[Foundation-l] Business Related List

[Michael Bimmler]

Uh, if you mark something as "off-list" you should maybe also not send
it to the list afterwards. Sorry for having continued this thread, I
shall shut up now.

On 9/5/06, Michael Bimmler <mbimmler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Off-list-reply, following Aphaia's plea
>
> On 9/5/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
> > Michael Bimmler wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >If you have a high-priority and/or important business question, which
> > >you want to be answered by nobody but Foundation officials, why don't
> > >you just write an email to the Foundation? There is board at wikimedia
> > >dot org and bpatrick at wikimedia dot org (Brad Patrick, general
> > >counsel & Interim Executive Director WMF) for your convenience.
> > >
> > I do this all the time with Brad and those emails dont make it to this list.
> >
> Well, okay, so you can handle your questions with Brad and everything
> is fine. Why do send them to the list then?
> > >I
> > >don't think that you can prohibit community members from expressing
> > >themselves when using a mailing list. There is private email for
> > >business purposes.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I am not trying to prohibit anyone from expressing themselves, in fact,
> > it's the other way
> > around, I am often the target of folks oppressing my expressions for
> > purely political reasons.
> It might rather be for on-/offtopic reasons...
>
> > I have no problem using the foundation list for progress on African
> > languages and other programs, but a business
> > oriented list would be a better solution. The problem with the community
> > moderator concept
> > here is there may be other businesses spring up and when a non-employee
> > threatens to moderate
> > or does moderate someone on such a list, there are some issues
> > potentially created for the foundation.
> > Issues I would rather not deal with.
> >
> I beg your pardon? Are you implying that the foundation may get legal
> problems (my translation of your word "issue") as they allow
> experienced members (not everybody gets list-moderator...) to moderate
> the mailinglists? If the Foundation decides. that its mailing list
> shall rather be administered by volunteers chosen by them than by e.g.
> office employees, I don't see any problem in that solution. And if
> these volunteer admins hence moderate or threaten to moderate posts to
> the lists, they are just using the powers given to them by the
> Foundation. If serious concerns about the actions of a list admin are
> raised, they will reach the foundation and the foundation *might* if
> they deem it appropriate consider the removal of the administrator
> functions of the user in question. As said, this is quite unlikely, as
> the list administrators are without exception distinguished users.
> So I see no problem whatsoever with having non-foundation-employees
> administering this list.
>
> Michael
>