[Foundation-l] "Expertise" board seats: the NomCom invites your feedback

[Florence Devouard]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> Talking about board seats...
>>
>> Sue...
>>
>> I'd like to acknowledge the fact that local associations are apparently
>> unable to create a separate mailing list for discussing the nomination
>> of chapter representatives. It did not appear to me to be a huge
>> unaccessible task, but unfortunately, that's a fact. Not the right
>> infrastructure I guess.
>> I even envisionned to create a Google list, that the idea really turned
>> me off :-)
> 
> What have you tried? A request on bugzilla.mediawiki.org would be the
> best way, I think (I've searched and can't find one there). Unless the
> sysadmins have orders from on high not to give you a mailing list, I
> can't see why they wouldn't be able to do it pretty quickly.


No, I had a dream... a dream where chapters would be big guys enough to 
be able to set up themselves a place to discuss a matter where - imho - 
the Foundation should not be involved.
I raised the topic of creating a list, hosted by a chapter, to do so. I 
got about 3 or 4 comments back, no more. No one created such a list. We 
tried on the French side, for now over two months. Problem is that we 
are hosted for free by a hosting company - and as a "free customer", we 
have a zero priority. We asked them, were put on a waiting list for over 
a month; when the list was finally set, it revealed itself buggy. That 
was a month ago.

In my view, when the board of WMF decided to let chapters select two 
representatives, it was also a heavy message to the chapters: collect 
your wits and be grown ups. I am not quite sure how chapters can select 
board members when they are not even able to self organize to get a 
common mailing list for an election. That's not necessarily out of bad 
will, but mostly poor infrastructure and lack of cooperation.

I have not set up a request on bugzilla because I hoped that we would be 
able to precisely avoid doing that. I was wrong, and prefer to make it 
clear why I am asking for it now, whilst for two months, I said no thank 
you :-)


>> Hopefully, in two years from now, for next elections (we can set it up
>> for ourselves as a GOAL), we'll be able to host a list to discuss WMF
>> rep, but since that's not the case right now, I'd like to officially
>> (and humbly) ask that the WMF set up a wiki for us to discuss the issue.
>> After much thinking, it seems to me that setting up a list would not be
>> the easiest way to come to a consensual agreement, whilst a wiki could
>> host at the same time, discussions and votes if necessary.
>>
>> This wiki would not be public. Its members would be chapter board members.
> 
> The way I see it, there are two things the chapters need to decide. A
> method for selecting chapter reps to the WMF board, and then actually
> selecting them. I can see why the latter may need to be private (that
> would depend on the method chosen), but why can't the former be
> public? Or, at least, publicly viewable - discussion sometimes moves
> faster if you restrict who can take part.

Given that CHAPTERS are going to select these two guys and given that 
all chapter board members would be part of this wiki, there is no 
planned restriction of access.

Now, the fact is, there is no agreement on how chapters will select 
these two guys. So, it might just be nice to start by looking at WHO is 
interested in becoming so ;-)

Ant