For context (because I needed to look it up).. I believe this vacancy is to replace the seat held by Matt Halprin, which was not renewed at the end of December 2012.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:CurrentBoardChart
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_of_trustees needs an update too if Matt has left the board.
The WMF board portal and noticeboard havent been updated
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_portal
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On Feb 17, 2013 8:29 PM, "Itzik Edri" itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
I don't understand. The board hired and pays to a company to find a board member? Have we tried before via our networks, chapters, and via our advisory board to find such a person (as been done until now?).
The chapters are used to find new foundation board members. That's what the chapter selected board seats are for. The expert board seats are for providing expertise that we are missing after the community and chapters have selected people.
Forgive me if the current board has already communicated their plan, and I have missed it. Please advise me if there is a published strategy/plan for filling this seat. I can only find this note saying Kat is leading this initiative, and they hope to interview candidates in person at the chapters conference in the Milan between 18-21 April:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Board_Governance_Committee/Agenda_2012-2...
Following on from Thomas Dalton's explanation, which I believe is both accurate and appropriate...
As we are approaching the board election to refill the three community elected seats, I think it may make sense to avoid appointing someone to the vacant expert seat until after the community elected seats are appointed. Shortening the list of candidates is a good idea for 18-21 April, but the expert seat should used to maximise the skills and experiences of the board, filling as many gaps in the board as possible. Those gaps can't be fully identified until the community elected seats are filled.
The community elected seats will provide the board with three people that the community believes are important additions. In some cases these seats may be filled by people whose skillsets and experiences were identified by the community as needed on the board, but the nature of the process is that skillset balance is hard to control via these community seats.
The process ensures that many potential candidates do not even enter the board election, the wiki user interface hamstrings the candidates who are not well versed in wiki editing and the wiki discussion format, so these seats typically go to people who have 10,000+ edits and are well respected in our community, which limits the field quite a bit. The community may also vote for someone who has very similar skills and experience to someone already on the board, and it would be a very bold board that invalidates the election result on that basis.
The expert seat is an opportunity to select a person based on the skillset that is found to be missing on the board, and that should happen _after_ the skills and experience of the three community seats are locked in by their appointment.
-- John Vandenberg