[Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

Fri Jun 9 16:44:34 UTC 2006

On 6/9/06, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Once the Wikimedia Board starts acting like a nonprofit board, cuts
> its meeting frequency to a more reasonable 3 to 6 meetings a year, and
> decides to delegate authority to an appropriate cast of professional
> and volunteer administrators (instead of trying to run the entire
> organization itself), then I would be interested.  However, I simply
> don't have the time to participate in the micromanaging disaster that
> is the current Board of Directors; the way they're trying to run it is
> is a full-time job and I can't afford to give up my current full-time
> job  for a position that doesn't pay anything.

I usually hate me too, but Kelly really hit the mark with her comment
here. It is unreasonable to expect any board to undertake the daily
operation of the organization and the perceived need to select people
suitable for daily chores will just end up compelling us to select
people who are unsuitable for driving our long term mission.

We are not the only charitable organization in the world, yet we seem
to know so little of what has been earned by others.  ... But what
else should we expect from a group with tens of thousands of
participants which still has substantial difficulty getting 40 man
hours a week applied to resolving problems which are bringing us into
disrepute in international news. To get something as simple as libel
patrolling going we need to be slammed on three news networks, have
unilateral staff action which is met with widespread whining, and we
must receive a personal appeal from god^WJimbo... and still we still
do a fairly weak job.