On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 9:07 PM, Jimmy Wales <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 8/28/11 1:00 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > I think that developing such a legal entity should be a high priority > > for Brazilian Wikipedians to ensure that Wiki activities in Brazil are > > controlled by Brazilians. At the same time I don't think there is any > > value to having a WMF appointee on your board; such a person would find > > it difficult to function under circumstances of perpetual conflict of > > interest. No other chapter has such a clause. > > I had never thought of this before, but now that it has been mentioned, > I just wanted to disagree, quite respectfully because Ray is awesome of > course, and say that I think it is a very interesting idea to have a WMF > appointee on the boards of chapters. > > There should be very few cases where there is a "conflict of interest" > since chapters and the Foundation are deeply tied together always (and > that's a good thing). I think having a Foundation representative on the > board of chapters does present some possibly insurmountable logistical > issues (who will they be?) but I actually think such an arrangement > might be incredibly valuable for improving communication and > *decreasing* perceived conflicts of interest. > > I am sorry Jimmy, I don't follow. I don't see who they will be, to be an insurmountable logistical issue for a Foundation representative, but instead, a complete reversal of previous policy and exercise. It undermines the entire concept of local organizations and brings an unnecessary outside influence on an independent legal organization. Are you arguing for such a representative on other chapters? or are you singling out Brazil here. In case this is about Brazil, I would like to question why a similar proposal wasn't considered for India since it's also a priority area. The entire notion, that having a WMF representative on a chapter board for the purposes of aiding in communication seems wrong to me. There are, and would be conflict of interest, especially after the grants model is implemented. I would argue that the onus is on WMF to aid in communication, there is still not a single dedicated person on staff for chapter coordination/outreach, instead most Chapter relation/oversight comes from an unusual overlap of Global Development, Communications department and rarely Community department. Let me put this in perspective, there are 3 Storytellers, a Strategy department, dedicated researchers, full-time on staff but not a single person to deal with chapters who have been around for several years. If a board of chapters composed of volunteers who have to solely rely on the foundation for activities have to do a better job in communications, the Foundation has to do its part first. Theo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
