[Foundation-l] "officials"

Sun May 9 02:20:18 UTC 2004

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Yes, that makes sense wherever there is a need for official contacts; in  
> particular, every wiki should have a content partnership coordinator and a  
> press contact. I'm not sure if we can legally transfer the position of  
> treasurer like that, but it would be a shame if Mav couldn't continue his  
> great work in that area.

Thanks :) Just rewrite the by-laws to separate the function of treasurer from
being one of the trustees to being a separate financial officer who is
appointed by the trustees and approved by the membership (same with the
secretary position - we also may eventually need a president and vice
president, but that can wait). The current by-laws are still in final draft
form so this should be an easy thing to do. 

But as I said before, I don't want this position, I just want to make sure the
work gets done and am willing to do that work. If a Wikimedian who happened to
have relevant experience, who was trusted by board, and who wanted to do the
work showed up, then I would let them do that work and I would work in some
other area that needed attention. Until then, I serve at the pleasure of the
board. 

I would be able to do a much better job if I had the ability to check the
Wikimedia bank account balance and transactions myself and had better access to
the PayPal account. As it is, I have to pester Jimbo about the bank account
balance every few weeks ( <cough> currently pestering </cough> ;) and the
limited PayPal access I have gives me raw data that are difficult to work with
(there seem to be advanced reporting features that I'm locked out of). I also
have no way to really account for expenditures and thus have not been tracking
that - that's not good. 

But if a background check were conducted on me (Jimbo already has the info
needed for that) and I had an official position in the foundation, then I could
have the access I need in order to correctly report the foundation's finances.
Until then I'm perfectly fine with the limited access I do have. I feel that,
organizationally, it would set a dangerous precedent to give anyone such access
minus a background check and an official position that the officer (and
ultimately his/her boss, the trustees) are accountable for. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS: I haven't made a final decision yet, but so far I like what I'm hearing
from the leading trustee candidates and thus (so far) don't feel I need to run. 

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs  
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover 