[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of the board?

[Erik Moeller]

On 6/20/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought it was a pretty entertaining retort.

Perhaps. Watching chimpanzees beat each other up can be pretty
entertaining, too. But if we are to adopt the social standards of
chimpanzees on this mailing list, I demand some free grooming.

For the record, I have not criticized the people mentioned, and if my
original message came across that way, I apologize. I have a lot of
respect for all of them, and have worked closely with two of them. I
have questioned the notion, as have others, of having opinionated
outsiders on the _governing_ board of our organization (rather than in
an advisory capacity), exactly because they are opinion leaders and
very knowledgeable in the fields they work in, which are highly
relevant to our day-to-day work, while having no involvement,
experience and visibility in our community. I have mentioned before
possible alternatives from other fields. None of them are me.

The notion that I am campaigning here is absurd. There is no election,
and I have about as much a chance of getting appointed as Daniel
Brandt or Sollog. And what a great honor it would be to be allowed to
waste away more hours for Wikimedia without pay, while receiving a
litany of complaints from people who want their sock puppets checked,
their admins tarred and feathered, or their crackpot theories about
using orgasmic energy to run jet engines featured on the Main Page --
all the while being accused of being part of some grand shadowy
conspiracy to make every single human being on the planet read a copy
of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead". I've lived with a Board member for a
year, I know how much fun it can be. Am I anxious, eager, enthusiastic
about the idea of joining in? "No, Kiddo, at this moment, this is me
at my most -- masochistic."

Erik