[Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow

Fri Jan 21 14:43:21 UTC 2011

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 4:24 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 21 January 2011 06:36, whothis <whothith at gmail.com> wrote:
> >You can't be on an advisory board and tell a non-profit organization
> > what to do as a pro-bono advisor to the board and then get paid by the
> said
> > foundation as a fellow a few years into your tenure, serving both
> positions
> > at the same time.
>
> I think you are over-estimating the influence of the Advisory Board.
> It's a loose collection of people that support the movement and have
> useful experience that get asked occasional questions by the Board and
> get invited to Wikimania every year. They don't have any power. I
> don't see a conflict of interest here.
>

That's exactly right. An advisory board for most organizations is merely a
way to try to coax some labor out of valuable people with needed expertise
who are very busy with their own projects and careers. There is absolutely
no power held by the advisory board. Hence the "Advisory" label.

We're lucky when we can get members to find time to help us in significant
ways, and in this case even luckier that we have Achal working on an
intensive project for a time.