On 6/17/2010 5:35 PM, phoebe ayers wrote: > OK, so I guess my question is (and we talked about this on IRC too) -- > who has the power or the ability -- or who *should*, in a perfect > world -- create such a committee? We don't have much precedent for > this. There were concerns over who or what body can create > governance/oversight structures, particularly if this isn't really > just a Foundation issue. > I suppose the board could create the committee, if it's not clear who else might have the authority. Or perhaps better, the board could authorize its creation. I think the board is a bit reluctant to jump in, partly for the reason Sue mentioned that overseeing Wikimania is not really a board-level issue (it's primarily operational rather than strategic), but also because the board is not well placed to fill and maintain committees like this. When it becomes a situation of appointing people none of us really knows, or feeling that there are probably people we're not aware who ought to be recruited to a committee like this, it's pretty uncomfortable to have that responsibility. But if we authorized the committee and then let the staff and experienced Wikimania volunteers review applications or expressions of interest to join the committee, that might work out. That's kind of the direction things have moved in any case. Some of the early committees that still function have evolved to a place outside the board's immediate activity, and the current work of the governance committee is focused more on structures needed to organize the board's own functions.
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