Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
> I think there are two separate issues on this debate.
>
> 1. Are the Trustees expected to serve as the "top" for us?
> 2. Is the meeting of the Trustees that important compared to others?
>
> For the first question, I think the majority opinion is that the
> Trustees are supposed to listen to us, serve as, and act upon our
> (multilingual wikimedia communty's) concensus. And from what Angela
> and Anthere expressed when running for the election, we can believe
> that they want to do that.
>
> Mark should not worry that much, and I think many people are not that
> different from Mark's view on this issue.
Tomos is very insightful here. While I sympathize with Mark's concerns
about top-down decision-making by the board, I am quite surprised that
he apparently considers it such a significant present danger. I have yet
to see any indication that Angela or Anthere are going to start
dictating decisions to the community, and they have gone to considerable
lengths to solicit community input so far. And from what I can judge of
their personalities, Angela and Anthere both are among the last people I
would expect to adopt a top-down management style, which may have
something to do with why we elected them to the board.
> Regarding the second question
...
> I am surprised to see that so many on this list seem to be on the
> strong supportive side.
>
> In the future, there might be a meeting in the U.S. Is it okay to pay,
> say, 1500 dollars to reimburse the travel expenses of the two Trustees
> from Europe? I don't know. I would like to know the agendas for the
> meeting and think how important it is, rather than to say "Trustees
> should always be paid for that."
>
> But if we decide not to pay, it means that some quality people might
> not run for the next election because they do not have enough money to
> attend the meeting. This is not a happy consequence for us, either.
I think that as to this second question, Tomos, most people understand
that we have an extraordinary opportunity (in terms of physical
proximity), that the cost will be minimal, and that there are real
benefits to having the Trustees meet in person at least once. That is
why so many people are willing to be generous with their money. If we
can show this kind of value and efficient use of donations in all our
fundraising efforts, getting the funds we need should be a
straightforward proposition.
This is not a precedent that the Foundation will start paying travel
expenses for all meetings, because it is also not a precedent as to how
future meetings will be held. I'm sure that Angela, Anthere, and Jimbo
will have several more meetings during the year, but they will probably
conduct these by telephone or IRC or some other means.
--Michael Snow
Delirium wrote:
>We decided to have a board initially not because anyone thought
>it was a good idea, but because the State of Florida requires
>non-profits to have boards of trustees consisting of five or more
>people.
>
Another incorrect statement, I believe. I'm not sure exactly what the
basis is for saying what "our" reasons were for deciding to have a
board, but according to Fla. Stat. §617.0803 (1), "A board of directors
must consist of three or more individuals", not five.
--Michael Snow
I've been watching this conversation with great dismay. As someone else has
said, IMO Mark clearly has a very different vision of the Wikimedia board, and
an incredibly negative opinion of boards in general. For the record, I
completely disagree with him and believe that the board is important, and that
reasonable expenses like the ones being discussed ought to be paid for gladly
and without reservation
I have also just given -- $15.00 US -- for Angela's travel. I have done this
as a show of good faith in the board, the individual members, and the process
that led to the board's creation and the recent elections.
*However* I hope that this does not set a precedent, and will not make such a
contribution again, and I believe that this should be paid for by the
Wikimedia Foundation -- *not* by individual wikipedians.
And finally, I hope that this discussion ends soon. It's very demoralizing for
me to see this long debate full of accusations continue after so much good
will was recently created among the various projects and languages through the
board elections -- and I can only imagine what it must be like for Angela and
Anthere.
Let's move on, and if necessary develop a *process* to decide how board travel
expenses will be handled in the future, rather than a debate about the pros
and cons of a board and what it should or should not do. And if also
necessary, we can develop another process to discuss and debate, and decide
the pros and cons of a board and what it should or should not do
Thanks,
Brian (BCorr)
hcheney wrote:
>If Angela did go to Paris for a "trustee meeting" it
>would be an invalid trustee meeting unless one of the
>trustees, or the computer hosting the meeting, were in
>the State of Florida.
>
I do not believe this to be a correct statement, and it has already been
cited in discussion on the wiki, so I do not wish to let it pass
unchallenged. Although the Wikimedia Foundation is a nonprofit
organization created under the laws of the State of Florida, I'm not
aware of any requirement that meetings be "located" in Florida. The
bylaws certainly do not require it. The most applicable law I could find
in quickly scanning Florida statutes related to nonprofits is Fla. Stat.
§617.0820 (1), which reads: "The board of directors may hold regular or
special meetings in or out of this state." So unless someone can point
me to information to the contrary, I believe that it is possible to have
a valid meeting of the board in Paris.
--Michael Snow
I think there are two separate issues on this debate.
1. Are the Trustees expected to serve as the "top" for us?
2. Is the meeting of the Trustees that important compared to others?
For the first question, I think the majority opinion is that the Trustees
are supposed to listen to us, serve as, and act upon our (multilingual
wikimedia communty's) concensus. And from what Angela and Anthere expressed
when running for the election, we can believe that they want to do that.
Mark should not worry that much, and I think many people are not that
different from Mark's view on this issue.
But sometimes, the Trustees have to make decisions on behalf of wikimedians
without clear concensus - just like wikimedia administrators are pressured
to do sometime. There may be no clear concensus. The matter is kind of
urgent that there is no time to consult with wikimedia community. There may
be some technical dimensions regarding how to interpret the concensus into
concrete actions and technical choices.
Because of these situations, we elect someone we can trust. Someone who
knows wikimedia better, someone who is not likely to abuse the discretionary
power. Like the admins for wikimedia projects, they do handle important
matters. But they do so according to community concensus.
So the answer to the first question is no.
Of course, there is a hierarchical structure to an extent. But this is
supposedly a positive move from the Jimbo's dictatorship to more democratic
governance.
And as in the case of administrators' actions, transparency is important so
that we can monitor and give feedback to the Trustees whenever it is
beneficial.
Regarding the second question, it seems that this is more of a matter of
belief so far.
- Some believe that face-to-face meeting is very important. It is even a
matter of principle for some - Trustees expenses should be reimbursed, that
is the way it is supposed to be.
- Others believe that compared to the cost, it has merit.
- Others may believe that compared to the cost, it does not have enough
merit.
- Yet others believe there are always better ways to spend money than this.
I am surprised to see that so many on this list seem to be on the strong
supportive side.
In the future, there might be a meeting in the U.S. Is it okay to pay, say,
1500 dollars to reimburse the travel expenses of the two Trustees from
Europe? I don't know. I would like to know the agendas for the meeting and
think how important it is, rather than to say "Trustees should always be
paid for that."
But if we decide not to pay, it means that some quality people might not run
for the next election because they do not have enough money to attend the
meeting. This is not a happy consequence for us, either.
Best,
Tomos
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I think the ultimate decision whether Angela goes to Paris or not, should be
left up to her. Things might be different if the meeting were non-voluntary.
However; to help her make up her mind, I hereby pledge to send an International
Money-Order to the Foundation in the sum of the prize of two six-packs. (which
In my local store totals up to 13.80 Euros) I will ONLY send this if she attends
the Paris meet, and pledges to physically hug me, if and when we ever meet in
person.
Is there any other person to step up to the plate and similarly pledge the prize
of two local six-packs in this good cause?
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (Cimon)
And ... Mark went on...went on... went on...
Take, for example, the issue of dues. One way to
decide it is to have the board debate amongst
themselves (either online or in person), solicit input
from users, and then make a decision on what level to
set the dues at. Another possibility is to have a
wiki-style discussion it, possibly on meta (I'm
willing to use meta over mailing lists if that's the
preference of most other people). If a consensus
emerges, then we set the dues at the consensus amount.
If there are strong disagreements, then we can
identify a few of the leading choices and hold a vote.
Given that we already have voting software that has
been used successfully, this is fairly easy to do.
I don't see any particular reason to favor the
top-down decision-making process, especially given how
alien it is to the way we (not to mention just about
all others wikis) have been doing things to date,
which has been rather successful in most respects.
------
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-June/000406.html
Watch-out : this was a sollication for input
With this mail, on this mailing list, a week ago, I
announced a brainstorming page about dues. I also
announced it on the goings-on :
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goings-on
The page in question is here. It is public and non
protected. You can *edit* it :
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membership_fees
I had no feedback on the mailing list. I had a bit of
feedback on the wiki itself. I had some good feedback
from french discussion. I discussed it in length last
week end on irc (a very cheap discussion medium, neat
when wiki is broken, and very useful for live
discussion). This occured on the english channel and
the foundation channel, most of saturday and sunday.
I also had a couple of private exchanges by mails on
the topic.
I also made additional suggestions 2 days ago on the
foundation mailing list. Suggestion for which I had
*no* comment whatsover.
I contacted Michael for his input, and asked him if he
was willing to participate, for I think he can really
help on this. Michael was on holidays, and just came
back. He indicated he would come and see. I am waiting
for his feedback.
I had a short exchange a few hours ago with Arne, from
the german chapter as well. We planned to discuss this
again (this evening if possible, but we missed each
other).
With the initial feed back I had, I started writing
down some points today, during my lunch time.
Tomos also started posting a resume of our discussion
this week :
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interorganizational_relations_among_chapters
----------
Signature :
The one thing I can say : the one who does nothing but
just whines that decisions are taken without him or
*could* PERHAPS be taken without him, is responsible
of that situation.
Wikipedia is just this : it gives you the ability to
act yourself, this is so great, so take that chance
-----------
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Delirium wrote:
> I know what a board is, but I disagree that we
should have one
running
> significant parts of Wikimedia projects.
Hierarchical top-down
control
> is the exact opposite of the wiki way of doing
things.
> > We do of course need a board for legal reasons,
and the board may
need
> to make some decisions. But it should not be
running the project,
and
> when it does make decisions, it should do so as
openly and publicly
as
> possible, in consultation with the normal
consensus-based method of
> decision-making we use.
> > -Mark
I see that you are worried. I am not really sure why.
You are currently worried that things *might* happen.
Perhaps could you explain what exactly is worrying you
?
In the past few days, you mentionned, lack of
efficiency, waste, corruption, hierarchical top-down
control and such.
I think you should show a little more trust in us, and
in the whole process.
The board is not here to decide how the projects
should be run, except for basic respect of a couple of
rules (respect of NPOV rules, respect of copyrights,
respect of other people and openness). Except when
these
rules are broken AND the local community does not
succeed to fix the issue, I do not think the board
should be implicated in any project management.
The board is not here either to do everything instead
of you.
The goals of the projects are
* gather knowledge
* then make it available to use and reuse
* to the highest number of people on the Earth
The role of the board is essentially to *help* this to
happen.
We should primarily focus on finding money, and insure
that at any time, we have enough money so that the
information is readable, is editable
and may be distributed to suit that goal : highest
number of people (which implies, many languages and
availability of information for those without net
access).
I invite you to join the fuzzy buzy noisy happenings
on meta, so you can feel involved. And mostly to feel
that this is not happening in other places, by other
people, people you do not know, people who are out of
your control, which might be scary.
First, there are many people getting involved in board
issues. They are setting pages to outline what the
board should do, where we should turn our attention
first, explaining how they could help, what we should
not forget etc... And this is good. Because that allow
us to know exactly where the concerns are. Angela and
I are not deciding alone what we should do or not do,
according to our own perception of the situation.
We are not gonna do things behind doors. On the
contrary, participants are leaders in saying what they
think is important and should be done first so that
the project can proceed smoothly. At the same time,
they
indicate where they feel like helping, and they will
be motor in what they will do.
I think anyone who feels left out, who fears the board
will now decides everything, will spend all the cash
to go on holidays, or whatever ***should*** join meta
and participate in setting all this, should get
involved in one of the working group. There is plenty
to do. Your help is welcome
- in the development team (in particular for the
development of these features, or helping us know at
any time what the money needs are)
- to help set a decent budget (accountants welcome)
- to help organise the membership dues system (both
from a legal and technical perspective)
- to help raising funds (we need proposals and help to
write the proposals)
- to help with all legal issues (from copyrights to
privacy issues, there is really plenty to do)
- to help with all press contact related issues (such
as setting press release, interviews, and such)
- and more...
2 people won't do this alone, right ? We will
participate, but mostly, we wish that this is done,
and is done well. And if it is not done, we will try
to call for help so that this is done :-) And if we do
not
think of doing something, then it is your role to tell
us it is important.
The one thing I can say : the one who does nothing but
just whines that decisions are taken without him or
*could* PERHAPS be taken without him, is responsible
of that situation.
Wikipedia is just this : it gives you the ability to
act yourself, this is so great, so take that chance
:-)
That is my last comment on the topic.
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Denni wrote:
> Anthere, I can relate. I live 15 km from one of the
major entry
points
> to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I was able to
afford to make a real
> trip in only once this past year, because a friend
helped out. It
sucks
> not being able to appreciate what your own country
has to offer. So.
If
> Angela decides to go, ten bucks. If Anthere can go,
ten bucks. If
> neither decides to go, I'm going to spend the 20
bucks for gas and a
> Parks admission and soothe my soul in the Rockies
for a day.
Keep my bucks for a camping week end. Take pictures of
flowers while on
it. Upload the nicest on my user page on en. That will
make it for my
happiness :-)
------
In case... yes, I break all threads. I know.
My gname system is broken, and all my mails to
foundation-l are sent by default to the old wikipedia
legal mailing list. And come back in return :-(((
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