[Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

[Geoffrey Plourde]

Well, I have never understood why the board is so involved. Generally in business, the Board hires and fires the CEO and that's it. 

I also consider expert seats a waste of space as that is why we have department heads. 

Then again, I suspect I am and always will be in the minority.


________________________________
From: Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:41:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 6:35 AM, Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory
> board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a
> board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in
> discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that.


Why isn't it?  What's the difference?  Is it just an ego thing?  People are
willing to commit to something if they can put "board member" on their
resume, but not if they can put "advisory board member" on it?

> I also need not to mention that it is
> totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail
> and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed
> in to the board meeting.


You could always get rid of the expertise seats and not replace them with
community seats, then fly out the board plus those advisory board members
who would have been regular board members if there had been advisory seats
available for them.

But if people aren't willing to make that commitment unless they have a
vote, I guess that makes sense.

Ideally most experts should be paid, not part of a board.  But maybe the WMF
can't afford that.
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