On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback.
Long time ago I suggested more structured way to use Advisory Board. So, here is the draft of the idea again.
I don't think you need too specific "Community Advisory Board", as you could reach, for example, AffCom, LangCom, stewards, en.wp ArbCom etc. -- or, if you really need too general advice and there is no assembly yet, all of them -- if you need a specific advice. Basically, you have much better granulated "Community Advisory Board", although the Board is not using it usually.
You definitely need a kind of "Governing Advisory Board", which would be consisted of the former Board members and people with very good knowledge of governing and other ways of social organization (NPOs, business, movements...).
But, on top of that you could structure your needs. You could start it by imagining any expertise you collectively lack (I could give you one clear example immediately: relations with formal diplomacy) and start thinking how to find appropriate people for that group.
Then, you could create an "Innovation Advisory Board", put there all Jimmy's technolibertarian ubercapitalist friends and ask them about their ideas. I am sure they could be very useful in such body. They could also find useful to participate in such body for Wikim/pedia cause.
And so on. Any of such advisory boards be even more useful if you could find them not just an advisory role, but a committe-like ("Diversity Committee", with strong advisory role in relation to the social diversification of Wikimedia bodies, for example -- "strong advisory role" = people don't do something against their recommendation without very strong reason) or even more active role inside of the movement ("Technology Innovation Committee", with the role to plan long-term technological innovation).
If you have a couple of active advisory boards, you could recruit new Board members from them, with the specific purpose, based on the Strategic Plan or other organizational needs. That could give us
After their mandate as Board members, they would still stay inside of hopefully active Wikimedia bodies and we won't lose their experience. Actually, if they don't have enough time to fully participate as Board members and you still have the same focus, you could always replace them with a fellow <particular> Advisory Board members.
Said so, this is not that straight-forward task and requires active work per advisory board you create. There should be a need, a structure and a way how to engage them. Find a person per advisory board who is willing to lead such body and delegate the creation and communication of that body to her or him. (That could be Board member, somebody from the movement or an employee.)
I also don't think it's in collision with the assembly. Those should be Wikimedia bodies and any Wikimedia body should be able to ask them for advice. They could be helpful bodies to the future assembly, as well.
While I wrote the last paragraph, I realized that we badly need one of those bodies: Legal Advisory Board: the body which could be asked by any Wikimedia organization or Wikimedian in relation to any legal issue they are struggling with.
My experience with advisory boards is that they tend not be taken seriously: if they do anything independently they are ignored. They are a good forum for venting grievances, but we seem to have no lack of such. But I at least am not particular interested in a large infrastructure of meeting in groups to either ratify decisions taken by other, or express wishes that will never be accomplished.
Rather, we need working groups or committees with authority in a decentralized manner.
On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 2:04 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback.
Long time ago I suggested more structured way to use Advisory Board. So, here is the draft of the idea again.
I don't think you need too specific "Community Advisory Board", as you could reach, for example, AffCom, LangCom, stewards, en.wp ArbCom etc. -- or, if you really need too general advice and there is no assembly yet, all of them -- if you need a specific advice. Basically, you have much better granulated "Community Advisory Board", although the Board is not using it usually.
You definitely need a kind of "Governing Advisory Board", which would be consisted of the former Board members and people with very good knowledge of governing and other ways of social organization (NPOs, business, movements...).
But, on top of that you could structure your needs. You could start it by imagining any expertise you collectively lack (I could give you one clear example immediately: relations with formal diplomacy) and start thinking how to find appropriate people for that group.
Then, you could create an "Innovation Advisory Board", put there all Jimmy's technolibertarian ubercapitalist friends and ask them about their ideas. I am sure they could be very useful in such body. They could also find useful to participate in such body for Wikim/pedia cause.
And so on. Any of such advisory boards be even more useful if you could find them not just an advisory role, but a committe-like ("Diversity Committee", with strong advisory role in relation to the social diversification of Wikimedia bodies, for example -- "strong advisory role" = people don't do something against their recommendation without very strong reason) or even more active role inside of the movement ("Technology Innovation Committee", with the role to plan long-term technological innovation).
If you have a couple of active advisory boards, you could recruit new Board members from them, with the specific purpose, based on the Strategic Plan or other organizational needs. That could give us
After their mandate as Board members, they would still stay inside of hopefully active Wikimedia bodies and we won't lose their experience. Actually, if they don't have enough time to fully participate as Board members and you still have the same focus, you could always replace them with a fellow <particular> Advisory Board members.
Said so, this is not that straight-forward task and requires active work per advisory board you create. There should be a need, a structure and a way how to engage them. Find a person per advisory board who is willing to lead such body and delegate the creation and communication of that body to her or him. (That could be Board member, somebody from the movement or an employee.)
I also don't think it's in collision with the assembly. Those should be Wikimedia bodies and any Wikimedia body should be able to ask them for advice. They could be helpful bodies to the future assembly, as well.
While I wrote the last paragraph, I realized that we badly need one of those bodies: Legal Advisory Board: the body which could be asked by any Wikimedia organization or Wikimedian in relation to any legal issue they are struggling with.
-- Milos
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On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 6:18 PM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Rather, we need working groups or committees with authority in a decentralized manner.
Agreed. Which, in turn, means that the Board should articulate which fields of expertise they need, define the scope of such working groups or committees, create such bodies and nurture them up to the maturity.
Dariusz Jemielniak wrote:
I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback.
As Adam Wight recently pointed out on wikimediafoundation.org, it's not clear that the Advisory Board currently has any appointees: https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/104459#Current_status.3F.
Relevant Board resolutions: * "Advisory board" (2006) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/98250 * "Amending the Term of Advisory Board Members" (2013) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/98267
There were appointments made in 2014 that carried through until the first Board meeting of 2015. There's no indication that appointments were made for 2015 or now 2016, which seems to mean that the Advisory Board still exists, but without any members currently.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees apparently discussed the Advisory Board in July 2015 at Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City: https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/104529#Advisory_Board.
I think it would be nice to get clarification on the current status of the Advisory Board before discussing ways to improve it.
MZMcBride
Having "Jimmy's technolibertarian ubercapitalist friends" (to use Milos' inimitable diction) as board *advisors* rather than voting board members and *decision-makers* directing the movement's course strikes me as a very worthwhile idea.
Andreas
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