Tuesday, April 29, 2008

governance uproar?

wikipedia pencilsI did not steal any pencils.
Image by kaurjmeb via Flickr
Ironically (or not) I'm writing this from the Wikimedia Foundation office... (although since I'm using Blogger's draft mode, I can queue it up for posting tomorrow morning, I hope they promote that from draft to production soon...) I happen to be in San Francisco on business and popped in to visit. There is a certain cachet to doing so, I guess

The announcement of the board's restructuring seems to have caused a bit of an uproar in some circles... Danny posted, and then referenced Durova's "community petition" part II post... maybe it's fashionable to express ... concern? dismay? outrage? what?

Myself, I think I'll just hang back and let others comment further, because I'm not sure I'm concerned... or dismayed, or outraged, or whatever... the structure doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me... some allocation to the chapters, which are growing in importance, some to the community, and some internal. If I had any concern it would be about the notion of experts being seated rather than being consulted but I'm fairly sure things will sort out on their own soon enough.

So call me unfashionable I guess. I'm more worried about the more immediate things like BLPs and the Checkuser policy churn that's been manifesting itself lately than I am about board structure.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ow, I am not much around lately. What's happening to the Checkuser policy?

Charles Fulton said...

@lucasfr: The usual grumbling over the method by which checkusers are appointed. It's a thoroughly uninteresting discussion.

@lar, I've never managed to care about Foundation drama. It's too abstract, too removed from the actual project, and (at least to me), every participant gives the impression of a private ax to grind.