[Foundation-l] "officials"

Sat May 8 22:57:02 UTC 2004

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>...
> I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we
> could "give" these "official titles" to participants,
> so that they can fully help according to their
> abilities and wilingness.

I think that this a very good idea. But it will require a change in the bylaws.
However since the bylaws cannot be finalized until after two more trustees take
their positions and vote on them, I don't think this will be a problem so long
as the right people get elected. 

I've already stated, several times in the past, that the roles of trustee and
the roles of corporate officers should be divorced from one another. This is
needed in order to provide proper checks and balances (the board oversees the
officiers and the foundation membership oversees the board). 

> Basically, it requires 3 steps
> 
> -------
> 
> * setting up a list of "official titles", with
> associated description of what this encompasses
> 
> Example : Wikimedia treasurer : someone to keep track
> of donations or other funding, and keep track of how
> money is spent
> 
> Example : Public relations : someone who organise
> press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find
> funding probably comes in here.

Nod. 

> We should set this list all together. There is already
> some stuff written about this on meta, but it was more
> planned for a board. Since the board will be very
> small, we should expand this to wikimedia (full) or
> foundation (those who paid the fee) participants.
> 
> The list could be approved by the Board.

I agree that the board should appoint officers from a self-selected candidate
list. 

> * Enlisting people for each role.
> 
> Several if necessary.
> We obviously need only one treasurer for now; But
> definitly several public relation officials. Given
> Wikipedia concept, I don't think we need a head for
> PR, the community is the head, but we definitly do
> need at least a dozen people as PR officials.

Nod. 

> I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on
> meta. People interested list themselves there. The
> community then approve or does not approve to give
> this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or
> not.

I strongly feel that it should be the other way around; the board appoints
officers and the foundation membership either approves or disapproves the
appointees. This provides a check against merely popular people being appointed
to positions they are not qualified to perform. The board members themselves
are the ones that are directly elected. Thus they are the ones legally
responsible for their appointees. 

> * Last, on Wikimedia Foundation web site, we maintain
> a list of these official representative. Something
> very official looking, so that an "official
> representative" can point a potential partner this
> page to "prove" he is trusted by his peers for
> negociation.

Nod. 

> What do you think ?

With a few minor changes as I noted, I think it is a great idea. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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