[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Board Elections

[Alison Wheeler]

I welcome the recent discussions about candidates; it is an issue with our
project-based online structure that in many ways we can only know the
briefest of information about a candidate and, more especially, about how
others see them. I welcome that we have a range of candidates to select
from but, like others, recognise also that some have a 'more effective'
background that they can bring to bear on the Foundation's activities than
others, and some appear to not have as great  'inter-personal'
relationship building skills and others, but I wish them all well.

On Sat, September 16, 2006 09:02, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> My personal strong feeling is that instead of choosing one appointed
> member, the board should appoint two, and appoint them as *permanent*,
> life members of the board .

May I say, completely independent of this election and the composition of
the current board, that I would consider the retention of *any* person as
a "permanent" member of the Board of any business or foundation as a very
dangerous situation. People change and people not previously considered
may appear who have more appropriate skills, knowledge and connections,
more importantly the *needs* of the Foundation will, as with any
organisation that seeks to grow improve and thrive in the long term needs
to have the regular ability to bring in new talent and 'retire' those who
have served its former needs well but now need to move on so that the
organisation improves.

Just as Wikipedia has moved us all on from the 'dead-tree encyclopedia'
age, I don't think we'd want to find ourselves stuck with a Board of 80
year olds later in this century!

Alison Wheeler