Delirium wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
valdelli@bluemail.ch wrote:
The community could accept only representative members voted with normal procedure.
Of course.
But community vote is not the only way to get board members. We have some very good board candidates who are not famous in the community and who could bring to the table professional expertise that we greatly need, but who would not put themselves through the troll wars of an election.
This sounds reasonable, although I think they're not entirely different things, if we're speaking in an informal sense (which is really what will dominate community-board relations more than the formal setup will). It's possible, for example, that there are people who would actually prevail in an election, but are deterred from running because of the election process. If they were appointed, those people could be said in some tea-leaf-reading sense to actually represent the community. Then there are gradations---people who wouldn't actually win an election, but who are generally respected and don't engender much objection; then unknown people; and finally people who are actively disliked by a large segment of the community.
We could try some variation on some of the consensus-style methods we tend to use on the encyclopedia. For example, solicit nominations, possibly in private, and then privately contact the people nominated to ask if they'd accept a position if chosen. Then make a (public) list of potential candidates, and solicit feedback on them, possibly privately-expressed feedback so people don't have to publicly attack anyone. Then appoint the people who have reasonably good consensus support. Assuming the feedback is indeed expressed in private, and the list is more than a handful of people, those not selected shouldn't really be negatively impacted (not being selected for 2 slots out of a list of, say, 15 isn't particularly bad).
This is a little trickier than the way we do it on articles, because to avoid public flamewars and driving people off, much of it would have to be done in private communications, and therefore the decision of what constitutes consensus would have to be made by whoever reads those emails. It could be the current board, or someone they designate. Technically/formally, that would essentially be the board appointing new members itself, but if you five agree to follow some rough community consensus in making those appointments, I'm pretty sure you're not going to actually lie to us and claim someone had consensus support when they didn't, even if we have no way of verifying that.
Anyway that's a pretty off-the-top-of-my-head outline of how to design a system that merges community consensus and sensitivity towards potential members who aren't politicians, so I'm sure there are better ways of doing it. I do think some sort of balancing of those goals is necessary, though.
-Mark
Your email is very interesting Mark.
Before we recruit a new trustee, we should consider the following points carefully: * What sort of person we are looking for, and what skills, qualities or experience do they need? * How will a new potential trustee benefit our organisation? (with perhaps a list of benefits / advantages and decide if a candidate will meet these.)
To answer these questions, we might look at this list of 12 main roles for the board
What do trustees do?
Trustee boards have twelve main roles:
1: Set and maintain vision, mission and values
Generally, I think this will be best done by community members.
2: Develop long-term strategy with the chief executive officer
This might require big shot outsiders, people with a large vision and bringing insight we do not necessarily have in our organiation
3: Establish and monitor policies to govern organisational activity (guidance of staff, reporting policies, monitoring policies, code of conduct, conflict of interest policies)
These might be best done by people who already know a bit about non profit organisations.
4: Set up employment procedures, plus recruit and select new trustees board
again, might be better to know non profit organisation, plus human management, organisation skills... and probably to know pretty well the community.
5: Ensure compliance with governing document. In this case... we should first *write* the governing document, which allow us to comply with the charitable goals.
May come from community... or not.
6: Ensure accountability as required by law
Here, a board member will legal experience might be best.
7: Ensure compliance with the law
Same
8: Maintain proper fiscal oversight (securing resources, monitoring spendings, approval of financial statement, budget, fundraising...)
Requires someone experienced on fiscal issues. Probably a big shot might help on this side as well (fundraising) or a bizdev specialists (both are probably not in the community).
9: Select and support the chief executive
Errrrr. Collective role :-)
10: Respect the role of staff. Staff guidelines.
Tricky in an organisation based largely on volunteers
11: Maintain effective board performance
a performant chair might be best here
12: Promote the organisation
Hiya. All big shots and many community members are good at that. So, this is not a major need for the current research of new board members.
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if you look at it well, you will see that we probably need one or two big shots to help in particular with vision and fundraising issues (in short, someone with good insight, and who will make the Foundation appears brigther).
We may benefit of professionals who know very well non profit organisations management (may or may not come from outside), finances and legal issues.
This suggests to me we need probably to expand the board from 5 to 9. My best perception of this would be 5-6 from community. And 3-4 outsiders.
I would support Tim resigning as early as possible. I have nothing against him, but we need active board members and he is simply not. Resigning this summer for example.
Wikimania will be the opportunity to meet a lot of people. Last year Wikimania was also that opportunity. We'll also be able to meet outsiders over there, and maybe to consider inviting them on the board.
What I would like to is that we replace Tim with an outsider and add two community people. Or if more board members are replaced, two outsiders and two community people.
But what would be suitable would be to stick to the needs defined above. More help in finances, legal, fundraising, non-profit organisation.
Outsiders will obviously be appointed. For community members, we roughly have 4 solutions * board appoint people (benefit, we are more likely to get people with the best skills compared with what we need. Drawback : see current criticism) * community votes for people (Drawback : less chance to get great people from minority languages or projects. Might miss some great choices.) * community votes per group perhaps, board pick up in the outcome (en.wiki arbitration type). (Drawback : board might be expected to pick up those with highest number of votes anyway) * Board pre-selection, then community vote (Benefit : more likely to get what is truely needed).
To remove the bias of large language groups or large projects and to make elections a less painful system, we might also rely on a system of "grand electeurs" (each language/project nominate a couple of people to vote in their name). The "grand electeurs " group being more likely to elect people based on their participation on Foundation issues, rather than purely on their fame.