This is a thought from two personal experience feedback, as well as Mav and Erik experiences.
I several times contacted external people or organisations, either for press release, or other PR activity, or for trying to negociate content release. Usually, I used my real name, though not always. Twice at least, I think there was no consideration given to my proposition, because I was just a community member and in no way had an official position. I suppose other editors trying to reach the outside met similar situation.
When one contact an important media group, or a charitable organisation to ask for donations, or a legal entity, one is expected to show some "credentials". In particular as soon as money is involved :-)
I think this type of activity, with "external" contact will become more and more frequent and required. And though this will be a lot the work of the Fundation itself, I somehow doubt 3 members can manage it all. Some regular participants will necessarily become more and more invested in Foundation activities, without being Board members.
I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we could "give" these "official titles" to participants, so that they can fully help according to their abilities and wilingness.
Basically, it requires 3 steps
-------
* setting up a list of "official titles", with associated description of what this encompasses
Example : Wikimedia treasurer : someone to keep track of donations or other funding, and keep track of how money is spent
Example : Public relations : someone who organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
We should set this list all together. There is already some stuff written about this on meta, but it was more planned for a board. Since the board will be very small, we should expand this to wikimedia (full) or foundation (those who paid the fee) participants.
The list could be approved by the Board.
-------
* Enlisting people for each role.
Several if necessary. We obviously need only one treasurer for now; But definitly several public relation officials. Given Wikipedia concept, I don't think we need a head for PR, the community is the head, but we definitly do need at least a dozen people as PR officials.
I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on meta. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or not.
------
* Last, on Wikimedia Foundation web site, we maintain a list of these official representative. Something very official looking, so that an "official representative" can point a potential partner this page to "prove" he is trusted by his peers for negociation.
-------
What do you think ?
Anthere
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On Sat, May 08, 2004 at 01:03:02AM -0700, Anthere wrote:
Example : Public relations : someone who organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
on de: we have an info@wikipedia.de which is subscribed by a few of our administrators. Most mails are spam, a few easy questions and seldom we have to chat about the answer before sending it. It works quite fine.
ciao, tom
I do not see well how it adresses the general issue Tom. Perhaps I did not understand what you meant ?
As for mailing lists, I moderated the french one for a year, and I had to delete between 10 to 20 spam per day at some point.
Organisation of a press release is totally appropriate on the wiki iself. I contributed a lot to the french ones and collaborative work was quite successful. The second press release was sent to many places, with few double sending.
However, when I send the press release to some major newspapers, I also received sometimes no answer, and once an answer which said "could you get me in contact with an official please". The only official I know right now is Jimbo. I do not think it is Jimbo's job to stamp a press release made by the french wikipedia. He has other things to do.
How can a mailing list adress can help in showing this journalist (or whoever), that I can be trusted and sending a press release that is in line with the community opinion of what Wikipedia is ?
Did you meet the problem ? How did you solve it ?
Anthere
--- "Thomas R. Koll" tomk32@gmx.de wrote:
On Sat, May 08, 2004 at 01:03:02AM -0700, Anthere wrote:
Example : Public relations : someone who organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to
find
funding probably comes in here.
on de: we have an info@wikipedia.de which is subscribed by a few of our administrators. Most mails are spam, a few easy questions and seldom we have to chat about the answer before sending it. It works quite fine.
ciao, tom
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On Sat, May 08, 2004 at 01:25:17AM -0700, Anthere wrote:
I do not see well how it adresses the general issue Tom. Perhaps I did not understand what you meant ?
As for mailing lists, I moderated the french one for a year, and I had to delete between 10 to 20 spam per day at some point.
Organisation of a press release is totally appropriate on the wiki iself. I contributed a lot to the french ones and collaborative work was quite successful. The second press release was sent to many places, with few double sending.
However, when I send the press release to some major newspapers, I also received sometimes no answer, and once an answer which said "could you get me in contact with an official please". The only official I know right now is Jimbo. I do not think it is Jimbo's job to stamp a press release made by the french wikipedia. He has other things to do.
How can a mailing list adress can help in showing this journalist (or whoever), that I can be trusted and sending a press release that is in line with the community opinion of what Wikipedia is ?
Ah I think you misunderstood. Our mailinglist is for those asking US, not the other round. For sending out our press releases we have a fluctuating group of people who just mail them. We maintain a list of recipient[1] That also works quite good.
[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pressemitteilung/Empf%E4nger
Anthere-
I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we could "give" these "official titles" to participants, so that they can fully help according to their abilities and wilingness.
Yes, that makes sense wherever there is a need for official contacts; in particular, every wiki should have a content partnership coordinator and a press contact. I'm not sure if we can legally transfer the position of treasurer like that, but it would be a shame if Mav couldn't continue his great work in that area.
We should also decide which of these positions are going to be elected, and which ones are appointed. Coordination of the representatives from the different wikis could be handled here on foundation-l.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere-
I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we could "give" these "official titles" to
participants,
so that they can fully help according to their abilities and wilingness.
Yes, that makes sense wherever there is a need for official contacts; in particular, every wiki should have a content partnership coordinator and a press contact. I'm not sure if we can legally transfer the position of treasurer like that, but it would be a shame if Mav couldn't continue his great work in that area.
Nod, absolutely. Mav should do it, and this is precisely one of the example. Mav could directly have this trusted position (I mean, he already has it right ? :-))
This said, I was not necessarily thinking of a "head", ie, of *one* partnership coordinator or *one* press contact. Just on fr, where we are far less numerous, we were two press contact for the press release. I would prefer a flat structure as much as possible. The coordination just happens rather naturally on each wiki; through discussion. It is the wiki way. People interested in a topic just naturally gather and work together.
I do not think that putting officially the responsability in the hand of *one* person specifically is the best option. It is not empowering people. Rather, people will tend to rely on the *head* to do things.
The idea is not to make someone the "chief" on a matter. The idea is to make it possible for some trusted users to talk to other people *external* to the project, and have these external people know *these* participants are trusted to discuss such matters.
Also, I am not sure this should necessarily be language specific. Some topics should not be language specific, when that engage the entirety of the project.
Let me give you an example. I don't know if that is realistic, but that is for the *example*. If Jimbo is away (are not available or whatever), Brion could be officially trusted to purchase any piece necessary to fix a server problem, or even buy a server itself. He could have the "right" and "ability" to spent money to do so. Or it could be Shaihulud. Or whomever. We would know that Brion would have taken the best solution, after discussion with others, and he could "act". It does not mean he is the boss, it means the community trusts him for such a move and wants the "outside" to know this, and be able to check this.
Would you call that delegation ?
We should also decide which of these positions are going to be elected, and which ones are appointed. Coordination of the representatives from the different wikis could be handled here on foundation-l.
Regards,
Erik
Well, the idea is not to fall into bureaucracy, ie in some intensive voting. Some events just happen naturally. Look, a long time ago (was it perhaps a year ago now ?), Mav wrote on meta that he wanted to be the treasurer. I think there was no opposition, or rather support. Jimbo was fine with this as well. So, Mav just naturally took care of these matters. Similarly, when we had the first two press releases, Yann and I said we were interested to take care of this; and so it was. Perhaps the idea is not to run an official election to vote who between Anthere or Yann should be the "head" of this from now on and coordinate all of it. We should let people do what they feel like doing, and when they feel like doing it. It may be that some positions require a bit more of structuring, but I fear you may not have understood what I proposed.
Let me be very specific.
Say I wish to contact a big charitable association, and perhaps try to make a partnership with them. I may be the most appropriate person to do this because 1) I know them 2) they do things in a field I know, so I can talk with them 3) I am interested in doing so
Now, say I contact them, and we proceed on negociation for perhaps a donation from them, and perhaps they want to be sure the donation is used for a specific reason (ie, perhaps not to pay server or a german wikireader, but they want to give money to send some paper versions of Wikipedia in french, english and arab somewhere in africa). This is not language related. This is specific request and involves several branches of the project.
In my proposition, I contact them, I deal with them, and when they ask if I have the right to negociate this, and make some promises about how the money will be used, I answer yes. And the deal is done.
In your proposition, I go see the coordinator of partnership of french, spanish and english wikipedia. I negociate with them to convince them to contact the organisation. I explain them what is interesting to negociate. I let them try to make a deal, that perhaps do not interest them specifically. As for myself, I go back editing a couple of articles, and wait for things to proceed. Chance is, the deal is not done, and next time, I do not go and ask the "coordinator". I just do not do anything. Because I have felt it was not my job, I become passive.
So, what I propose is not to name people to become responsible of things in the name of others, but to give opportunity to people to act themselves, rather than to wait for a coordinator to do what they could have done themselves.
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Anthere-
I do not think that putting officially the responsability in the hand of *one* person specifically is the best option. It is not empowering people. Rather, people will tend to rely on the *head* to do things.
We also need to be careful not to let too many people speak in the name of the Foundation whenever they feel like it. This is after all a community of several thousands of members, and I think some screening needs to take place before we decide that person X can be an official press contact, or person Y can be a content partnership coordinator -- because our reputation may be hurt, because people may make deals which the Foundation does not want (and later has to undo), because people may neglect their position and fail to respond to inquiries (hurting our reputation), because people may fail to sufficiently communicate about what they are doing, and so forth.
I don't think our positions are that far apart, though, especially since you yourself mention that people would have an opportunity to object. So if they object, what happens then? Will the person be unable to hold the position they are interested in beacuse of a single objection? At this point the natural solution is again to have a vote. I believe that at the very least, any assumption of an official title needs to be prominently announced, with a certain timeframe to raise objections, and a defined process for resolving them.
I also tend to believe that such an assignment shouldn't cover very short periods of time, to avoid communication problems of the type "I'm not the content coordinator, anymore, try contacting Paul." - "Sorry, I resigned last week, try contacting Amy." etc. If one only wants to assume an official title for a *single* transaction, it is better to contact whomever is currently holding that title.
I have no problem with multiple people filling a certain role, in fact I support it, but the number of people should be limited. For example we could say "one press officer for every country, or for every 40 million inhabitants of a country", so the US would end up with 6 press officers, Germany with 2, etc.
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
... I have no problem with multiple people filling a certain role, in fact I support it, but the number of people should be limited. For example we could say "one press officer for every country, or for every 40 million inhabitants of a country", so the US would end up with 6 press officers, Germany with 2, etc.
That is a neat idea.
-- mav
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Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote: Anthere-
I do not think that putting officially the responsability in the hand of *one* person specifically is the best option. It is not empowering people. Rather, people will tend to rely on the *head* to do things.
We also need to be careful not to let too many people speak in the name of the Foundation whenever they feel like it. This is after all a community of several thousands of members, and I think some screening needs to take place before we decide that person X can be an official press contact, or person Y can be a content partnership coordinator -- because our reputation may be hurt, because people may make deals which the Foundation does not want (and later has to undo), because people may neglect their position and fail to respond to inquiries (hurting our reputation), because people may fail to sufficiently communicate about what they are doing, and so forth.
I don't think our positions are that far apart, though, especially since you yourself mention that people would have an opportunity to object. So if they object, what happens then? Will the person be unable to hold the position they are interested in beacuse of a single objection? At this point the natural solution is again to have a vote. I believe that at the very least, any assumption of an official title needs to be prominently announced, with a certain timeframe to raise objections, and a defined process for resolving them.
I also tend to believe that such an assignment shouldn't cover very short periods of time, to avoid communication problems of the type "I'm not the content coordinator, anymore, try contacting Paul." - "Sorry, I resigned last week, try contacting Amy." etc. If one only wants to assume an official title for a *single* transaction, it is better to contact whomever is currently holding that title.
I have no problem with multiple people filling a certain role, in fact I support it, but the number of people should be limited. For example we could say "one press officer for every country, or for every 40 million inhabitants of a country", so the US would end up with 6 press officers, Germany with 2, etc.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________
Thank you Erik and Mav for the feedback.
Erik raises fair comments. Yes, screening should be done. Yes, reasonable duty time is necessary. Yes, proportionality of representation seems correct.
A couple of comments
I think we should be very careful not to change drastically the business model upon which Wikipedia is built. Currently, what makes it work is
* that it is open and fair. Ie, anyone is free to participate, and help in any area he feels like helping. Currently, if we are now known, it is also because any editor may at any time contact a newspaper for example, and make an article on Wikipedia. Evidently, some articles are not so good, some are buggy. But most are helpful nevertheless. Anyone is empowered PR activities. They won�t be fired in case of a mistake. They learn to improve each time. We do not have to wait for an official PR to decide for us what we should do. This results, perhaps, in a bit anarchic PR activities, but not so bad all things considered :-)
* it is not (too much) bureaucratic. Anyone can do PR activities without having to require an authorization from anyone.
Let us be careful not to change this too much. Voluntary PR works because users have freedom to do so. If authorization becomes required, or worse, if spontaneous activity is not welcome any more, than PR activity will drop tremendously.
I would like that we separate those holding somehow the role of a coordinator or a legal position (such as treasurer) from other roles which may perhaps not �officially� speak �in the name� of the Foundation, but are trusted by the Foundation to conduct a collection of activities.
The Foundation needs official positions, but what I was suggesting was not so much PR Coordinators France : Yann Germany : Erik Mo�ller US : Maverick etc�
Than PR activities
French language Coordinator : Yann Delegates (or whatever name is fit) : Anthere, Semnoz, Ryo
German language Coordinators : Erik Mo�ller, Elian Delegates : Fantasy, Fire
English language Coordinator : Maverick Delegates : Fuzheado, Jtdirl, Eclecticology etc�
The first group (coordinator) has to be officially approved (or appointed) by the Foundation, while the second group is more a collection of people trusted to send press releases, and approved (or not opposed) by their respective project. Even if these people should try to coordinate with their coordinator(s), they are trusted to do PR activities.
Now, no big deal about PR things. But transpose this to looking for funding.
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We also need to be careful not to let too many people speak in the name of the Foundation whenever they feel like it.
What I believe to be more important is to not let the foundation speak in the name of the people, whenever they feel like it, unless the Foundation is properly democratically organized.
Uli
Ulrich Fuchs mail@ulrich-fuchs.de wrote:
We also need to be careful not to let too many people speak in the name of the Foundation whenever they feel like it.
What I believe to be more important is to not let the foundation speak in the name of the people, whenever they feel like it, unless the Foundation is properly democratically organized.
Uli
-----------------
Agreed.
The Foundation is there in particular because there is a need for a legal entity to own things like servers. There is need of a legal entity to be able receive donations and use funds. And the Foundation is there to ensure that the spiritual lead of Jimbo is preserved.
All activities, be they of gathering, of organising, or of distribution of the knowledge should be in the hands of the wikimedians first of all. Not of the Foundation. The Foundation is there to provide a legal platform. The Board is there to ensure that the legal platform works properly, stimulate perhaps the natural evolution of the project toward getting more funds for functionning, toward proper use of these funds, according to the needs expressed by wikimedians, and toward distribution as perceived good by wikimedians. But imho, it is not to take decisions for participants, nor to remove participants opportunity to do what they have been doing so well for three years.
To preserve the core principles of the project, the Board should just have some veto power for some critical decisions, but that is about it.
I would dare to say (but that only my opinion) that what is *most* required in the following months, is not PR activity from the Foundation, maybe even not distribution organised by the Foundation, but is just setting the bases of the organisation, so that it is fair to all participants, preserving opportunity to get involved in any activity as it has been till now, as transparent as possible in its financial activity and, please oh please, as unbureaucratic as possible.
All participants have the opportunity to speak in the name of Wikipedia right now. Though there are a couple of cases when we are not so happy this is so, in the very very large majority of cases, facts have shown that it was really worth to trust any participant per default to speak *well* in the name of Wikipedia. No reason why this should change.
Ant
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Anthere--
Just wanted to make sure you knew that your responses are coming out quoted (at quote level 1). I can usually figure out the line between your reply and the quote, but if you can fix it, it would be nice.
Peter
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--- Peter Jaros rjaros@shaysnet.com wrote:
Anthere--
Just wanted to make sure you knew that your responses are coming out quoted (at quote level 1). I can usually figure out the line between your reply and the quote, but if you can fix it, it would be nice.
Peter
Well, euh, no, not really. It depends on the computer I am; And I have not found how to fix that on the other one. I apology :-(
On top of it, gname is not working for me for wikipedia-l and foundation-l mailing lists (while it works for other lists), so I can't answer from gname directly. This is very unfortunate.
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--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Yes, that makes sense wherever there is a need for official contacts; in particular, every wiki should have a content partnership coordinator and a press contact. I'm not sure if we can legally transfer the position of treasurer like that, but it would be a shame if Mav couldn't continue his great work in that area.
Thanks :) Just rewrite the by-laws to separate the function of treasurer from being one of the trustees to being a separate financial officer who is appointed by the trustees and approved by the membership (same with the secretary position - we also may eventually need a president and vice president, but that can wait). The current by-laws are still in final draft form so this should be an easy thing to do.
But as I said before, I don't want this position, I just want to make sure the work gets done and am willing to do that work. If a Wikimedian who happened to have relevant experience, who was trusted by board, and who wanted to do the work showed up, then I would let them do that work and I would work in some other area that needed attention. Until then, I serve at the pleasure of the board.
I would be able to do a much better job if I had the ability to check the Wikimedia bank account balance and transactions myself and had better access to the PayPal account. As it is, I have to pester Jimbo about the bank account balance every few weeks ( <cough> currently pestering </cough> ;) and the limited PayPal access I have gives me raw data that are difficult to work with (there seem to be advanced reporting features that I'm locked out of). I also have no way to really account for expenditures and thus have not been tracking that - that's not good.
But if a background check were conducted on me (Jimbo already has the info needed for that) and I had an official position in the foundation, then I could have the access I need in order to correctly report the foundation's finances. Until then I'm perfectly fine with the limited access I do have. I feel that, organizationally, it would set a dangerous precedent to give anyone such access minus a background check and an official position that the officer (and ultimately his/her boss, the trustees) are accountable for.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
PS: I haven't made a final decision yet, but so far I like what I'm hearing from the leading trustee candidates and thus (so far) don't feel I need to run.
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--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
... I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we could "give" these "official titles" to participants, so that they can fully help according to their abilities and wilingness.
I think that this a very good idea. But it will require a change in the bylaws. However since the bylaws cannot be finalized until after two more trustees take their positions and vote on them, I don't think this will be a problem so long as the right people get elected.
I've already stated, several times in the past, that the roles of trustee and the roles of corporate officers should be divorced from one another. This is needed in order to provide proper checks and balances (the board oversees the officiers and the foundation membership oversees the board).
Basically, it requires 3 steps
- setting up a list of "official titles", with
associated description of what this encompasses
Example : Wikimedia treasurer : someone to keep track of donations or other funding, and keep track of how money is spent
Example : Public relations : someone who organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
Nod.
We should set this list all together. There is already some stuff written about this on meta, but it was more planned for a board. Since the board will be very small, we should expand this to wikimedia (full) or foundation (those who paid the fee) participants.
The list could be approved by the Board.
I agree that the board should appoint officers from a self-selected candidate list.
- Enlisting people for each role.
Several if necessary. We obviously need only one treasurer for now; But definitly several public relation officials. Given Wikipedia concept, I don't think we need a head for PR, the community is the head, but we definitly do need at least a dozen people as PR officials.
Nod.
I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on meta. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or not.
I strongly feel that it should be the other way around; the board appoints officers and the foundation membership either approves or disapproves the appointees. This provides a check against merely popular people being appointed to positions they are not qualified to perform. The board members themselves are the ones that are directly elected. Thus they are the ones legally responsible for their appointees.
- Last, on Wikimedia Foundation web site, we maintain
a list of these official representative. Something very official looking, so that an "official representative" can point a potential partner this page to "prove" he is trusted by his peers for negociation.
Nod.
What do you think ?
With a few minor changes as I noted, I think it is a great idea.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I've already stated, several times in the past, that the roles of trustee and the roles of corporate officers should be divorced from one another. This is needed in order to provide proper checks and balances (the board oversees the officiers and the foundation membership oversees the board).
Ant : I agree
I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on meta. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or not.
I strongly feel that it should be the other way around; the board appoints officers and the foundation membership either approves or disapproves the appointees. This provides a check against merely popular people being appointed to positions they are not qualified to perform. The board members themselves are the ones that are directly elected. Thus they are the ones legally responsible for their appointees.
Ant :
I admit that the legal responsibility and qualification is a major issue.
However, I must say I would be troubled that the management would be done in such a top down approach, as I feel it could raise issues of fairness and transparency. In particular if those �coordinators� are a mandatory path for subsequent activities.
Situation 1
a candidate makes himself known to the board the board checks the candidate credentials (or whatever is thought necessary to guarantee the candidate suitability) the board then appoint the candidate (or rejects it) the nomination is announced to the community
Potential issues * Fairness issue : another candidate might have been suitable * Transparency issue : the community does not know on which credentials the candidate was chosen * Possible other issue : the community might generally not approve the candidate. In such case, do we consider the board has last word or do we consider the community could reject an appointment ?
Situation 2 : What I understand you propose is
a candidate makes himself known to the board the board check the candidate credentials (or whatever is thought necessary to guarantee the candidate suitability) the board then appoint the candidate (or rejects it) the nomination is announced the membership votes to approve or disapprove the appointed.
Potential issues * Fairness issue : another candidate might have been suitable * Transparency issue : the community does not know on which credentials the candidate was chosen * Lack of efficiency : in case the community rejects the candidate
Situation 3
a candidate makes himself known to the board the board then make a call for more candidacy for the position the board check the candidates credentials the board then appoint one (or several) of the candidates, reject others the nominations are announced the membership votes to approve or disapprove the appointed.
Potential issues * Lack of efficiency : in case the community rejects the candidate
Situation 4
a candidate makes himself known to the board the board then make a call for more candidacy for the position the board check the candidates credentials the board propose some of the candidates, reject others the approved candidates are announced the membership votes to approve or disapprove and nominate people
Potential issues * The board is more an organ of screening than decision, it mostly ensures that no bad decision may be offered to the community. Some may regret this.
Situation 5
a candidate makes himself known to the community the membership then make a call for more candidacy for the position the membership approve or disapprove candidates the board check the approved candidates credentials the board appoints one (or several) of the candidates the approved candidates are announced
Potential issues * The membership may exclude some people, and base itself more on popularity than on ability as Mav pointed out.
Are they other options ? Are they other potential issues ?
Perhaps the question is what is the role of the board ?
*To take decision for the community (and consider that the decision is good since people were elected for this, hence relieving some pressure of some decision making from the community)
*Or to guarantee that good decisions are taken by the community (and have a sort of veto when the decision appears to be bad).
Typically, the first case is the model of the current arbitration committee, and the second case is a lot of what Jimbo is doing in many cases.
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--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I've already stated, several times in the past, that the roles of trustee and the roles of corporate officers should be divorced from one another. This is needed in order to provide proper checks and balances (the board oversees the officiers and the foundation membership oversees the board).
Ant : I agree
I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on meta. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or not.
I strongly feel that it should be the other way around; the board appoints officers and the foundation membership either approves or disapproves the appointees. This provides a check against merely popular people being appointed to positions they are not qualified to perform. The board members themselves are the ones that are directly elected. Thus they are the ones legally responsible for their appointees.
Ant :
I admit that the legal responsibility and qualification is a major issue.
However, I must say I would be troubled that the management would be done in such a top down approach, as I feel it could raise issues of fairness and transparency. In particular if those �coordinators� are a mandatory path for subsequent activities.
I guess I would be OK with the board selecting a qualified group of people as finalists and have the Wikimedia membership choose the winner. However, that group of finalists will often be very small since the board has to assume that any one could become the actual officer. That way the membership and the board are responsible for the person who is eventually selected (but that would have been the case in the appointee/confirmation schenario as well). This does have a drawback: *Until the membership votes, none of the board-selected candidates will be able to perform the duties of the office. Appointees to the cabnint level in the U.S. government (all the Secretaries of ..) work in their appointed role while Congress is going through the confirmation process - if they are not confirmed then they have to stop work and the process starts over.
But I don't think that the membership will ever not confirm a board-selected officer. If that is done, then something is wrong with the board. The reason why confirmation is needed is just to provide a check against the board making bad decisions. So I still think that the appointee/confirmation process is the most straightforward path and the one less likely to bog down the work of the foundation. IMO, officers should not be too hindered by the political process - they have work to do.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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I sent my last post too early - please disregard that one and read this one instead.
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I've already stated, several times in the past, that the roles of trustee and the roles of corporate officers should be divorced from one another. This is needed in order to provide proper checks and balances (the board oversees the officiers and the foundation membership oversees the board).
Ant : I agree
I view this as fairly loose. Let's have a page on meta. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board approve or not.
I strongly feel that it should be the other way around; the board appoints officers and the foundation membership either approves or disapproves the appointees. This provides a check against merely popular people being appointed to positions they are not qualified to perform. The board members themselves are the ones that are directly elected. Thus they are the ones legally responsible for their appointees.
Ant :
I admit that the legal responsibility and qualification is a major issue.
However, I must say I would be troubled that the management would be done in such a top down approach, as I feel it could raise issues of fairness and transparency. In particular if those �coordinators� are a mandatory path for subsequent activities.
I guess I would be *OK* with the board selecting a qualified group of people as finalists and have the Wikimedia membership choose the winner. However, that group of finalists will often be very small since the board has to assume that any one could become the actual officer. That way the membership and the board are responsible for the person who is eventually selected (but that would have been the case in the appointee/confirmation scenario as well). This does have a drawback: *Until the membership votes, none of the board-selected candidates will be able to perform the duties of the office. Appointees to the cabinet level in the U.S. government (all the Secretaries of ..) work in their appointed role while Congress is going through the confirmation process - if they are not confirmed then they have to stop work and the process starts over.
But I don't think that the membership will ever not confirm a board-selected officer. If that is done, then something is wrong with the board. The reason why confirmation is needed is just to provide a check against the board making bad decisions. So I still think that the appointee/confirmation process is the most straightforward path and the one less likely to bog down the work of the foundation. IMO, officers should not be too hindered by the political process - they have work to do.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover
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