Stevertigo wrote:
But the fact is that until Jimbo decides otherwise, he is the reigning monarch.
He already HAS decided otherwise, by creating the Wikimedia Foundation and transferring the assets of Wikipedia from his private company to the foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation's bylaws clearly state, "All corporate powers shall be exercised by or under the authority of, and the business and affairs of the Foundation shall be managed under, the direction of the Board of Trustees. ... The act of the majority of the Trustees present at a meeting at which a quorum is present shall be the act of the Board of Trustees." Moreover, "Any Trustee may be removed by a majority vote of the full membership of the Board."
In short, Jimbo's powers only exist insofar as they are granted to him by the full board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, on which he only holds one seat. Moreover, the other trustees could remove him from the board if they so chose. If it were their desire to do so, in fact, they could impose limits on his powers up to and including banning him entirely from editing Wikipedia.
This does not mean, of course, that he has no powers. It merely means that his powers are derived from (and therefore limited by) the consent of the full board of the foundation, which chooses to grant him certain powers based on the trust he has accumulated through his history as a leader of the project. If, however, a dispute were to arise over the question of who has ultimate power, there is little doubt that a court of law would rule in favor of the board.
In short: The king is dead. Long live Jimbo!
-------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118 --------------------------------
Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the community, which the Foundation more or less denies. So whatever corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from whatever powers our community traditions give me.
Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't intend to interfere with that one way or the other.
The community predates the Foundation, and was created to hold certain legal assets and fulfill certain legal responsibilities.
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Stevertigo wrote:
But the fact is that until Jimbo decides otherwise, he is the reigning monarch.
He already HAS decided otherwise, by creating the Wikimedia Foundation and transferring the assets of Wikipedia from his private company to the foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation's bylaws clearly state, "All corporate powers shall be exercised by or under the authority of, and the business and affairs of the Foundation shall be managed under, the direction of the Board of Trustees. ... The act of the majority of the Trustees present at a meeting at which a quorum is present shall be the act of the Board of Trustees." Moreover, "Any Trustee may be removed by a majority vote of the full membership of the Board."
In short, Jimbo's powers only exist insofar as they are granted to him by the full board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation, on which he only holds one seat. Moreover, the other trustees could remove him from the board if they so chose. If it were their desire to do so, in fact, they could impose limits on his powers up to and including banning him entirely from editing Wikipedia.
This does not mean, of course, that he has no powers. It merely means that his powers are derived from (and therefore limited by) the consent of the full board of the foundation, which chooses to grant him certain powers based on the trust he has accumulated through his history as a leader of the project. If, however, a dispute were to arise over the question of who has ultimate power, there is little doubt that a court of law would rule in favor of the board.
In short: The king is dead. Long live Jimbo!
| Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever
| Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=1118
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On 3/21/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the community, which the Foundation more or less denies. So whatever corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from whatever powers our community traditions give me.
Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't intend to interfere with that one way or the other.
The community predates the Foundation, and was created to hold certain legal assets and fulfill certain legal responsibilities.
Ok, I'm going to do something really filthy now and quote some comments you made more than two years ago. I realise that's unfair, and that I'm putting you on the spot here. I do think they are relevant, but if you'd just like to answer with "That was two years ago! I was drunk when I wrote that!", that's totally ok with me :)
My understanding of your role in wikipedia was pretty much formed on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Proposed_amendment...
Remember that? We wanted to change some arbcom-policies and we had this big vote about it? Anyway, one of the issues that was voted on was whether the arbcom should have jurisdiction over the board. If we are searching for a policy-ruling in the vast lore that is the wikipedia name-space, this seems to me to be the correct one to go to. Anyway, these are some of the comments you made (again, I realise it was 2 years ago, and I apologise. Still, this seems relevant to me):
(this is in response to the suggestion that the arbcom shouldn't be able to be mean to people on the board) "It should be noted that this is a simple fact, not a policy that can be set by a vote. Any jurisdiction that the arbcom has over board members has to be by tradition and convention, not based on a policy vote. --Jimbo Wales 04:56, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"
(in response to a comment) "The arbcom is a delegation of my powers. If the arbcom ever did rule against me, it is very likely that I would -- as a matter of courtesy and convention -- abide by the ruling. But as a simple matter of fact, any jurisdiction that the arbcom has over the board has to come from the board not from a community vote.--Jimbo Wales 05:04, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"
(in response to a comment from Jamesday) "Jamesday is just mistaken about this. The arbcom acts as a delegation of my power. Jamesday may not agree with this, but it is the way the arbcom was created.--Jimbo Wales 05:02, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"
(in response to another comment suggesting that admins shouldn't be beholden to the board) "Admins *are* subject to the board's authority, make no mistake about it. The board has the right to set policy, and this includes removing admins, changing the powers of admins, etc.--Jimbo Wales 05:02, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)"
These comments was always kinda informed me of yours and the boards role on wikipedia. That the foundation has ultimate power over the entire community since they own the servers, but they never exercise this. Your role is that of an officer of the foundation, that you are the ultimate arbiter of everything simply because of the de jure nature of your position.
I may be misinterpreting this completely, but you have to agree that it is a very different picture you paint now than you painted two years ago. Has anything changed since then, or am I completely misunderstanding you (then, or now)?
--Oskar
On 21/03/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
These comments was always kinda informed me of yours and the boards role on wikipedia. That the foundation has ultimate power over the entire community since they own the servers, but they never exercise this.
They have however *pushed rather hard* on occasions - e.g. Office actions, WP:BLP. (Which was quickly hammered out in a sensible and usable fashion because it was pretty clear it was time for something like it.)
I may be misinterpreting this completely, but you have to agree that it is a very different picture you paint now than you painted two years ago. Has anything changed since then, or am I completely misunderstanding you (then, or now)?
I don't think it's that different. The history of the role is part of the role in that sense.
- d.
On 21/03/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the community, which the Foundation more or less denies. So whatever corporate powers I have or don't have are likely quite different from whatever powers our community traditions give me. Several board members have made it quite clear that they don't intend to interfere with that one way or the other. The community predates the Foundation, and was created to hold certain legal assets and fulfill certain legal responsibilities.
The community is not the Foundation. The Foundation asserts certain powers by virtue of being the organisation that runs the web servers, e.g. administrator is a community function, but checkuser is more of a Foundation job - it's essentially a power normally held by the developers/sysadmins - the power to look certain sensitive stuff up in the database, said database being run by the Foundation. (It was originally created so the ArbCom didn't have to keep bugging Tim and Brion to look up IPs.) Steward powers are probably much the same, though they cross over. Certain things make more sense if you think in terms of what's the community and what's the Foundation.
- d.
Well, Sheldon, this assumes that the Foundation has authority *over* the community, which the Foundation more or less denies.
The way I view it, the Foundation is used by the community to facilitate our aims (ie. making an encyclopedia). If, at any point, the community doesn't like the way the Foundation is performing that role, we'll simply make a new foundation and carry on as we were (ie. we fork).