[Foundation-l] Board-announcement: Board Restructuring

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The seat occupied by Anthere was changed in order to be up for re-election a
year later. It has always been a community seat. The motivation was that
being the chair and the amount of instability at the time, it gives the
board of trustees a little more needed stability.

Jimmy IS in a class of its own. I am convinced that when his seat were a
"community seat" he would easily keep his position. On the other hand his
influence and support makes a world of a difference to Wikipedia and the
Wikimedia Foundation. If he occupies the "community founder" seat and does
this as well as he has done so far, I would not begrudge him not to have to
stand for elections. When you compare his seat with the "specific expertise"
seats, it is hard to express what exact expertise makes Jimmy qualify, I
think that his constant involvement from the start and his intimate
awareness of much what goes on gives him this "specific expertise". In the
end by giving him the "community founder" seat, you express his unique
position that qualifies him as an expert and recognises his position in the
community.
Thanks,
     GerardM

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 8:35 AM, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I had the impression that Florence's "elected" position had been
> converted into an "appointed" one. But now I see it is listed as a
> community one.
>
> Will the Board look to the community first to fill the appointed
> 'expertise' seats? (I understand in many, probably most cases, that
> expertise + willingness may not exist.)
>
> Under this new structure, will it be possible that community-elected
> positions may be converted to board-appointed? (Expert in the
> community?)
>
> Are the 'specific expertise' seats going to be for specifically named
> areas of expertise?
>
> Community Founder seat seems to be locking Jimmy into the Board for,
> well, indefinitely. Presumably he is happy with that, but it will mean
> the rules need to be changed when he can't do it any more, right?
> (Yer, maybe decades from now :))
> I mean, there are no other people in the community, and there never
> will be, who fufil the role of "community founder". What is the point
> of "formalizing Jimmy's role as Community Founder" - why not just make
> his seat one of the Board appointed ones?
>
> It will be interesting to see how the chapter seats play out.
>
> regards,
> Brianna
>
>
> --
> They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
> http://modernthings.org/
>
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