[Foundation-l] Call for nominations: chapter-appointed seats on the WMF Board of Trustees

[Florence Devouard]

On 2/3/12 11:15 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
>> As in... Michael Snow ?
>>
>> Who is a fabulous guy, ran in community election, and was turned down ?
>>
>> Florence
>>
>>
>
> Domas?
>
> I do not think we respect him less because of that.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
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Domas was not a chapter proposition :)

Until now, chapter propositions have been Arne, Phoebe and Michael.

Michael was turned down by community. Aware he would be a great asset, 
he was appointed by the board first, then proposed by chapters second to 
extend his time on the board. He was a great choice.

I do not know if Phoebe would have been community elected or not. She 
did not try. I can only guess that if she were not chosen this year by 
chapters, she could very well be community elected in the future because 
she is obviously very involved and doing good stuff. Excellent secretary 
as well.

As for Arne... I may be wrong but I think he would not have been willing 
to run for community elections. I also think he was a good choice.

We may not have enough years of experience to be able to draw serious 
conclusions regarding chapter selections quality. But the two sessions 
draw good names.

I think it makes sense to get board members selected by the community 
and board members selected by chapters because the focus is different. 
I'd love to see members selected by the community being active editors, 
involved on a regular basis on the project with editorial and soft 
development activities. And I also love seeing board members selected by 
the chapters being more involved with the organizational side of things 
(finances, legal, partnership and so on). Both sides are necessary.

Chapters are not so good to identify good representants of the editorial 
community. And the community is not so good at selecting board members 
with specific expertise and knowledge on the organizational side of 
things. Both selections complement each other greatly.

My regret though.... is that the community tend to reelect the same 
people over time, as long as they candidate again and WMF did not do 
anything outrageously wrong. The inconvenience of this is that board 
members are naturally pushed away from editorial activity (not enough 
time, fear of legal responsibilities etc.). And the outcome is that the 
board may be less and less in touch with the realities of the projects 
themselves. It may be one of the benefits from drawing candidates to the 
board from at least these 3 different pools (community, chapters, 
appointed) to balance the risk of a board getting too stable.

I would not object if the current WMF board would restructure the system 
so that board members be selected from 4 different pools (such as 
community, chapters, appointed, groups of interest). I think it would 
add a diversity and a pinch of instability which may perhaps lack a 
little bit right now.

Florence