[Foundation-l] [Announcement] update in board of trustees membership

[Florence Devouard]

Nathan Awrich wrote:
> In the interests of not letting this thread die:
> 
> I'd suggest that Wikimedia look at similar (as close as possible)
> foundations in the United States, and possibly elsewhere as well, for
> ideas on how to move forward.

Actually, we already did that to a certain extent. Mike drafted us a 
fairly long document on the topic last summer.

  There is no reason to reinvent the wheel
> when you have a design that works - Wikimedia adopted a fairly
> conventional structure for its board, and it should continue to rely
> on governance concepts that have been proven. Organizations like
> Mozilla, EPIC, EFF, the ACLU and others might be targets not only for
> adapting their governance style but also for attracting outside
> members of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. Additionally, you could
> investigate recruiting Board members from academic and encyclopedic
> organizations with similar missions.

Some previous board members were very insistant that we should primarily 
recruit from the community.

> A sensible structure has to be one that values expertise and maintains
> the centrality of the Wikimedia community, as well as represents the
> interests of chapters outside en.wiki. I think you could achieve this
> simply by expanding the board and assigning decision making authority
> to different committees - i.e. audit, governance, executive,
> financial.

Agreed. Recent development lead the board to consider expanding itself
This is currently under discussion.
Note that we already have a beginning of committee structures, with the 
audit com, the ED com, etc...
(I am a bit perplex to see you refer to "chapters outside en.wiki, but I 
take it as a typo type of thing).

ant

  I think this is a fairly standard Board design, and I'd be
> interested to see proposals from Mike Godwin on this topic (assuming
> he has experience in the field of non-profit management aside from
> Wikimedia).
> 
> Nathan
> 
> On Dec 17, 2007 10:54 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 17/12/2007, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>>
>>> How is that Wikipedia movie going, by the way?
>>
>> http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page_%28movie%29
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>>
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