folk might be interested in; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OMBUDSMEN an idea driven by User:Bstone in a similar vein, and it's probably also somewhat relevant that the foundation are proposing to vote on the creation of a 'volunteer council' which may or may not have similar intentions - it's a big hard to tell! http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/039756.html cheers, PM. On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 5:00 AM, Wily D <wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 6:57 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm not particularly convinced this is true. It's very likely the case that if some commanding mandate came from the community requesting Jimbo step down that he would, but I don't think the mere act of saying it would make it so. Jimbo compares his role of QEII on occasion, and it's definitely the case that in at least some of the countries where she's Queen, she can only de jure be removed from her position with her permission. That said, I think you'd be hard pressed to round up much support for petitioning Jimbo to relinquish that authority to the community. But do feel free to open a discussion. WilyD

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:19 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Err, at the very least, on en.wiki, he's the sole member of the "founder" class. He appoints people to ArbCom, and determines the number of members. Jimbo made this statement: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-April/069100.html which seems he's now under the authority of ArbCom too - seems odd. Perhaps his only remaining 'de jure' authority is to appoint or de-appoint ArbCom members. But somebody here or there may be aware of others. As for open rebellion - not without the foundation's support. Can't just occupy the servers. ;) You could always run a strawpoll. WilyD

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels This page says it enables his to grant and remove permissions. On en.wiki, Jimbo is listed as Founder, Oversight, Admin - he's also a Stewart on Meta (and Bureaucrat and Sysop) so the point's moot anyhow. Of course, Wikipedia has no "laws", but the "WP:ArbCom" policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy notes "Remedies and enforcement actions may be appealed to, and are subject to modification by, Jimbo Wales. An exception is that if a case involves review of one of Jimbo's own administrator or steward actions, Jimbo has agreed to accept the committee's decision as final." This page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee acknowledges that Jimbo appoints people to the ArbCom, but maybe it's "de jure" impossible for anyone to get on ArbCom, and just "de facto" that Jimbo appoints them. Er, obviously one could fork. But the control of the website et al. rests with devs & stewarts & so on. Not mere plebs Err, I didn't mean to suggest that you wanted to. Merely that if you wanted to gauge the community, it could be done. Regardless of my or your personal opinion, if the community's unhappy, a strawpoll revealing that seems worthwhile. I don't believe it is, though. WilyD