[Foundation-l] board manual and where information about the WMF should really be

[Ray Saintonge]

Anthere wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> There has been a bit of discussion recently about Non Profit 
> Foundations and their organisation. Michael Davis has been discussing 
> a lot in the past few days with a lawyer we are working with, and 
> amongst various conclusions, it was recommanded that we try to 
> anticipate the best we could our growth curve and to get a strong 
> legal framework in place asap. Which seems to involve good functioning 
> structure... and sticking a bit more to traditional board governance 
> procedures, with some evolution in the way we handle agendas, minutes, 
> bylaws, resolution, board manual, insurance and so on. 

It's hard to know when an exponential growth curve will level off.  Thus 
far we all stand in amazement at the growth.  Generally this is a step 
in the right direction.

> We are currently working on all this very much. Each according to its 
> own ability.
> Some of this can only be done by board members proper, other tasks can 
> also be supported by officers, and some can involve anyone who is 
> serious and supportive.
>
> Amongst the tasks I will try to take care of in the next few weeks (or 
> months...) is documentation, such as typically board manual. Michael 
> has provided us with some documentation (such as 
> http://www.boardsource.org/FullAnswer.asp?ID=98) and I gathered some 
> more as well. Most of what is typically required on a board manual, we 
> already have, but it is dispersed on at least 3 different wikis and 
> poorly organised. This is unfortunate. 

I would suggest beginning with a Table of Contents or site map for the 
Manual.  This would be helpful in monitoring the development of this 
project.

> Board governance is not something new and there is no reason for us to 
> reinvent the wheel. When I looked at some of these pages, I recognised 
> areas where we have indeed tried to reinvent the wheel... other areas 
> we have never explored at all, areas where we found our own balance 
> and areas which are still a mess :-)
>
> I invite you to join and help the way you can if you have such a 
> desire. Either help to organise the structure of the future document 
> (and more generally Foundation website), help to gather what already 
> exist, help write what does *not* exist, help fix poor english, help 
> translate (much later) some of the pages.
>
> If you are interested, please, let's talk about this on meta or by 
> irc. I presume this will be very boring for most editors here, so it 
> will probably rarely be mentionned on the list, but if you wish to 
> help, please jump in any time. 

I object to your saying that such a task would be boring. ;-)    Where 
on meta?

Ec