[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

[Jimmy Wales]

Erik Zachte wrote:
>> It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to
>> preserve our fundamentally community-driven model,
>> while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order
>> to empower and defend the community model. :)
> 
> preserve or reaffirm ?

Both!

>> Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
>> search process,
>> in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds.
> 
> leaders or members ?

Both!

> Urgent matters obviously need to be resolved now. In Rome emergencies were
> also addressed by subsiding democracy and *appointing* a dictator for half a
> year (the meaning of the term dictator has drifted quite far since then).

There is no dictator here.

> After we catered for emergencies, I still hope that the same community that
> wisely elected Angela and Anthere (hurray for them) will some day be given
> more direct responsibility in deciding how to resolve deficiencies at the
> organisational level. To me a community and a foundation are not separate
> entities ( I heard this as a closing argument all too often recently ), no
> more than a people and its government are separate entities. A government
> serves the people and is guided and controlled by the people. I'm not an
> expert in political matters, but I feel it makes more sense to draw our
> metaphores from an area of human activity where many are to gain from the
> actions of some (state/governement) than from areas where some are to gain
> much more than others from the activities of many (large corporations).

I agree completely.  I resist very strongly any separation of foundation
and community.