[Foundation-l] wikicouncil

[Jeffrey V. Merkey]

Erik Moeller wrote:

Agree with Erik here. There are too many comms, etc. as it is. When 
everyone
wants to be a chief, there are no indians left, and no work gets done :-)

Jeff

>On 11/19/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>
>>The issue has been raised often, the possible creation of a council.
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>>
>
>Indeed. I'm not a big fan of the idea, but it is a nice buzzword that
>many people seem to identify with, regardless of the fact that they
>all seem to mean different things when they are using it. We already
>have quite a lot of bureaucracy, and I'd like to avoid the creation of
>new structures that are either redundant or potentially harmful. So
>let's see what possible functions a council could serve:
>
>* Advise the Board and CEO -- that's what the Advisory Board is for.
>I'd be open to structuring it in such a way to allow experts from the
>community an easy way in.
>* Make project-level decisions -- why replace direct democracy and
>consensus-based processes with a representative bureaucracy? I'd
>rather see more project-wide votes.
>* Act as project representatives to chapters and Foundation, to deal
>with confidential information -- we already have the committees. We
>still haven't figured out a way to make them work, especially the
>SP-COM, which is exactly tasked with developing partnerships around
>the projects. I'd rather restructure these existing groups than
>inventing a completely new one.
>* Raise awareness of the Foundation within the projects -- a group
>that merely exists to raise awareness can form without the permission
>of the Foundation. Indeed, such informal groups are probably far less
>likely to cause trouble than a "Wikicouncil".
>
>My biggest fear is that we start with something poorly defined, or
>with a very narrow scope, and it evolves into a decision-making
>structure that replaces existing community processes.Where these
>processes are currently dysfunctional, I don't think replacing them
>with a new system is likely to be a good idea. The causes of the
>dysfunction may only be moved to a different level.
>
>I suggest, as an alternative, that the existing committee and
>subcommittee structures be reformed and surrounded with completely
>open "Open Interest Groups" without legal authority. I will make a
>specific proposal for that in the near future.
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