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

[John Vandenberg]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Risker <risker.wp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1 February 2012 16:44, Stuart West <stuwest at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'll give my personal view on the question, and invite others on the board
>> to jump in.  I think the difference between the specific expertise seats
>> and the appointed seats is subtle but important.
>>
>> My sense is that the WMF Board specific expertise seats are more focused
>> on board operations and governance.  so the Board might do a
>> self-assessment and identify that it needs someone with financial/audit
>> oversight experience to serve as Board Treasurer, and then go out and find
>> it. That's me.  It's also reactive and designed to fill in the gaps.  So we
>> as Board decided a few years ago that we lacked sufficient insight and
>> perspective from outside North America and Europe, so we sought out and
>> were incredibly luck to find Bishakha.
>>
>> The opportunity for the two seats appointed by movement organizations like
>> the chapters is broader.  Many more people are involved in identifying and
>> surfacing potential candidates, so it has the potential to cast a wider and
>> more thoughtful net.  And there is less constraint to meet specific
>> governance needs, which frees up the process to focus on the people and
>> perspectives that can have the most positive impact on our movement's
>> pursuit of the mission.
>>
>> -
>>
>
> This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three
> elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of
> the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for the
> "chapter" seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It
> concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter
> members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 "users" voted.[1]

In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more
than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

Unfortunately neither process captures a large percentage of the
active Wikimedian community.

1. see bottom of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/Results/en

2. see "members" column of
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#Existing_chapters

-- 
John Vandenberg