On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak <dar...@alk.edu.pl> wrote:
> I've been also thinking about revitalizing our Advisory Board - the way I
> would like to see it would be dividing it into (a) community (b) tech and
> (c) academic subgroups, available for immediate consulting and feedback.
Long time ago I suggested more structured way to use Advisory Board.
So, here is the draft of the idea again.
I don't think you need too specific "Community Advisory Board", as you
could reach, for example, AffCom, LangCom, stewards, en.wp ArbCom etc.
-- or, if you really need too general advice and there is no assembly
yet, all of them -- if you need a specific advice. Basically, you have
much better granulated "Community Advisory Board", although the Board
is not using it usually.
You definitely need a kind of "Governing Advisory Board", which would
be consisted of the former Board members and people with very good
knowledge of governing and other ways of social organization (NPOs,
business, movements...).
But, on top of that you could structure your needs. You could start it
by imagining any expertise you collectively lack (I could give you one
clear example immediately: relations with formal diplomacy) and start
thinking how to find appropriate people for that group.
Then, you could create an "Innovation Advisory Board", put there all
Jimmy's technolibertarian ubercapitalist friends and ask them about
their ideas. I am sure they could be very useful in such body. They
could also find useful to participate in such body for Wikim/pedia
cause.
And so on. Any of such advisory boards be even more useful if you
could find them not just an advisory role, but a committe-like
("Diversity Committee", with strong advisory role in relation to the
social diversification of Wikimedia bodies, for example -- "strong
advisory role" = people don't do something against their
recommendation without very strong reason) or even more active role
inside of the movement ("Technology Innovation Committee", with the
role to plan long-term technological innovation).
If you have a couple of active advisory boards, you could recruit new
Board members from them, with the specific purpose, based on the
Strategic Plan or other organizational needs. That could give us
After their mandate as Board members, they would still stay inside of
hopefully active Wikimedia bodies and we won't lose their experience.
Actually, if they don't have enough time to fully participate as Board
members and you still have the same focus, you could always replace
them with a fellow <particular> Advisory Board members.
Said so, this is not that straight-forward task and requires active
work per advisory board you create. There should be a need, a
structure and a way how to engage them. Find a person per advisory
board who is willing to lead such body and delegate the creation and
communication of that body to her or him. (That could be Board member,
somebody from the movement or an employee.)
I also don't think it's in collision with the assembly. Those should
be Wikimedia bodies and any Wikimedia body should be able to ask them
for advice. They could be helpful bodies to the future assembly, as
well.
While I wrote the last paragraph, I realized that we badly need one of
those bodies: Legal Advisory Board: the body which could be asked by
any Wikimedia organization or Wikimedian in relation to any legal
issue they are struggling with.
--
Milos
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