I think it is an important conversation to have. I am a bit skeptical about creating a parliament-like body, and I am a bit worried that it would advance the disengagement of the board from the community.
I am working on a proposal for some reform (in short: I want to increase the number of community/chapter seats, increase the level of professional expertise, increase diversity, and all that without changing the overall number of seats ;), but I need time to present it in a coherent way. I hope to do so in March, but of course this dialogue will hopefully bring results meanwhile, too.
dj
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 10:17 AM, Thyge ltl.privat@gmail.com wrote:
Lane Rasberry,
I'm aware of the ongoing election - but in all respect, that has nothing to do with a house of representavtives as I envision it, i.e. being "above" the board.
The present structure allows the existing board to decline access to the persons being elected.
Regards, Thyge
2016-02-23 16:05 GMT+01:00 Lane Rasberry lane@bluerasberry.com:
Hello,
Could I remind you all that there is a board election in progress right
now
for 2 of the 10 seats? Please see details for the 2016 Affiliate-selected board seats election at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016
Amir, you said that you wanted representation from "India, China, Russia, Iran, Brazil, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Arab countries and finally, all of Africa". If you like, you may encourage anyone from those countries to seek a nomination. Also, it would be very helpful if you
could
encourage the Wikimedia chapters in those countries to participate in the election in any way that they could, especially by planning to vote
during
the upcoming voting period.
Thyge - we do have a sort of house of representatives and it has a board election happening right now.
Nominations for the board are open till March 8! Election starts March
24!
Please share the message.
Thanks - if anyone has questions post on the election page.
yours,
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 9:47 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
On 2016-02-23 14:54, Thyge wrote:
We should not have direct elections to the board. We should have a
"house
of representatives" with X members from each part of the world and
charged
with electing the board and decide major issues like location of the
WMF,
changed of bylaws etc.
Regards, Thyge
I do not think it could solve the diversity issue.
To appoint the number of individuals with a set of skills and needed diversity, one needs candidates which will have needed skills and
desired
diversity to start with.
Our experience as a movement (and also of people in other organizations
in
different contexts) that these people do not always queue at the doors
of
the WMF office to wait for being elected. They need to be scouted, negotiated with, and convinced to be willing to sit at the board. This
is
what currently various companies are paid to do, and this seems to be a reasonable arrangement to me.
As far as the candidates are there, I do not see much of a difference whether the community, a selected group (like house of
representatives),
or
the Board votes for them. And as soon as there is no difference there
is
also no need to make the structure more complicated. I thus conclude
that
this House of representatives is not needed for the Board elections.
(It might be needed for other things, which are outside the scope of
this
discussion).
Cheers Yaroslav
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