Hoi, Both Erik and Anthere indicated their wish that the communities, the projects organise themselves. The one big thing missing in the WMF is that the community looks after itself. All projects are isolated, do not cooperate, think the other projects scary. Holy cows like the English notion that Featured articles are NPOV are routinely slaughtered in other projects. The notion that an article sourced to the hilt can be POV as it does not address what is written in other scholarly traditions is a notion that is hardly considered.
When there is fear about interference of the board in the projects, then the only reason why the board can do and would do such things is because there is a big vacuum. The projects are not organised. The community has no voice and as Anthere put it, when a council is started by fiat of the board, it defines the relation.
The board of trustees and the WMF organisation enable our projects but because of the lack of evident organisation, the autonomy of the projects is fracrtured. There is no voice of the community, all that can be done is post a question and find that entropy establishes itself so what is the point ?
When criticism of the board centres around fear, fear of what a future board might do, then the only reasonable answer is to ensure that there is no reason to fear. This is done best by organising a community / project council, the place where the policies of the projects, the communities are managed. When the community lookst after itself, there will be less room for the board, the organisation to interfere.
This does not mean that a council cannot go rogue. However, they would be completely and utterly our own rogues. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
My case for the converse is a worry about corruption. Community
members
who
have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity
of
the
projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented
outsiders;
while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit
of
contributions from experts from all walks of life.
I see no reason to think this is true or false. It is an interesting speculation.
Perhaps I should start with the simpler claim that talented people who have already given of their energies to contribute somehow to the projects make more devoted stewards than those who bring talent an 'outside perspective' but don't get where the projects originated.
This is a strawman. The current board is a good one, and recognizes
that
the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and
creative
content movements lies with the community. The /reason/ that this
board
is
wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the
projects,
and
its community membership.
And that board, with all that experience, has come to an understanding born in a long process of work that we need some outside expertise on the board, and that we have not managed to get the kinds of expertise that we need solely by drawing from a community process that has tended to choose excellent community members and editors (who we also need).
You distinguish the current process from the community itself -- which I posit contains all of the skills so far suggested as needed. I think that a year spent immersed in one of the projects is a better preparation for board membership than many other pasttimes, and think that dedicating some resources to being able to effectively seek out specific talent within our community is something those concerned about hand-picking talents for the Board should consider.
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