Have it translated by your favourite Dutch person:
==De moderatoren vernietigen het bewijs van hun machtsmisbruik==
Dit haalde [[Gebruiker:Dolledre]] zojuist uit de kroeg, het bewijs dat
men oneigenlijke middelen gebruikt en de privacy van gebruikers ten
grabbel gooit:
=== Misbruikmaken chekuser en inbreuk op de privacy ===
Zojuist heeft [[gebruiker:Walter]] gebruik gemaakt van de tool
checkuser. Dit is een tool die ter beschikking staat aan de stewards en
slechts in een uiterst noodgeval gebruikt mag worden. Namelijk als
iemand erg vandalisme pleegt om zijn IP op te kunnen sporen. Dit deed ik
niet en toch heeft Walter checkuser gebruikt. Tegen alle richtlijnen
daaromtrent in.
Hoe weet ik dat Walter dit deed? Heel eenvoudig hij blokkeerde zojuist
het IPadres waaronder ik werkte. Dat kan hij alleen geweten hebben als
hij checkuser gebruikte. Niet alleen is dit een schending van onze
privacyregels. Maar ook nog eens een schending van het feit dat dit
alleen in een noodgeval gebruikt mag worden. En dan alleen nog als er
meerdere mensen mee instemmen
Daarnaast stuurde Walter mij ook nog eens een dreigemail vandaag dat ik
voor altijd geblokkeerd ga worden en dat hij mij alleen ''kan redden''
als ik braaf ben en allen als waerth edit. Tja als dat editten me
onmogelijk wordt gemaakt .......
Dit is:
A) Schending van iemands privacy ... er is een reden dat men onder een
naam edit.
B) Bedreiging
C) Oneigenlijk gebruik van machtsmiddelen.
Ik vraag [[Gebruiker:Walter]] zelf de conclusie te verbinden aan deze 3
zeer ernstige feiten!
WAERTH (die zijn computer opnieuw op heeft moeten starten)
Jimmy
> It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to
preserve our fundamentally community-driven model,
> while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order
to empower and defend the community model. :)
preserve or reaffirm ?
Jimmy
> Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
search process,
> in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds.
leaders or members ?
Jimmy
> it is my intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of
openness and community involvement,
This is the best statement I heard from you since eight days, when you said
"Under promise over deliver"
I quoted you on that one every day since. :)
------------------------------------
Urgent matters obviously need to be resolved now. In Rome emergencies were
also addressed by subsiding democracy and *appointing* a dictator for half a
year (the meaning of the term dictator has drifted quite far since then).
I'm not sure if 'business deals' count as an emergency. We are not going
bankrupt, have even postponed fund raising. Apart from that I easily accept
that an understaffed central board is in need of speedy reinforcement, as
long as the current model is continued.
After we catered for emergencies, I still hope that the same community that
wisely elected Angela and Anthere (hurray for them) will some day be given
more direct responsibility in deciding how to resolve deficiencies at the
organisational level. To me a community and a foundation are not separate
entities ( I heard this as a closing argument all too often recently ), no
more than a people and its government are separate entities. A government
serves the people and is guided and controlled by the people. I'm not an
expert in political matters, but I feel it makes more sense to draw our
metaphores from an area of human activity where many are to gain from the
actions of some (state/governement) than from areas where some are to gain
much more than others from the activities of many (large corporations).
Having said this I am sure Brad is going to give us his best, and undoubtly
already has, so I wish you all the best, Brad
Erik Zachte
--- James Hare <messedrocker(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you, Angela, for responding to my question.
>
> Call it what you wish, but really it's more of a medical assistant with more
> specific information, such as how to handle it and how to identify it. As
> for the unwikiness, that's really for liability purposes -- imagine if an
> article was vandalized to say cyanide cures cancer. The idea of the draft
> versions is to facilitate article improvement while keeping the "secure"
> version free of vandalism. I really wish we wouldn't have to, but vandalism
> on a medical wiki could be life threatening.
>
> Maybe years after the advent of this wiki, when vandalism is reverted within
> a second, we can allow open-editing of the main space page. However, it
> would take years for the wiki to have such a level of activity.
>
> And Nathan, thank you for responding to my proposal, too.
>
> Yes, it would be indeed mandatory to use completely verifiable sources.
> WebMD, for example, would be a great reference. The difference between a
> medical wiki and Wikipedia is particularly the details -- Wikipedia would
> serve to go into specific details (and we could link to them as a
> supplement), while this wiki simply serves to say what the disease is, how
> to determine it, and how to treat it. What we could also do on this medical
> wiki that wouldn't probably do well on Wikipedia is start a dichotomous key.
> There are many things we could do, and they would be more welcome on a wiki
> dedicated to such a topic.
>
> Thank you for your interest in the topic.
>
> Messedrocker
>
> On 6/17/06, Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I would
> > > like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously tell
> > you
> > > about my proposed project:
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please read
> > the
> > > whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my first
> > post
> > > to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to do.
> >
> > Firstly, you might be interested in the (not very active) medical wiki
> > mailing list at
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
> >
> > Secondly, with the exception of the unwiki suggestion that all pages
> > should be protected from editing, wouldn't your project duplicate
> > Wiktionary? There's already a category for medical terms at
> > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Medicine
> >
> > Angela.
Maybe this project would be useful. But I disagree with protecting the articles unless it is deemed "finished" and the projects want to have a "stable" version. The other reason is not good and will increase the risk of liability. No one should be taking medical advice from on line medical articles. We must be careful that Wikimedia project(s) do not send mixed signals on this point.
On English speaking projects, the biggest need is for medical articles to be adapted for low literacy readers. I know that most medical articles are well above the reading level of the average US citizen. I’m certain that similar problems exist with other English speaking countries too.
Sydney Poore aka FloNight
Dear all,
Wikiversity is a proposed Wikimedia project, based specifically around
education and learning - the proposal to set up Wikiversity as a
Wikimedia project is at:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal>.
This proposal has been an attempt to address the fact that the last
proposal (see: <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity>) was not
approved by the board (the background to this is summarised on the
current proposal's page).
For the last three months or so, the proposal (which was already in
development) has been extended and reworked by the Wikiversity
subcommittee (see:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_subcommittee>). The
subcommittee is now pretty much satisfied that we have constructed a
proposal and scope for the project which gives it the flexibility to
develop, but also the clear rationale to exist as a separate project.
I'm now in the process of negotiating this with the Special Projects
Committee, hopefully to get it set up quite soon indeed :-).
In brief, the proposal is to:
*Host multimedia learning materials for all levels (ie not just
university) in all languages
*Develop learning communities around these materials
*Host research - possibly original research (though this will need to
be discussed by its community)
There is more to the proposal and scope and, if you are interested, I
would urge you to read the proposal and its related pages, which you
can find through a navigational template at the top right of
meta:Wikiversity pages. There is also a very basic mock-up of the
front page of Wikiversity, geared towards the current proposal, at:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Example>.
One of the things the board last recommended was that the community be
"joyful" about the proposal before setting up Wikiversity. So, this
post is to gauge just how joyful people are about the proposal, what
you think works and what doesn't, what you would change, add, remove,
etc. I would like to use this thread to discuss what the best way
forward for Wikiversity would be, so we can give it the best start we
can.
Yours,
Cormac Lawler (m:User:Cormaggio)
(on behalf of the Wikiversity subcommittee)
PS: Please feel free to post this message (or a modification of it) at
appropriate places - I'm just posting this initially to foundation-l
and textbook-l (even though it slightly duplicates a discussion
already underway at the latter).
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> As announced earlier, the Communications committee is coordinating
>> the use of the site-wide notices on Wikimedia Foundation sites. Right
>> now, we need to call attention to Wikimania and encourage people to
>> register, so starting sometime tomorrow we will be putting up a brief
>> project-wide notice about this. We expect the notice to run for about
>> a week.
>>
>> When this use of the site notice ends it should be blanked again
>> (except for any separate notices to anonymous users being used for
>> fundraising). We don't want these to be overused, so an extended
>> silent period for the site notice should follow. After that, the next
>> use will probably be for the fundraiser, assuming that committee is
>> organized and a date settled on.
>>
>> --Michael Snow
>
> Does this mean that project admins can't use the site-wide notices for
> internal use, such as major policy changes or bureaucrat elections? I
> fail to see why (provided that other admins are in agreement that the
> notice should go up) a project like ru.wikibooks needs to get special
> permission from the WMF in order to use this function.
>
> Yes, they shouldn't be overused, but at the same time this is
> something that can and should be under local project control.
> Widespread notices on mulitple sites is something that perhaps should
> get WMF coordination, but that is another issue entirely.
I should clarify what I meant, sorry about the confusion. We're
coordinating the use of site notices for Foundation business that
affects all projects, and my intent was to inform people of our plans
for such use. We are not taking away the ability of individual projects
to use the site notice for local business that affects only that
project. As a general matter, I don't think such uses need to receive
clearance on a Foundation level, although I hope that if anyone
anticipates conflicts with our planned uses, they would let us know so
we can resolve that.
Site notices should not be overused, so I do think silent periods are
important. However, if between this Wikimania announcement and the next
fundraiser, a project has a major announcement that requires use of a
site notice, I didn't intend to imply that this was prohibited.
--Michael Snow
Kelly Martin wrote:
> Does Florida law require that member of nonprofits be actual persons?
> A nonprofit I used to work for (a national organization) had as its
> members the 50 state organizations of which it was comprised. Perhaps
> the members of Wikimedia should be the various national organizations
> which already exist, as corporate entities.
It doesn't appear to be a requirement, just the assumption we've been
working with. Using the chapters as members could perhaps be workable,
it warrants consideration at least.
I can imagine three possible problems, not necessarily insurmountable.
First is that the extent of chapter coverage remains inadequate, so I
don't know that it would make sense to launch a membership structure
right now. We might need to deal with the current membership vacuum for
a little while longer.
Second is that we currently emphasize not putting chapters in a position
of potential liability, particularly since local libel laws or lack of
safe harbors for hosted online content may place them in greater
jeopardy than the Florida foundation. Florida law does provide that
members are not liable for corporate acts as such, but I don't know what
credence that will be given in another nation's courts. As a general
principle, the closer the chapters get to actually managing the
Wikimedia Foundation, the more likely it is that their court systems
will choose to "pierce the veil" and hold them directly accountable.
Third is the possibility that local laws for some chapters might
prohibit them from participating in the membership structure as it is
ultimately organized. I can't say if or where this would be an actual
problem, it's a little beyond my current mastery of the situation. As
with the international liability issues, people with a better
understanding of those local laws would need to address what a given
chapter can or cannot do.
--Michael Snow
Hello,
I have given a bit of thought in the issue during the past few days, in
reading all the emails on this list, and I had the opportunity today to
talk with one of the co-founder of the Apache Foundation, in particular
about the way their Foundation is organised. I put wikitech in copy,
because I am pretty sure some of the guys there know the organisation
and will be able to correct me if necessary.
I thought that his description of his Foundation... would very possibly
fit pretty well what it seems many on this list are looking for and
solve some of our current problems.
It has some points in commons with the previous Wikicouncil on which we
had worked, but one of the problems with the Wikicouncil was ... the
rather unclear role of this one.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache
Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to
reinvent the wheel ?
I will try to describe below, using largely what is explained on their
site + his comments. Please correct me if you view some
misunterpretations. Also, if you know the organisation from the inside,
please comment.
--------
Ant : Bare facts : their goals (please compare with our goals)
What is the Apache Software Foundation?
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit
organization incorporated in the United States of America and was formed
primarily to:
* provide a foundation for open, collaborative software development
projects by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure
* create an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals
can donate resources and be assured that those resources will be used
for the public benefit
* provide a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal
suits directed at the Foundation's projects
* protect the 'Apache' brand, as applied to its software products, from
being abused by other organizations
Ant : Aside from point 3, that's roughly similar to us
--------
The Foundation structure
At the time the ASF was created, there were several separate
communities, each focused on a different side of the "web serving"
problem, but all united by a common set of goals and a respected set of
cultural traditions in both etiquette and process.
Ant : in short, several projects with rather individual communities and
a common goal.
These separate communities were referred to as "projects" and while
similar, each of them exhibited little differences that made them special.
In order to reduce friction and allow for diversity to emerge, rather
than forcing a monoculture from the top, the projects are designated the
central decision-making organizations of the Apache world. Each project
is delegated authority over development of its software, and is given a
great deal of latitude in designing its own technical charter and its
own governing rules.
The foundation is governed by the following entities:
Board of Directors (board) governs the foundation and is composed of
members.
Project Management Committees (PMC) govern the projects, and they are
composed of committers. (Note that every member is, by definition, also
a committer.)
Ant : for us, we currently have the board. Something similar to the PMC
was suggested on the list recently, so as to separate more strictly
board and projects
-----------
Board of Directors (board)
The board is responsible for management and oversight of the business
and affairs of the corporation in accordance with the foundation Bylaws.
This includes management of the corporate assets (funds, intellectual
property, trademarks, and support equipment) and allocation of corporate
resources to projects.
However, technical decision-making authority regarding the content and
direction of the Apache projects is assigned to each respective project
management committee.
The board is currently composed by nine individuals, elected between the
members of the foundation. The bylaws don't specify the number of
officers that the board should have, but historically, this was the
number of the first board and it has never changed. The board is elected
every year.
Ant : note that the board is elected by the members of the Foundation
(ASF Member). Not by all developers whatever their status, but only ASF
members (see below how to get ASF member).
Ant : Lars told me that the board was entirely elected. So entirely came
from within the community.
-------------
Project Management Committees (PMC)
The Project Management Committees are established by resolution of the
Board, to be responsible for the active management of one or more
communities, which are also identified by resolution of the Board.
Each PMC consists of at least one officer of the ASF, who shall be
designated chairperson, and may include one or more other members of the
ASF.
The chair of the PMC is appointed by the Board and is an officer of the
ASF (Vice President). The chair has primary responsibility to the Board,
and has the power to establish rules and procedures for the day to day
management of the communities for which the PMC is responsible,
including the composition of the PMC itself.
Ant : in our case, the PMC (rather than the chair really) might have the
power to make the rules over copyright issues for example
The role of the PMC from a Foundation perspective is oversight. The main
role of the PMC is not code and not coding - but to ensure that all
legal issues are addressed, that procedure is followed, and that each
and every release is the product of the community as a whole. That is
key to our litigation protection mechanisms.
Secondly the role of the PMC is to further the long term development and
health of the community as a whole, and to ensure that balanced and wide
scale peer review and collaboration does happen. Within the ASF we worry
about any community which centers around a few individuals who are
working virtually uncontested. We believe that this is detrimental to
quality, stability, and robustness of both code and long term social
structures.
As the PMC, and the chair in particular, are eyes and ears of the ASF
Board, it is you that we rely on and need to trust to provide legal
oversight.
The board has the faculty to terminate a PMC at any time by resolution.
------------
How does someone get PMC Member ?
PMC member is a developer or a committer that was elected due to merit
for the evolution of the project and demonstration of commitment. They
have write access to the code repository, an apache.org mail address,
the right to vote for the community-related decisions and the right to
propose an active user for committership. The PMC as a whole is the
entity that controls the project, nobody else.
-------
How does someone get ASF Member
ASF member is a person that was nominated by current members and elected
due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members
care for the ASF itself. This is usually demonstrated through the roots
of project-related and cross-project activities. Legally, a member is a
"shareholder" of the foundation, one of the owners. They have the right
to elect the board, to stand as a candidate for the board election and
to propose a committer for membership. They also have the right to
propose a new project for incubation (we'll see later what this means).
The members coordinate their activities through their mailing list and
through their annual meeting.
Ant : note the subtle difference between an PMC member (dedicated to his
project , acquire a right to manage his project) with an ASF member
(dedicated to the Foundation or at least the general goal as opposed to
a specific project). Most people on this mailing list are typically ASF
type...
Ant : a subtility mentionned by Lars is that there is no limitation to
the members of ASF. It is a sort of confirmation process rather than
election. A person is recognised as "involved and trusted", hence she
becomes a member. So, there is not this notion we had previously thought
in the wikicouncil idea that 5 seats should be given to english
wikipedia, whilst only 3 for the french wikibooks and 1 for the catalan
wikiquote. As a result, the membership grows and grows... roughly 150
people if I remember well. Lars mentionned that when the quorum for vote
will become hard to reach, they will probably un-ASF memberise the
inactive members.
What do ASF members do ?
They elect the board...
Ant : now, think about it. If ASF members are *officially* ASF members,
they are not anonymous. All of them have their real name known. They are
real members of a legal entity. For us, anons or people refusing to give
their real names (at least privately) could not be ASF members. However,
they could elect (or support) other people to become ASF members.
Ant : another thing not mentionned on their website but which I was
explained : each project committee must mandatorily have at least 2 ASF
members on it. They also have an incubator area, where new projects are
started and tested. Similarly, these projects must be "headed" by a
committeee (elected by its own members), on which must be found at least
2 ASF members.
---------
Other Foundation Entities
After infrastructure and incubator, the foundation hosts several other
entities more or less formalized open to ASF members and to invited
experts or individuals that do not directly create code but serve for
specific purposes. They are:
the conference organizing committee (aka concom) -- responsible for the
organization of the official ASF conference (aka ApacheCon)
the security committee -- responsible for the handling of potential
security holes in the software produced by the foundation that might
impact our users. It gets contacted by the finders of the problems
before the problem report is made available to the public, to allow the
projects to provide a fix in time for the report, thus reducing
vulnerability to a minimum
the public relations committee -- responsible for the fund raising
(collaborates with the concom since the conference is one of the major
sources of income of the foundation) and public relations - including
trademark licensing and other issues regarding management of the Apache
brand, raising of funds, and is responsible for the press-related issues
like press releases for major ASF events or dispatching requests for
interviews.
the JCP committee -- responsible for the liaison between the ASF and the
Java Community Process (the ASF is a member of the JCP Executive Committee)
the licensing committee -- responsible for the legal issues associated
with licensing and license compatibilities and for the revision of the
Apache Software License
Ant : guess what ? That looks as our committees...
------
Congrats to all those who made up so far.
I summarize.
An organisation with
* a board
* members (ASF members)
* aside committees (event, public relations etc...)
ASF Members elect the board.
A collection of projects, whose participants elect ASF members.
Each project has a governing committee in charge, on which there are at
leasts 2 ASF members, and which report to the board of the ASF.
Comments ?
Ant
In a message dated 6/18/2006 8:03:31 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Anthere9(a)yahoo.com writes:
I think that it would be interesting that all current candidates
actually *give* their opinion publicly on what they consider is
membership, on how membership should be taken into account and which
type of organisation they envision would be best for the Foundation.
Actually, there are no "current candidates" because there is no election
underway. This is very premature. Also, there are plenty of non-candidates who
would want to have a say in this. Why limit it?
Danny
On 6/15/06, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> Delphine Ménard wrote:
> > So we'd have the following defined roles
> >
> > *Community members (members of all Wikimedia projects)
> >
> > *Project management committees - for us, these would be people within
> > the community appointed by resolution of the board of directors of the
> > Wikimedia Foundation. Once appointed, the PMC members have a right to
> > propose to add members in their PMC. The PMC would be in charge of
> > making sure the legal aspects of each projects are taken care of and
> > observed, make sure that procedures are followed in the development of
> > the projects. These are not automatically the editors with the
> > greatest number of edits, but rather those who have shown a commitment
> > to the organisation and the day-to-day running of the projects, taking
> > care of legal issues, procedure issues etc. They'd have a
> > responsibility and an oversight role. Not an editing power as such
> > (ie. they can't impose their POV on an article). Their frame of action
> > will have to be very clearly defined, but if it is, they'd be an asset
> > to the projects.
>
>
> Correction : in the ASF, the PMC are chosen by the community itself. By
> support from the community (a bit as we agree on our sysops).
> In our case, that makes sense, because the board does not know enough
> the local community to suggest names necessarily in a wise fashion.
> It seems to me as well these PMC should pretty much be self-organised.
> However, it would probably be best that the board has a veto over those.
> Another option would be that they be appointed by board upon a
> suggestion of names given by their community.
> I would myself support "elected by community with board veto".
Right, I missed the election part, and jumped to the resolution part. My bad.
>
> The PMC have a couple of officers, such as a chair and a secretary.
> Those could either be appointed by the board or appointed by committee
> members with veto from board. But in any cases, the officers have a
> legal responsability, so should absolutely be RealPerson.
>
>
> > *Wikimedia Foundation members - those would be nominated by the board,
> > proposed to the board by anyone else who feels someone should be a
> > Foundation member. They could be issued directly from the community,
> > from the PMCs or from anywhere else.
>
> Correction again. WMF members should not be appointed by the board. They
> should be elected by the community. I would even go as far as to suggest
> that there should be NO board veto over these ones. If a problematic
> person slips in, it will not be a big deal, because of the size of that
> membership. We could expect a membership of over 100 people. They could
> indeed be issued from anywhere.
Here I do not understand if you're correcting my understanding of how
ASF works, or my application to WMF.
This part:
"How does someone get ASF Member
ASF member is a person that was nominated by current members and elected
due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members
care for the ASF itself."
is not clear as to who elects the ASF members. My understanding is
that they were nominated by an ASF member (or through an ASF member
upon recommandation from someone external) and voted in by the
existing ASF members. Seems I am wrong.
> > *Wikimedia Foundation board of directors - are elected within the pool
> > of members of the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Note : in the ASF, all board members are actually *from* the pool of
> members and elected by the members.
> We might wish to make it possible for "externals" to join the board as
> well. In this case, we could imagine having the membership pool electing
> for an "external" to join the board (now, the question is, could we
> imagine 100 people voting to allow, say, Stallman, to join the board ?
> Would that be reasonable ?). Or we could have board members been allowed
> to appoint up to xx external people to get on the board.
Well, my take on that, and how I understood it, is that ASF members
could come from outside, since they were voted in by the existing
members. But if it is the community that elects the ASF members, then
that is moot.
[snip]
> > As I see it, this is indeed an interesting bit. To answer Tim's
> > concerns (and I agree with Lukasz comment, btw), I believe the fact
> > that members of the Wikimedia Foundation would be appointed by the
> > board actually make it pretty "safe" for anyone who might have a
> > problem with a community elected body. For the record, I am one of
> > those. A great editor in a virtual project does not make a great board
> > member in a real-life organisation, and the predominance of one
> > language or one project does not ensure harmonious representation. The
> > model might seem restraining at first (only the board's "friends"
> > could be considered as members of the Wikimedia Foundation) but in a
> > mid-term perspective, I cannot see the board only appointing their
> > best friends/supporters, as it would not scale. And the larger the
> > body that nominates, the more diversified the people on it.
>
> This is the place where I do not understand your explanation.
> If the board appoints members, and is then elected by members... we
> might just get stuck in a loop. This is not at all what the AFS did. The
> community elect the membership. The membership elect the board.
> I think that this model could get very much in the wrong direction... if
> the membership is very limited in size (it would actually be a
> pre-election of the board).
> But if the membership is rather around 100 people (for example), then
> the risk of having a total mess in the elected body is actually pretty
> limited.
And this is where we seem to disagree. The board might choose to keep
people out as long as possible, but it is neither in their interest,
nor in the interest of the organisation. If people are voted into the
membership by the existing members, there has to come a time where the
body that votes the members in is big enough to ensure diversity. Of
course, if the board and the first members stop at 10 people, then the
model doesn't work. My take is that membership of 10 people is rather
stupid, and that 100 sounds like a better approach, whether it is set
as a goal to reach in a certain time frame, whether the number is set
etc. would still need to be determined.
>
> Note that a suggestion I would do is to include amongst groups of
> voters, meta and chapters. This would largely tip the balance in favor
> of those who are *actually* working for Foundation issues.
You forget that many meta users and chapter members are *also* editors
in a project or another. This could lead to people either voting
twice, or having to choose sides (the project or the chapter? meta or
wikipedia?)
>
> We might get to something like
> * Wikipedia can elect up to 30 members overall to become members
> * Wikibooks can elect up to 20 ...
> * Wikiquote can elect up to 1 ... (just kidding)
> * Meta can elect up to 20 members
> * All chapters members can elect up to 20 members
>
> etc...
>
> It may be that people are supported in two places. So what ? Who cares
> if there is no strictly fixed number ?
>
> There is another point...
> You said "a good project editor does not necessarily make a good
> Foundation member".
> Yup... so what about "forcing" people to make a *choice* ?
> Either PMC member... or Foundation member ?
> The same skills are not required...
Yes, that is indeed a must-be requirement. You have to chose your battles.
>
> (as a reminder, all PMC must have 2 Foundation member on them. These 2
> guys may volunteer or be appointed by board or appointed by MWF members.
> But only these 2 may be both on WMF membership AND a PMC).
>
>
> > The way the PMC are set up also gives the board an oversight. However,
> > it would be stupid from the board to appoint on the PMCs people who
> > have absolutely no community support, because it would make the PMC
> > members' job way harder. So in our case, the appointement of PMCs
> > could be coupled with polls within communities as to who should be on
> > the PMCs. Note that as I understand it, PMCs members have a real life
> > responsibility, which would call for a disclosure of their real life
> > identity. I would argue that PMC members are not necessarily stewards
> > or bureaucrats, which would still be elected as "trusted" community
> > members", but rather people who have made clear what their skills and
> > agendas are as to the responsibility they are offered in being part of
> > a PMC.
>
> Nod. The PMC members could be elected by project, with a veto from WMF.
> Or a pool be elected by project, and the final members appointed by WMF
> (roughly, the english arbcom system).
> I would not suggest that all should give their real life identity as it
> would exclude too many people. We might require that only from the chair
> and co.
I personally don't like the veto system. It is uncomfortable both for
the board *and* the people involved. Pool to choose from is much
better.
> The *most* important point would be to very very clearly define their
> scope of action. They would have no particular rights as editors over
> the other editors for example, nor would they have the right to
> run/manage the local projects as "editor in chief".
This is where any model fails, coming to think of it. If the PMC's are
elected by the community and have some kind of oversight granted by
legal means, where does the "legal" part of their task stops and the
"community mandate" starts? If those PMC's are held by community
recognition, it is my belief that they will, at some point, have to
make a choice.
The big problem with Wikimedia as I see it, is that we are trying to
apply something that works to build an encyclopedia (utter democracy,
collaborative community decisions) to a world with different rules
(legal, financial, etc.), and most of all, rules which can't really be
changed with a community decision the way we change spelling or
bibliography rules.
The same way copy/pasting the ASF model, or the Greenpeace model, ot
the US Federal model, you name it, doesn't work, copy/pasting the
Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects model to the organisation doesn't work
either.
So well, I'll have to think about this more.
Delphine
--
~notafish