[Foundation-l] The foundations of the Wikimedia Foundation (was: Wikimedia Council)

Wed Jan 2 00:59:03 UTC 2008

On 1/2/08, effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:
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<lots of good and thoughtful stuff>
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> This has already become costom, and the community elects yearly board
> members.

Bi-yearly (or "biannually") if I understood correctly. As I understand
it those who are going to be elected in June of 2008 will stand till
2010 (please correct me if I am wrong); and those whose term continues
to 2009 will be up for re-election then, to another two year term, or
something like that...

I have to confess that the vagueness of Antheres statements on this
matter gives me some pause.

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<lots of other good comments about what advice might be useful from outside>
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> However, as might be clear by now, this does not mean that the
> community representatives are no longer needed in the Board of
> Trustees. Because there is quite a difference between representatives
> in the Final Authority, and an Advisory Council.
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<talk about the size of the board of trustees, which I won't comment on>
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> To summarize: It is necessary to have both community representatives
> and external experts with their specific skills in the Board of
> Trustees. A Wikimedia Council should be comparable with the current
> Advisory Board, but then for volunteers. It is not necessary to have
> all experts in the Board of Trustees, but they might very well be in
> the Advisory Board too. It might though be wise for the Board of
> Trustees to involve these experts then somewhat more actively.

This is the point I would like to focus on. How vital is the necessity to
have these experts directly on the board? That is as a trustee who
votes directly on bylaws etc. Wouldn't it be possible to consider what
could be directly delegated to the board of advisors (and other organs
of the foundation where outside contributions would be welcome), if
the wish is for certain matters to be handled by non-community
experts?

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]