If I were making the decision, I would want to know how well someone would be able to research and articulate a response on these issues even without a substantial amount of background knowledge. So I'm not suggesting the questions are appropriate for anything other than written answers, but they're entirely sincere and in my opinion are the most important issues facing the Board.
Take the question about endowment, for example. Being able to answer how many years it would take to establish a self-sustaining endowment is a fairly sophisticated finance question involving interest and present value calculations. But I sincerely believe that Board members should be skilled enough to research and to formulate a reasonable answer. I had them handy because they are the same questions I intend to ask the election candidates. On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 5:11 AM, Jan-Bart de Vreede <jdevre...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hey > > Thanks! > > I am sure that Alice is grateful for the input. I must confess though that I > think that most of these questions require a deep knowledge of the movement > and the community and as such disqualify a lot of potential candidates… (I > would hazard a guess that none of the past appointed candidates (including > myself) were not able to answer 80% of these questions until about 6 months > "on the job". So are you proposing these questions to select new candidates > or are you simply trying to get attention for these issues (as you have been > doing over the past months… which is fair enough to some degree?) > > (and to be fair: at this point, with all the experience I have within the > movement I would want to see most of these decisions researched before > committing to a point of view) > > Jan-Bart > > > > On Feb 18, 2013, at 9:19 AM, James Salsman <jsals...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Jan-Bart de Vreede wrote: >>> ... >>> if you have questions that you think we should ask: feel free to suggest >>> them here :) >> >> I have these ten questions: >> >> 1. What do you think a reasonable goal for the growth of the Wikimedia >> Education Program over the next five years is? >> >> 2. Do you believe that the Foundation should establish an endowment? >> If so, how large do you think such an endowment should be; in >> particular, should the Foundation establish an endowment large enough >> to subsist at present staffing levels and growth rates from current >> investment grade bond interest rates without accepting additional >> donations? If so, over how many years do you think it would be most >> appropriate to establish such an endowment? >> >> 3. How often do you think the Foundation should propose advocacy >> actions to the community? Do you believe the Foundation should survey >> the opinion of the community and donors on this question? >> >> 4. Should the Foundation meet or exceed Silicon Valley competitive pay >> to attract and retain the best talent while competing with firms able >> to offer equity participation? Do you believe the Foundation should >> survey the opinion of the community and donors on this question? Why >> or why not? >> >> 5. Should the Foundation establish a system of awarding employee >> bonuses in amounts determined by anonymous peer evaluations? Why or >> why not? >> >> 6. Some proportion of long term project editors are impoverished, >> probably within a few percentage points of the impoverished proportion >> of the population as a whole. How do you think the Foundation could >> best assist impoverished long term volunteers? Do you think it should? >> Why or why not? >> >> 7. To what extent do you believe the Foundation should reimburse >> travel and content development expenses for Wikinews contributors? In >> particular, if you were to propose a pilot grant program to grant >> travel and expense funds directly to individual Wikinews reporters, >> how many such awards would you begin with and how would you measure >> their effectiveness? >> >> 8. PeerWise is a popular closed-source assessment question and answer >> database (http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/) used in hundreds of >> higher education institutions. Unlike textbooks, traditional courses, >> MOOCs, and Moodle-style courses, PeerWise question databases can and >> often are populated entirely by learners, with answers reviewed in a >> style very similar to wiki content. Do you believe it would be >> appropriate for the Foundation to develop an open source version of >> PeerWise? Why or why not? >> >> 9. Do you believe the Foundation should employ professional fact >> checkers who would not edit reader-facing content on the projects, but >> who would be available to research questions pertaining to content >> disputes at the request of projects' dispute resolution volunteers >> (e.g. Wikipedia mediators) to prepare reports to help volunteers >> resolve content disputes? Why or why not? Do you believe the >> Foundation should survey the opinion of the community and donors on >> this question? >> >> 10. What is your experience with editing or otherwise supporting >> Foundation projects? >> >> Sincerely, >> James Salsman > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
