This is a great point, Alec - something on my mind as well. It is great that we had such a diversity of candidates, and we need more ways to invite people to participate in the future of the movement.
> To me, this question was prompted by the skills of Jane S. Richardson > (Dcrjsr) and William H. DuBay (Bdubay). Both have special expertise, > both propose specific projects that I think are utterly > non-controversial and they don't necessarily need the 'full force of > the office' to help the foundation with them. Not only is it not needed, being on the Board of the Foundation may not help such projects happen. To realize a content-related project, what is needed is a clear plan, and support from interested participants. Then you have something the Foundation can facilitate. This is especially true in a movement like ours where the central foundation plays a supporting role rather than a project-defining role. The closest thing I've seen to a specific request that talented people help realize a project they care about is the advisory board for the Public Policy initiative: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/08/06/announcing-the-public-policy-initiative-advisory-board/ That has been active and successful, and may be sustainable after the initial WMF-funded project moves on. I would like to see something like this in many subject areas, to help us improve [for inetance, in literacy & readability, and in science in general]. > These may not be the only two who we should consider actively > recruiting post-election, the list may not be exhaustive. These > people volunteered to do an insane amount of work for us It would be good to have ways to engage all participants -- and others who were following the election but for whatever reason not interested in running -- in acting on the issues that people think and care about when voting. Again, most of the issues that people care about are driven by community project decisions and roadmaps more than by the opinions of Trustees on the Board. Perhaps a 'clerking' process during election season could help pull out related strategic issues as they come up in discussion, and make progress towards resolving them. SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l