On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:34 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2009/8/28 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.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.