Sundar,
Having a house of representative system will help managing things better.
You are looking a great number of projects and people - if everything goes
well - in the general body, and it would be absolutely chaotic when it comes
to discussions. 99% you will not see most people for doing something and
will have more action thrillers afterwards. It will be as problematic on
management of the chapter. Administrative council can act as the advisory
board for the EC and they can be the main link between communities for day
to day things and will ensure the community participation going forward.
This also adds accountability and transparency between chapter and
communities.
Since wikimedia.in is hosted on some ones private hosting and thoughts are
going around about moving to foundation's hosting, I would rather open this
in meta. What do you say?
Regards,
Jyothis.
woods are lovely dark and deep,
but i have promises to keep and
miles to go before i sleep and
lines to go before I press sleep
completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources)
+ ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings
On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 2:55 AM, BalaSundaraRaman <sundarbecse(a)yahoo.com>wrote;wrote:
Jyotis,
(This is my personal view.)
I concur with the broad idea behind points 3-7 though specifics need to be
worked out to suit the legal entity that the chapter is.
In fact, some of these have been addressed in the MoA, I think.
However, what is the additional role that you envisage for the
administrative
council given that a general body of members exists?
Also, I suggest that a separate page be opened in wikimedia.in wiki to
discuss
this.
- Sundar
Some thoughts around this:
1. Local Representation:All local wikis should elect a respected
member of
their community for a period of a year (or two)
and form an administrative
council for the chapter. This could be per language basis or per project
basis,
based on their community size. I would not exclude
English, but would
limit the
participation to one member in council. for the
rest of projects - It
could be
probably like for every project that has more than
50 (this is just a
number, we
can look at the real world situations) active people (not including bots)
- we
can allocate one member per project to the
council. other wise, one member
per
language projects would be enuf. this is just to
ensure that we have enuf
coverage per project and per language depending on the size of people.
2. Formation of EC: From the administrative council, the EC can be
elected
in
for a term. This election should be by the chapter members / local
language
wikimedians.
3. Limit on Term in EC: It may also be worth enforcing that no project
gets
more than one (or at the most 2) consecutive term
in EC (if we have enuf
representations to fill in all slots). This will ensure that all projects
gets
it share of EC terms over the years.
4. Communication: A Monthly or quarterly report of the chapter
activities
should be published by the EC and admin council.
Individual
representatives are
and should be responsible for communication between chapter and projects.
Should
there be a reason to replace the member by the local community, such a
provision
should be provided.
5. Removal of member: Inactivity and lose of trust by the general
public
should
be considered as a reason for removal as usual. On the other hand, if the
rest
of the administrative council members feels
against one member, chapter
should
be able to request for replacement citing proper
reasons for it.
6. Funds and Grants: All funds and grants from chapter account
probably can
be
openly discussed and approved on the foundation wiki or meta wiki (like
the
foundation grant process)
7. Audit and Annual report: End of every financial year, an audit
committee
for
the financial and functional aspects of the chapter's actions should be
formed
from the administrative council and audit results
should be made public
along
with the annual reports.
We can go on like this, but I would leave it open to further discussions.
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium
for
the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture