[Foundation-l] thoughts on leakages

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Jan 11, 2008 2:13 PM, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
> But we're not talking about extreme levels of paranoia here. We're
> talking about a simple concept here. A small organization is always
> reluctant to eliminate one of their own. That gets even more difficult
> when you make that organization self-policed. There must be some
> outside system of checks and balances to prevent corruption within
> that group. This may be foreign to non-americans, but to us it is
> integral.

I'm american, and I am still against this idea. More bodies, even if
they are intended to police each other, simply represent more points
of failure. A group of "board police" is just another source of power
that could become susceptible to corruption.

The true "power" should always lie with the community, and authority
should be kept to a minimum so there are fewer points of failure. The
board is elected by the community (or should be). Appointed board
members should only be allowed to serve a single term without
requiring a community election. If a board member is being
corrupt/inappropriate, it should fall to the community to vote them
out. A process for that should be established. Time will remove "poor"
board members, and a vote can remove the "terrible" ones. We would do
well to prevent terrible people from becoming board members in the
first place.

--Andrew Whitworth