[Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

[Samuel Klein]

Hello Mark,

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 3:38 AM, Delirium<delirium at hackish.org> wrote:

> I'd personally place myself on the "objecting to WMF expansion" side, at
> least in general sentiment. With larger organizations, you can indeed do
> more, but also run more risks. In particular, organizations with large
> staffs run the risk of bureaucratization; and community/volunteer-based
> organizations with large staffs risk capture of the overall project by
> the official organization, rather than the community and volunteers they
> ostensibly act as support staff for.

Can you say more about this  -- both what more you can do and the
risks run -- and cite the track record[s] you mention?  Do you feel
there are similar capacity/risk tradeoffs of larger/more inclusive
communities?  (some might say that the current editing community is
becoming an organization separating itself from the general public,
building barriers to participation; and that this [de facto]
organization risks capturing the overall knowledge-sharing project
within existing guidelines and policies, rather than encouraging bold
participation among the wider world, who are the ostensible audience
and body of future contributors.)

Thanks,
Sj

> It's not inevitable the outcomes will be bad, but it's worth thinking
> about, I think, especially as the track record of traditional non-profit
> organizations overall is quite poor in that department.
>
> -Mark
>
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