Nick Arnett wrote: > > > On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Trent Shipley <tship...@deru.com > <mailto:tship...@deru.com>> wrote: > > The host or its agents cannot serve on any board of > directors since that would be a conflict of interest. > > > Eh? Interlocking boards of directors with conflicts of interest are > the American Way! > > Seriously, though, I'd need some clarification. I have and I do serve > on boards, but I don't think they create any conflict of interest. I > am presently on the board of Lutheran Social Services, one of the > largest social services non-profits around. There's no conflict > there, I'm quite sure. > > Conflicts of interest need to be disclosed for the sake of > transparency, of course. > > What kind of boards did you have in mind? > > Nick > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com > > Well, I see the UniversesImagined.org trademarks and content being under the custodianship of the UniversesImagined Foundation (UIF). The UIF is a non-profit 501.c3 with membership qualifications to be determined ... probably membership is free and consists of a paper document with a signature saying "I want to be a member". The board would consist of two contributors, two academics, two creative producers (for example David Brin), and two business producers (DB's publisher or Paramount). Board members would have to be real people. There would be an executive committee of the usual president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary.
There would be at least two officers. An Editor-in-Chief and a Chief Information Officer (the CIO manages the relationship with the host). To insure editorial independence, I suggest that the UIF not put advertising on the website. Unfortunately that makes supporting the site problematic. To provide money for hosting the site I suggest the UIF outsource hosting and have an arms-length relationship with hosting. Thus, the host can make whatever it wants with noninvasive/non-intrusive advertising in return for hosting the wiki. I propose that no agent of the host serve on the UIF board because the host's agent would have to work in the interest of the host, breaking editorial independence. Indeed, I suggest no money pass from the host to the UIF. The UIF might consider alienation of profits when considering bids to an RFP for a host, but these should go to selected causes like literacy, science education, endowed literature chairs in imaginaria, English lit scholarships, film school scholarships, or support for topical Ph.D. research, and so on. Do we want to have a UIF-host type of organization? When do we have to formalize that relationship? As the zeroth host, Nick is taking on an entrepreneurial risk under a UIF-host organization. The UIF as virtual representative of a future UniversesImagined community really can't give him the right to host in perpetuity, but Nick deserves consideration for being the entrepreneurial host. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
