Gerard Meijssen wrote:
As I understand things, there are two types of
people in the Wikimedia
Foundation and its projects.
* There are the person with an official role; they are appointed or
chosen to their function.
* There are the persons with no official status as far as the WMF is
concerned. These include stewards, bureaucrats, admins and users.
Only the first two groups have any protection for what they do within
the Wikimedia Foundation. They have this protection as they represent
the Wikimedia Foundation in an official capacity. When something is done
on any of the projects that results in a legal situation, it is the
person who will be, when identified, be the one prosecuted. Depending on
the situation the Wikimedia Foundation or a chapter may involve itself,
this is not a given.
When a person in his official position gets into a legal situation, it
typically is the organisation, here the Wikimedia Foundation, who will
be prosecuted. It is only when a person is criminally negligent or
involved that there is a ground to prosecute an individual.
This is my understanding of how these things work. The consequence is
that officers of the WMF or of chapters have protection that all other
WMF volunteers lack. The fact that statutory laws exist for
'''gross'''
mismanagement is something that we should welcome. Typically it takes
some effort to qualify as gross mismanagement. Given the people that we
currently have in official positions this is unlikely to happen.
The only group of people for whom it is not entirely clear to me what
their status is, are the people who help out on OTRS. Yes, I do know how
careful these people try to do their job.. :)
Thanks,
GerardM
My apologies Gerard, but all this seems to me to be a misconception of
the whole issue. Not even erroneous, but dangerous actually.
I think it is incorrect to imply that those elected/appointed are
somehow "protected" by their position in the Foundation (ie, the
Foundation will be prosecuted rather than them as individuals) while
"regular editors" lack protection.
I would like to ask Brad here to clarify this issue publicly for you,
and for all those who read your statement. Brad, can you help ? Thanks
in advance :-)
Anthere
It seems to me that he is basically right. The doctrine is
[[respondeat superior]], and it typically applies only to people
working in an official capacity.
Anthony