Hi WikiJournal participants,

The bylaws are now updated, and I have notified the Affiliations Committee, so we are one step closer to becoming a thematic organization of Wikimedia Foundation.

Best regards,

Mikael

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mikael Häggström <editor.in.chief@wikijmed.org>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 11:10 PM
Subject: Re: [AffCom] WikiJournal as a thematic organization
To: Tanweer Morshed <wiki.tanweer@gmail.com>, Affiliations Committee list <affcom@lists.wikimedia.org>


Dear Tanweer and AffCom,

WikiJournal has now updated its bylaws to comply with the mentioned issues (see sections below). Details on the community discussions in these matters can be found at: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group#Bylaws_review_by_AffCom .

Please let me know if anything is still unclear, or if there are additional issues before final consideration for becoming a thematic organization.

1. Transparency of amendments:

ARTICLE_IX_-_AMENDMENT is now changed to: "These Bylaws may be altered, amended or repealed and new Bylaws may be adopted by a majority of votes of the Administrative Board, counting at least 20 days after a written notice has been given to the following forums with intention to alter, amend or repeal or to adopt new Bylaws:

  • The internal email list of the Administrative Board
  • The main public email list of WikiJournal
  • The main online Discuss page of WikiJournal

2. Quantifying electorate:
In Section_3._Appointment_of_journal_representatives, the vote is now decided "by a majority of votes" instead of majority vote.

In ARTICLE IV, Section 4. Appointment of community-selected members, we have removed the following paragraph:
  • "An election shall be held if supported by a majority vote of all Administrative Board Members or by a petition supporting a new vote from greater than 20% of the total people in the groups specified in paragraph (d) combined."

In effect, the organization will be able to reach decisions even if there will eventually be a large number of inactive members.

3. Petitions:

Article IV, Section 4(b) (Appointment_of_community-selected_members) states that "Anyone may nominate herself/himself as a candidate for Administrative Boardmembership. An announcement of candidacy needs to be made at the talk page of the main page of WikiJournal.."

At Article VII, Section 3, we have now added: "...after at least 5 days of voting, following an entry at the the main Discuss page of WikiJournal by any registered Wikiversity user.

An online wiki entry is thus the formal initiation of member-initiated processes. In practice, such issues can also begin in emails, either privately between members or on public email lists. Still, with these bylaws, a mention in wiki discussions is still necessary before such member-initiated processes can have effect.

4. WikiJournal vs Individual WikiJournals:

We do want WikiJournal to be the thematic organization. 
Section_3._Organization now states that:
A) WikiJournal is the publisher of Individual WikiJournals
B) WikiJournal is responsible for uniformity of editorial procedures, as well as for the technical infrastructure of Individual WikiJournals.
C) WikiJournal administers the financials of Individual WikiJournals, unless having approved an Individual WikiJournal to handle some or all financials independently.
D) Each Individual WikiJournal may have its own legal organization. Each Individual Wikijournal may have bylaws of its own, as long as they are compatible with these bylaws.
E) (Basically unchanged:) An Individual WikiJournal group has full powers over all its pages and editorial proceedings. Before having adopted bylaws, the consensus among active journal participants decides in matters related to that journal.

Furthermore, this is now also reflected for the bylaws of individual WikiJournals, as seen at:
This article forms a template and is thus directly used in the bylaws of WikiJournal of Medicine, Science and Humanities. The section begins as:

Section 1. Organization
(a) WikiJournal is the publisher of Wiki.J.Med..

(b) WikiJournal is responsible for uniformity of editorial procedures, as well as for the technical infrastructure of Wiki.J.Med..

(c) WikiJournal administers the financials of Wiki.J.Med., unless having approved Wiki.J.Med. to handle some or all financials independently.

(d) Wiki.J.Med. may edit all its wiki pages, including those describing editorial procedures, without the need for approval by WikiJournal.


5. Scope

It is an open-ended ambition, in that participants may start journals in other subjects if they deem the current ones not covering their area of interest. The following is now added to the bylaws:
Section_2._Inclusion_or_rejection:
  • Inclusion or rejection of journals to be part of WikiJournal is decided by a majority of votes of the The Administrative Board of WikiJournal, counting after at least 20 days have passed since a public notice of the election has been made at the talk page of the main page of WikiJournal.

When articles are on the borderline between one subject and another, we come to a consensus among the boards which journal is most appropriate.

Best regards,

Mikael Häggström

On Sun, Oct 21, 2018 at 6:15 PM Tanweer Morshed <wiki.tanweer@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Mikael,

As part of the bylaw review, the AffCom got some questions or concerns. Please address the following: 

(1) Article IX allows the board to amend the bylaws as it sees fit without participation/approval by the broader membership (and, indeed, without any requirement to notify the members at all).  This potentially allows the board to completely change the governance model (e.g. get rid of elections and make the board self-selecting) with no warning or way to prevent it. How would you address this?


(2) Article IV, Section 4(e) automatically makes all registered Wikiversity users who edit WikiJournal pages members.  There is no provision for a user meeting that criterion to end their membership (either voluntarily or because they leave the project); in practice, this will mean that the membership will include an ever-increasing number of former editors, which will make quorum requirements based on a percentage of membership (e.g. Article IV, Section 4(b)). How would you systematize this issue?


(3) There are no procedures for how any of the member-initiated processes (e.g. Article IV, Section 4(b), Article VII, Section 3, etc.) actually work; in other words, how do members make petitions, who receives them, who is responsible for initiating the corresponding votes, etc. How would you address these?


(4) It appears that the legal organization applying under the WikiJournal name (802511-9275) is distinct from the legal organization which runs the WikiJournal of Medicine (802505-7095), but it is unclear what the legal relationship between these organizations will be and which one would actually be recognized as a thematic organization. What is your say about this?  

(5) The are currently three Journals under Wikijournal: Medicine, Science and Humanities. It's not clear or specified in the bylaw to what extent of knowledge category the entity aims to operate in or whether it is an open ended ambition. Do you have any thoughts/principles on this?


Thanks.

Regards,
Tanweer