[Foundation-l] Where we are headed

[Erik Moeller]

On 6/5/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/6/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > One person who immediately comes to mind is Achal Prabhala, an
> > important, charismatic and brilliant international leader in the
> > "Access to Knowledge" movement, i.e. availability of free textbooks
> > and other learning resources, international IP law, etc. (he gave an
> > excellent speech at Wikimania on the topic).
>
> I met Achal when I was in South Africa, and again at Wikimania last
> year. If there is to be an advisory board, he should definitely be
> considered for that since he has a lot of very relevant experience and
> would seem to support our goals. I'd rather keep the actual board
> limited to people with experience of Wikimedia though, rather than
> outsiders to increase the chance the Board members are aware of the
> community's concerns and have some motivation to follow the wishes of
> the community.

Here the question is what we consider to be experience with Wikimedia.
If they are very experienced with Wikimedia, then I think they should
be elected by the community. If we're talking about "Have you edited a
wiki / posted to the mailing list / etc. at least a few times", then I
think this is symbolic experience which can easily be acquired within
a couple of weeks.

In other words, _if_ the Board is going to _appoint_ a new member with
full voting rights (and we have not really fully established that it
should), I think the level of experience with Wikimedia should indeed
be a secondary concern. The primary concern should be what additional
qualifications they bring to the table that we are unlikely to easily
find through an open election process.

In the case of Achal, what also makes a difference to me is, that
after long discussions with him, I found him to be a very reasonable
person. He would only get involved where it makes sense for him to get
involved.

Erik