On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 9:17 AM, Risker <risker...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 1 February 2012 16:44, Stuart West <stuw...@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 _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
