On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
2009/8/28 Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de>de>:
There are other reasons too. For example because
an
advisory board member don't have certain authority against the staff,
and because in a lot of cases you cannot definitively say here ends the
strategic planning and there starts the othervise function.
Now we're getting to some real reasons. I don't agree regarding
authority - the board as a collective body has the authority, they can
exercise that authority on behalf of an advisory board member if
necessary. The difficulty in drawing lines between different parts of
the role is valid, though. I expect it can be overcome with some
effort, however.
I think the main valid reason is that it's kind of rude to ask someone like
Halprin to commit a certain portion of his quite valuable time to the
project, absolutely free, and not to even allow him one board vote (out of
what, 10 now?).
I'd rather see a system for experts where "the community" (with a better
definition than just whoever makes X edits) ratifies the nominees made by
the nomination committee, or at least one where "the community" has the
power to remove members. But I'd rather see the Wikimedia Foundation as a
membership organization... So whatever.