[Foundation-l] Community Advisory Board / Volunteer Council

[Lodewijk]

While reading the detailed "Legal and Community Advocacy/LCA Announcement",
on  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/LCA_Announcement  , I stumbled
upon the following sentence: "We would like to build a community advisory
board to reinforce our commitment to a global perspective while
understanding and promoting communities beyond English Wikipedia". This was
quite a big news for me - and something worth much more than a simple side
sentence in the details section of a department reshuffling announcement,
so I'll be starting this thread.

As many will know, I have always been a supporter of the Wikimedia
Foundation asking more structural feedback and active input from the
community. I don't believe myself that this 'Foundation-l' is the best
venue for that, nor any of the other communication channels we have at our
availability right now. In the past I have proposed a "Volunteer Council"
which the board did not want to back up and died in silence. In the past
several other mechanisms with similar goals have been proposed.

So, at this announcement I see a good side - this 'community advisory
board' could bring us exactly that: a more structural approach to getting
continuous community input on Foundation governance decisions - other than
having a board member election every two years. If we were to call it
'community advisory board' (who cares about the name) and still give it the
same rights (right for information, right to be asked for its opinion
before certain decisions are being made, right to give unasked advice,
right to veto certain decisions even?) then it would be great news. But
somehow I don't have the feeling that this department is aiming for that.

So I hope it can be elaborated a bit what is a) the authority of this
advisory board (who decided to build it - board, ED or team), b) what will
be the purpose and c) what will be the rights. I know you won't have all
detailed answers yet because you need to enter a consultation process with
the community before setting such steps (which I am grateful for) but I
would like to get a little more insight in the direction you want to aim
for.

Finally, I hope that in case this 'advisory board' is indeed toothless and
very topic centered, I hope that this is being made obvious in its name as
well. And I hope too that this wouldn't hold back people from keeping
asking for a 'real' volunteer council.

Best,
Lodewijk