On Fri, June 2, 2006 14:56, Lord Voldemort wrote:

On 6/2/06, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:

...

For any charitable foundation which expects and *needs* to retain the

freely-donated level of work of its volunteers to engage a COO (as that is

...

what the description is far closer too rather than a CEO - see next mail!) without (a) advertising the position to its membership and generally, (b) publicising the shortlisted candidates under consideration in some manner, and (c) having an open recruitment process throughout, would seem to be

very contrary to good corporate governance.

Why would a shortlist need to be publicised? Do you mean actually

listing the names of the candidates, or simply stating that "there is a short list of candidates"? I am not sure posting the names of those "still in the running" is that common a practice. Or are you

referring to more publicity within the higher-ups of the Foundation?

My own view is both. Whilst it might not be a common practice it certainly happens in some charities/foundations and WMF / wikiprojects generally are a special case to my mind in that we have a *very* large number of people involved at editing and sysop management level, with a very *very* small fiscal/legal/organising operation trying to co-ordinate it all. That co-ordination function has, I think everyone realises, not been working as well as it could have in many ways. There are possible solutions I believe, and being open about the process of trying to improve the situation is one of the ways to get the buy-in from the general wikipedians to the required structure.

We are an open project and, imho, our recruitment at the most senior positions needs to be as open as possible. Whilst I would not expect to see wikipedians 'voting' on the appointment - there are too many legal and capability considerations for that to be at all a possibility - the wider knowledge of the class of people coming forward for the job, and the general knowledge that the WMF has chosen the *best* available rather than the nearest/easiest/cheapest available can only be a good thing for wider support around our projects.

Alison Wheeler