Jimmy Wales wrote:
And when it comes to inviting an outside member, how is that member going to be chosen? Will there be a public dialogue about who the best figure is for this role, or will they simply be appointed?
It would be absolutely fine to start a public dialogue about it right now. Who do you recommend we approach?
From my perspective, it would be ideal if there were some well-known outside figure who has at least some familiarity with our projects. I don't mean 3000 edits and posts to the mailing list regularly, but it'd be nice if he/she had an account and occasionally edits or at least reads. Just about the worst possible thing, IMO, would be a complete outsider who has no idea why things work here or don't, but is well-known enough to try to impose some outside ideas of how things "should" be done. Whether that would end up being a real problem depends partly on personality, of course.
Of the *very* prominent Free-with-a-capital-F folks, none come to mind immediately. Had this been a year ago, I might have suggested approaching Lawrence Lessig, but he seems to currently be on the board of advisors of Digital Universe, and his statement on joining suggests he buys into their "Digital Universe is the cure for what Wikipedia does wrong" mantra. Bruce Perens is somewhat well-known for free software advocacy, and is well-connected with tech companies if that's the sort of thing we're after.
Partly it would help if people in favor of an outside board member said why it would be helpful to have one, which would help guide how to choose which one. =]
-Mark