuse of abstains. Could you elaborate on what you mean by abuse of abstains? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Mar 31, 2012, at 12:33 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: I would advise caution when thinking about other ways to raise funds. Chapters certainly should think about it, but given how easily we, as a movement, can raise so much money with the annual fundraiser (no other charitable movement has their own top-5 website to campaign on), there aren't many other fundraising options that make sense for us. There is no point devoting a large amount of effort to other fundraising options when they won't raise anywhere near as much. Chapters would be better off devoting that effort to programme work and just requesting more funds from the FDC. By all means pursue other fundraising options, but only when it is actually an efficient use of your time. +1 Sometimes it seems that Thomas and I don't agree on much, so I'm happy to celebrate the times when we do. I agree 100% with his point here. It is central to my views on this topic and to my decision to support the resolution. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
Michael Peel wrote: On voting transparency: this is a great step forward. However, I would encourage the WMF to take a further step, and to explain why trustees voted approve/abstain/against. This could potentially be done by (for examples) adding notes next to votes explaining reservations or key supporting factors, or by making resolutions more focused (e.g. the fundraising decision could have been split into four: principles, chapter payment processing, four chapters, and additional chapters, which would have provided more insight here). I agree that attaching names to the votes is a step in the right direction. Good job, Board. :-) I'm not sure I agree with encouraging Board members to explain their votes, though. I think the idea deserves further thought and consideration. Perhaps there would be more value to doing so than I anticipate. Personally, I think having Board members respond to direct follow-up questions regarding specific votes that community members are interested in (on the mailing list or on Meta-Wiki) would be more useful. MZMcBride ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 02:03, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: I expect that the minutes will explain the varied positions of the board. If not, then the board should put in place procedures to prevent abuse of abstains. Could you elaborate on what you mean by abuse of abstains? An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and should be removed. To often board members choose to abstain rather than oppose, and that is a failure to do their duty. The WMF board has a surprisingly high number of unexplained abstains, especially in light of the Values including transparency. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 31 March 2012 05:56, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and should be removed. To often board members choose to abstain rather than oppose, and that is a failure to do their duty. The WMF board has a surprisingly high number of unexplained abstains, especially in light of the Values including transparency. I disagree. If, after careful consideration, you are split and can't decide whether something is a good idea or not, the correct action is to abstain and let those that do have an opinion make the decision. If you are abstaining when you are actually opposed and are trying to avoid conflict rather than act according to your conscience, then that is failing to do your duty (it is a duty of any trustee to always act according to their own conscience), but that isn't necessarily what is happening here. I suspect the abstentions were because it was a compromise motion, so they went with a compromise vote. I hope we'll be able to see in the minutes what individual views actually were. I don't know if they actually voted on alternative motions, but it would be good if at least the discussions are properly minuted. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
if you cant decide whether something is good or bad for the organisation, you are ill prepared for the vote (a procedural problem), or you are incompetent. On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 05:56, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: An abstention is a refusal to vote. By doing this, a trustee must have a good reason, such as conflict of interest, and it should be minuted why, or they are refusing the duties of their appointment and should be removed. To often board members choose to abstain rather than oppose, and that is a failure to do their duty. The WMF board has a surprisingly high number of unexplained abstains, especially in light of the Values including transparency. I disagree. If, after careful consideration, you are split and can't decide whether something is a good idea or not, the correct action is to abstain and let those that do have an opinion make the decision. If you are abstaining when you are actually opposed and are trying to avoid conflict rather than act according to your conscience, then that is failing to do your duty (it is a duty of any trustee to always act according to their own conscience), but that isn't necessarily what is happening here. I suspect the abstentions were because it was a compromise motion, so they went with a compromise vote. I hope we'll be able to see in the minutes what individual views actually were. I don't know if they actually voted on alternative motions, but it would be good if at least the discussions are properly minuted. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On 31 March 2012 06:13, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: if you cant decide whether something is good or bad for the organisation, you are ill prepared for the vote (a procedural problem), or you are incompetent. Either that, or you're honest. Nobody knows everything (except me, of course!). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Board Resolutions from March 30th 2012
On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 March 2012 06:13, John Vandenberg jay...@gmail.com wrote: if you cant decide whether something is good or bad for the organisation, you are ill prepared for the vote (a procedural problem), or you are incompetent. Either that, or you're honest. Nobody knows everything (except me, of course!). There is no requirement to know everything. There is a requirement to make decisions in the best interests of the organisation, *as you see it*. If a trustee persistently abstains on the big decisions because they cant see *it* (no vision), or wish to avoid scrutiny, they are abusing their right to abstain and failing the organisation as a trustee. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
