[Foundation-l] Design goals for the election and board selection process

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 7/14/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
>
> I have enjoyed the technical discussions around the design of the
> voting mechanism, and I think it is quite worthwhile for us to
> continue learning and thinking about these things.  There are several
> tradeoffs here, and the choice is not easy.


Aye, true dat.


> But additionally I think we should think about what the purpose of
> the elections is, and what the appropriate design should be.  This
> should be part of a broader analysis of what the purpose of the board
> should be, and what the overall design of the process of board
> selection (including elections, appointments, etc.) should be in
> order to achieve those goals.
>
> The possibilities open to us are endless.  And there are strengths
> and weaknesses to various approaches.
>
> A quick list of some of the things that I think are important:
>
> 1. Diverse representation - and I mean diversity in the sense of
> geography, languages, projects, gender, skills, etc.


Diversity but not tokenization. On this count we have probably done
astonishingly well considering what our core demographic is. The
board has never been and there is no prospect of it becoming a
panel of teenage nerds ;D

Should be noted that even barring the extreme of tokenization there
is no need to even strive for perfect "representativeness", diversity
is well good enough. In this as most things, the perfect is an enemy
of the good. We cannot hope for the board to represent equally
tiny trial projects and the established mega-projects in our midst,
nor ancient dead languages on a par with english; that way lies madness.

2. Professionalism - part of diversity, we don't want or need all the
> board to be "good editors" but rather to have as well people who have
> technical experience, nonprofit governance experience, legal
> experience, big business experience, dot-com experience, public
> charity fundraising experience, foundation grant application
> experience, political experience/contacts, etc.


Definitely there are at least certain essential skills that the board
would ideally encompass within its own makeup rather than have
to always rely on consulting experts outside itself. These of course
include (1.) understanding of jurisprudence, (2.) financing and handling the

finances of a non-profit and perhaps most improtantly (3.) the ineffable
(and  not necessarily professional) skills for keeping a group of people
like the board working as seamlessly as possible.

Other professional skill-set/experience goodies than the above, would
likely fall under the heading of diversity, and something very useful to
make the best use of possible, if in no other way than to work those
people as conduits to the committees who handle the type of things
they are used to working with.

3. Harmony - the current board is filled with good people who do not
> always agree but who -- to my great pleasure -- work together in an
> atmosphere of mutual respect and trust (mostly, we are human of
> course :) ) -- approval voting is good for this, it generates
> candidates who have broad support.  Some voting systems would be much
> more likely to allow a "troll candidate" to concentrate attention and
> get elected in a partisan split, etc.


This is an important point. One of the things that no doubt helps the
board so far attain the harmony is that the size of the board has
and will continue to grow, so there is no incentive for any infighting
for relection to a fixed set of seats, and also the job has as I understand
it been largely coping with external pressures, and the need to proceed
upon urgent matters. As things solidify, it will be good to find ways to
anchor the board in someway, to ensure everlasting continuity in its
functions.

Even though this election was the first! time that an election caused
a seat to change hands, we need to guard both against the possibility
of a troll candidate, but also massive overturn of good candidates with
other good candidates. Simply changing too much of the board in one
election would be risky. So it is important that we keep to the tranche
system. (I have even toyed around with the idea of having a staggered
length term system, which would allow for organic expansion of the board,
For example, three seats constested, who comes first, serves up to
three years (with the option to step down at any election time, and
make it the case that there will be two three year seats at stake that
time, if there is an other scheduled 3. year termer contesting his seat at
that time), both second and third serve normal 2 year terms. Every time
there isn't an incumbent 3. year termer contesting, a new seat is added.

This system would grow the board incrementally and at a natural pace,
all that would be needed would be to set an upper bound (revisable of
course, as experience would dictate) for the board size, without the
need to think separately at each election about how much to expand
the board if at all.

4. Responsiveness - that the board listens to the community
>
> 5. Independence - that the board has the moral authority to make
> unpopular decisions at times, so that the board does not end up being
> too beholden to internal politics of the moment and can feel the
> strength to stick to principles even in cases where those principles
> might not be so popular
>
> (Yes, 4 and 5 are in tension and therefore have to be balanced.)
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]