[Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow

[whothis]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 11:32 PM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 12:23 PM, MZMcBride<z at mzmcbride.com>  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi.
> >>
> >> As Daniel noted in his earlier e-mail to the list, Achal Prabhala is now
> a
> >> Wikimedia Fellow.[1] I actually missed this announcement as it didn't
> hit
> >> wikimediaannounce-l or this list (foundation-l), it apparently only got
> >> posted to the blog, but that's not really here nor there.
> >>
> >> There have been rumblings about some of the surrounding circumstances
> that
> >> I
> >> think warrant consideration and discussion. Achal is a member of the
> >> Advisory Board[2] but isn't very active in wikis/open source. A few
> >> questions pop up in my head. Is there a concern about such an individual
> >> being a Wikimedia Fellow? That is, someone who's not particularly
> attached
> >> to wikis/open source? All of the other Wikimedia Fellows have fairly
> strong
> >> editing backgrounds. The edits by Achal seem to be rather sparse:
> >> http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?user=Aprabhala
> >>
> >> More importantly, is there a concern about an Advisory Board member
> being
> >> chosen as a Wikimedia Fellow? Is there a conflict of interest there? Is
> >> there a concern about the appearance of impropriety?
>
>
> Hello
>
> I really fail to see how being an advisory board member could in any
> sense create a conflict of interest. As the term very well describes it,
> advisory board members are merely advisors.... not decision makers.
> Just as *any* community member is also an advisor to the Wikimedia
> Foundation staff.
>

Let me explain, I'll start by a lifetime appointment, then pick or help pick
board members and then start interviewing who you want to hire, then decide
what other affiliations we need and no one will hold me accountable. Then I
might just go in for a fellowship to one of the focus areas I might or might
not have helped pick, for a while.

>
> Incidently, the advisory board has been originally created so that we
> could create links with people who were NOT editors, but had things we
> (the board at that time) thought they could share with us, and help us
> on the difficult path of bringing the Foundation to a professional,
> efficient, helpful model. It is a side effect that now past board
> members who happened to be involved in the community are also part of
> the advisory board. Originally, none of the members were community members.
> We (and "we" actually included the community; the community was involved
> in building the advisory board, on this very list, on meta and through a
> special committee) looked together for people with various expertise
> BEYOND our own wiki world. People with expertise in legal issues,
> financial issues, business, education, politics and so on. That was
> *exactly* the goal of this advisory board. Making sure that we would not
> be merely relying on our own community, but would actually learn from
> others and welcome comments, suggestions, help. Look beyond our own wiki
> world. Expand !
>

Again, Board members are accountable. They have a set term and structure,
but apparently no one knows how the Advisory board works, and appointments
are for life. Most of the other people on the Advisory Board are
accomplished in their field, how are they picked ?

>
> Within the original advisory board, Achal has probably been the most
> active in the past years. He definitly joined the conversation. I find
> it really odd to read now that being on the advisory board might
> actually be a disadvantage and that "being a community member" would be
> considered more important than being bright, involved, funny, good
> looking (yeahhhh), entrepreneur and so on.
>

I think you made my point, it doesn't matter if you know how Wikipedia
works, what open-source is, or if you can even open a computer, you can
still lead it if you are "funny, good looking and entrepreneur and so on."
It shouldn't matter if you know what movement you are leading, what open
source culture is like, you just have to be good looking enough to impress
others. Perhaps his bio on the Advisory Board page should say the exact same
thing.


>
>
> >> Achal has a growing influence on Wikimedia, particularly its new
> operations
> >> in India. This has included being part of the hiring decisions, etc.
> This
> >> is
> >> more of a consultant role, making his selection as a Wikimedia Fellow
> even
> >> stranger. And his growing influence and power in such a big part of
> >> Wikimedia's five-year strategy is making people wary. I think
> conversation
> >> and engagement (on this list and elsewhere) would be very good in a
> number
> >> of ways.
> >>
> >> MZMcBride
> >>
> >> [1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=2748
> >> [2] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>
>
> On 1/20/11 9:46 AM, whothis wrote:
>  > I agree with what he said.
>  >
>  > After looking him up, the only qualification I can find of this person
> is
>  > that he's on the advisory board, No idea, how he got there and for
> how long
>  > is his "term", makes me think that maybe there is a Cabal. Most places
>  > mirror his description on the Advisory Board page. I am tired of
> seeing the
>  > same names, doing the rounds over and over again, from groups to
> committees
>  > to fellowships to whatever that comes next.
>  >
>  > Will anyone else from the Advisory board or maybe even the board, past
> or
>  > present members included, going to receive a "fellowship" now?
>
>
> LOL
> Long time since I saw such a perfect example of fallacious argument.
> Thank you for the laugh :)
>

Clearly, I am laughing too.

>
>
> Anthere
>
>
>
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