[Foundation-l] Provisional Volunteer Council - proposal sent to the Board

[James Forrester]

On 02/04/2008, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:48 AM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > What if this Volunteer Council has no real offficial standing and solely
> > regulates the Community? No tax problems, right?
>
> This is more along the lines of what I've been thinking about. If the
> VC is a community-based structure, and does not change the governance
> structure of the foundation, it's a moot point entirely. Th VC
> shouldn't change the structure of the foundation any more then the
> chapcom or the languages subcommittee or any other advisory committee
> do. If terminology is a problem, perhaps we should rename it to
> something more benign, like "volunteer committee", or "community
> advisory board" or something.

I would imagine problems arise from having the VC "approv[e] changes
to the articles of incorporation or bylaws of the Wikimedia
Foundation" (from the draft Lodewijk sent, above). This would mean
that the VC would have a very serious level of control over the
Foundation.

I would instead say that "the Board will consult with the VC over
proposed changes to the articles of incorporation or bylaws of the
Wikimedia Foundation". This is the standard RACI (Responsible for,
Accountable to, Counsulted over, Informed of)language used widely in
the UK (or, at least, in UK government, which is where I'm familiar).

What this would mean, bluntly, is that if the VC objected and the
Board could ignore them (legally; I'm not looking to speak morally
here, where I imagine it would be a partnership). But this is still a
step "in the right direction" - currently the community is merely
informed of such changes.

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester
jdforrester at wikimedia.org | jdforrester at gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]