Thursday, July 05, 2007

Who cares about the process ...

A lot of "drama" can be observed in how the elections for the WMF board are run. There are many ways in which the process can be seen. The thing that bothers me most is that even though the process was defined prior to the actual running, the way it is run has changed a lot during the process.

The best example is the effort of Gregory Maxwell to "get the votes out". The way he has done it, is really American. Bringing people to the registration office and then actually getting them to the voting booth is done by all US-American parties. This is accepted in that system while it is not done in the systems I am familiar with. Greg invited everyone from the English language Wikipedia who had not voted yet to vote.

As it is so clear that the process is allowed to change while under way, I invite you to Danny Wool's question list where he is asked why he has not bothered the call for him not to stand. The reason why he was not prevented from running is that the process of the vote was considered to be defined. Danny proved unwilling to answer the question.

The process of the vote is that once the results are known, the board is to pass a resolution announcing the result. As a result of the previous vote, the board nominated three people in stead of the one the vote was called for. So I agree with our "drama queen"; the board can repudiate results it does not like. I am known to be of the opinion that Danny should not be a candidate in the first place as his behaviour makes it quite clear to me that he his hostility towards other board members. Also given the statutes of the WMF when Danny were to be elected, he can be removed when my misgivings about him prove to be correct.

What we have observed in these elections is that many aspects of the process have been changed while it was under way. We have observed that our Foundation has become more politicised, that this time around projects and languages are being pitted against each other.

In our Wiki world the notion of "so fix it" is accepted. In the mail of Jan-Bart it was clear that the board did not change the process re Danny's candidature because the process was considered to be under way. Given the many changes to the process that have happened during the process, I think it is fair to ask Danny again, WHY DO YOU STAND !!!

I am sure the answer will remain the same; because he does. It is the best answer he can give as there is no good answer for him giving the compelling arguments why he should not stand.

Thanks,
GerardM

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Both the Foundation and the individual board members are potentially in real legal danger under U.S. and Florida law if they try to repudiate Danny's election (if it occurs). While individual board members cannot be sued personally in most other cases when the Foundation is sued, this sort of thing would be probably be an exception.

U.S. laws vary by state and there may be a way around this, however, before undertaking anything of this sort, board members must consult a competent lawyer familiar with Florida laws and legal precedents. You can't just look at the law by itself under the U.S. system -- legal precedents (previous interpretations of the Florida law by judges in similar cases) also have the effect of the laws themselves.

Otherwise, a huge legal mess may ensue that could endanger the Foundation as well as the personal assets of individual board members (including non-U.S. members when they travel in that country).

A judge and jury are likely to take a dim view of board members acting against a majority vote of their members. They will probably be viewed as trying to entrench themselves to the detriment of the organization.

Furthermore, any move to repudiate Danny's election (if it happens) will have negative moral implications for active Wikipedia members. Board members that try to effect this will lose their legitimacy in the eyes of much of the Wikipedia community.

Many U.S. for-profit and nonprofit corporations operate with one or more ferociously dissident board members -- the majorities of these boards just have to learn to live with it.
en:User:A. B.

GerardM said...

Hoi,
I am not a lawyer but I am sure that several lawyers have looked at the WMF statutes. The board does by resolution admit new members to the board, not necessarily by vote. The board is also enabled to dismiss people from its board.

There is not likely to be a mess because first of all it is not clear who will be elected, second of all it is up to the board to do as they see fit with respect to ANY of the candidates and finally, the WMF does not have members.

Thanks,
GerardM

Anonymous said...

Personally, I think the current WMF bylaws are a mess. Sure I wrote the first version of them which gave all volunteer members voting privileges to elect a minority of board members. When Jimbo appointed Brad Patrick (without consultation from any of the people who were actively giving WMF legal help such as myself a Canadian trained New York NPO lawyer), who worked for a corporate big money law firm, Brad stated, "Wikipedia is not a democracy" and rewrote the bylaws without any consultation from myself or anyone else removing the "members". And guess what, people like Eric Moller even stated that "there were never any members"!

This is not true and the vote of the Board of December 11, 2006 was, as far as I am concerned, fraudulent (removing the membership structure and changing the bylaws). it should have been put to a general "membership" vote but the Board has never wanted input from WP volunteers, since it has existed it has been acting in secrecy. In fact most of the board members are scared to give volunteers any voice (hence the current procedure of requesting just an advisory vote, this is what colonial powers did to make they slave colonies appear to be "democratic" when they were really autocratic.)

I personally think all the WMF elections were improperly held because members were not regularly notified of the elections (which explains why there were so few votes). Also it is my opinion that the election where I ran (Sept 2006) was "rigged" in several ways and when I tried discussing this with Jimbo (suggesting he allow me to talk to other lawyers about it) he suggested that I was threatening to sue and because of that he would not talk to me about anything except some crazy plans that were irrelevant to the real problems.

Basically it is pretty clear to me board members have very little understanding of the legal implications of the board's actions, the people on the board never dealt with NPOs or membership organizations (Jimbo is still saying he should have made WMF a for profit company). He and other board members never adequately responded to my complaints (another thing they took out of the bylaws was a way to complain to the board about governance issues).

At this point (and I have decided not to participate in WMF because of my opinion) I feel that the board does not have any legitimacy and I refuse to participate in stupid childish games. In any case the Board is pretty irrelevant to Wikipedia projects as long as they keep the servers running. Who cares about idiots that don't care about members or how they have mistreated and ignored them, they just want power and opportunity to get famous this is not what governing an NPO is all about, I know I have advised dozens of NPO groups as a lawyer and volunteer both in the US and Canada (I am a Canadian citizen).

GerardM said...

Alex, you are wrong where you state that the WMF was a member based organisation. It has never been possible for me to be recognised as a member of the Foundation. Your argument that a legal piece of paper stated this intention was never implemented. It is a folly to mistake what what is written in legal documents to be the same as what is an observable fact.

Thanks,
GerardM