In a message dated 1/29/2006 9:05:46 AM Eastern Standard Time,
t.starling(a)physics.unimelb.edu.au writes:
If Wikimedia needs qualified outside help, it's in operations, not
oversight. Only an elected board, accountable to the Wikimedia
community, can ensure that the principles that the community holds dear
are upheld.
Some committees might benefit from the guidance of qualified outsiders,
but the committees should still be dominated by volunteers, either
selected by a transparent and fair process with Board oversight or, as
Erik suggests, with open membership.
Actually, as Wikipedia grows it requires help in oversight no less than it
does in operations. A large organization entails legal and financial
responsibilities. If we are sued, for whatever reason, we cannot simply throw another
server at the person suing us.
As I understand it, serving on the Board or in some other official capacity,
such as officer, includes legal responsibility, including liability. It is
not just the ability to make decisions that comes with a position, but the
willingness to face the consequences. The issue is not who takes credit when
things go right, but rather, who takes the blame when something goes wrong.
This is not an indictment of volunteers. I believe that they are the
lifeblood of this organization. At our size, however, we are faced with enormous
responsibilities. All of these efforts at reorganization are attempts to channel
volunteer efforts effectively, so that they can continue doing what they do
best--fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement by creating and
distributing high quality free content resources--while limiting the repercussions
that the Foundation, and by extension, the volunteers, face when things do not
go right. This is something that requires professional legal and financial
knowhow.
Danny
I am doing a bit of cleaning..
In case someone feels tired of editing articles today or if you are
already planned to participate to a major meeting (an sql conference...
whatever...), please help update our calendar
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Calendar
thanks
ant
Thanks for the update Presroi.
I forward it to the foundation list, whose readers may be interested by
the issue as well.
Ant
Mathias Schindler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> today there was a hearing at the Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Berlin
> (municipal court) about the preliminary injunction against the German
> Verein. The injunction was prohibiting Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. to
> redirect wikipedia.de to the German Wikipedia as long as the full civil
> name of a dead hacker ([[en:Tron (hacker)]]) is shown at de.wikipedia.org.
>
> In the hearing, the judge gave more than just a hint that he does not
> agree with the argument from Tron's parents that telling a (already
> publicly known) civil name is violating the post-mortem
> Persönlichkeitsrecht (right of personality).
>
> The decision, whether the preliminary injunction is withdrawn will be
> announced on thursday at 9 a.m. (CET).
>
> Here are two reports from the court hearing:
>
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/69056 (the author was present at
> the hearing)
>
> http://www.golem.de/0601/43060.html (I am not sure if he was there)
>
>
> There is one question left and I would love to see some research from
> you. Ivo Floricic, the owner of the trademark "Tron" and father of Boris
> Floricic (aka. [[en:Tron (hacker)]] claims that he thinks that he is the
> only one with the name "Floricic" in Germany and these special
> circumstances would somehow violate his rights if wikipedia is
> mentioning the full name of Tron.
>
> Does anyone know any other person by the name of Floricic?
>
> According to Google, there is an artist "Alen Floricic" from Croatia who
> might be notable (if he is notable, it would be nice to consider taking
> the CV from certain sites and write an article about him). There is also
> a professor of linguistics, Franck Floricic from France.
>
> Greetings,
> Mathias
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It seems a couple folks took over the abandoned announce-l mailing list a couple
months ago, sending community updates branded as "Wikizine" on it. The domain
name wikizine.org is being used to redirect to the list subscription page, and
some links & an email address at that domain are used.
http://wikizine.org/http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/announce-lhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikizine
Now, having some actual Wikimedia info on a mailing list is pretty cool. :) But
I've got a couple organizational questions I want to toss out to the broader
community:
* It looks like Walter Vermeir owns this wikizine.org domain himself. What's the
status of it? If Walter loses interest will it continue? Who'll be responsible
for renewing it?
* I received a request to make a mailing list for a Romanian-language Wikizine.
Are we going to add more such lists, and if so should we do so under the
'announce' name set or 'wikizine'?
* Some 'marketing' ;) This has been going on for two or three months and I never
noticed. Was I just asleep at the wheel, or are a lot of people missing out who
might be interested?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)