I have to acknowledge and appreciate the Board's courage in turning down ratification. I'm sure it was an agonizing decision to take such an outwardly distasteful step, one that will bear consequences for the trustees and their relationships in this world for years to come.
However poor the optics and the reception, I am glad they did what was necessary instead of what was easy. The charter was the latest culminating moment of a long-term challenge to Wikimedia's mission - distinguishing the desire for power and influence among participants from what truly contributes to that mission. Tens of thousands of hours have been consumed by the demands to devolve power and, most importantly, money to elite participants. The charter enjoyed unsurprising support among those who stood to benefit the most from transforming the mission of the Wikimedia movement into the nourishment of a massive, permanent, and unaccountable bureaucracy. Failure to achieve ratification is a rebuke to those who mistake the purpose of Wikimedia as an experiment in governance and a route to power, influence and comfort for a tiny group of contributors whose output remains a vanishingly small proportion of Wikimedia's value to the world. Sadly I doubt that many will be dissuaded from their pursuit, despite the promises in this thread that some will feel disheartened at failing here.
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