[Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - A shot for a resolution

[Nathan]

Some of the proposals in this 100-post thread seem hopelessly complicated.
If you want something like this to succeed, make it simple. I don't think
its realistic to view this proposed council as a Board parallel in
authority, even if the types of authority are separated clearly. Members of
the Board have specific legal responsibility for Foundation activities that
require it to be the final level of authority. Some elements of authority
can be restricted from the Board through by-laws, but I don't think its
possible to designate a level of authority above the Board beyond the
"membership" itself without conferring legal duties and liabilities.

What about all this effort can't be accomplished through an expansion of the
duties and participation in the Chapters Community? It seems like the only
non-ChapCom related responsibilities are governance related, and governance
is the specific province of the Board - if you want to committees to make
recommendations, well we've got those and we also already have a structure
for them. Why reinvent the wheel, particularly when it appears that it will
have a thousand moving parts? Milos has so far in this thread called for the
Volunteer Council,  a Supreme Court and judicial system, another body with
content authority... Has no one on this list ever read the WP:CREEP page on
en.wikipedia? Folks self-select themselves for committees based on interest
and level of committment - how do you expect to increase representation and
participation simply by creating a new bureaucratic edifice?

There is great value in having non-Board groups confer and make specific
recommendations, and value in encouraging participation and understanding
between projects and languages, but I think the idea of a Council as has
been articulated by some in this thread is fatally flawed - and perhaps this
is why it hasn't moved forward in so long. If conceptual flaws and
complexity have prevented agreement on the role and functions of this group
before, why should we expect that such agreement will appear through the
"provisional council" process?

Nathan