Wikimedia-l August 2006

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

115 participants
129 discussions

Re: [Foundation-l] Cherokee Sidebar Translation for http://chr.wikipedia.org
by daniwo59＠aol.com 16 Aug '06

16 Aug '06

It seems that Mr. Merkey is pointing to some corrections that need to be made to the sidebar of chr.wikipedia.org. If that is the case, then it seems to be something relevant to Foundation. Danny

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[Foundation-l] Wikibooks texts and Wikiversity
by Amgine 16 Aug '06

16 Aug '06

A comment in IRC yesterday raised a concern for me which I would like to see addressed. Cormac mentioned that he and Mr Horning had discussed moving textbooks and curricula from en.Wikibooks to en.Wikiversity. He was unsure if this meant the textbooks would be deleted from en.Wikibooks, but he was sure any contributors who preferred working on en.Wikibooks would be able to copy them back to that project. This seems extremely odd to me, that deleting a textbook from Wikibooks would even be contemplated. Educational materials are, after all, the mission of the project. And dividing a textbook between projects seems to be forking, both of the book in question and the potential contributors as well, again something which should not even be contemplated in my opinion. Could the Wikiversity project please clarify this? Amgine

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Re: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)
by Tom Holden 16 Aug '06

16 Aug '06

I would like to tentatively suggest that a link between paying money and membership need not be a bad thing, before this idea is permanently dropped. I apologize in advance if I'm saying things that have already been said/rejected. For me personally membership is about one thing and one thing only: giving donators something for their money. As it currently stands people are expected to cough up money with no guarantee as to what purpose their money will be put, and no guarantee of any future input to the project. Yes there are currently mechanisms by which any WP/WB/WC etc user has some input (board elections), but short of a legal guarantee that the bylaws will not be changed without a community referendum, this does not count for much. Certainly instituting such a guarantee is one option, but my hunch is that legally the "community" is on pretty shaky ground. I know my contributions to Wikimedia projects are safe because of the license. If the board did suddenly turn evil my contributions would not have been wasted, as there's a high chance WP/WB/WC etc. would all fork into a Wikimedia (now evil) branch and Newikimedia (good) branch. At present though, as far as I can see there is no similar guarantee that my money will be put to good use. I am sure I am not the only person this has dissuaded from donating. Wikimedia can currently be thought of as akin to a corporation in which shareholders have no right to vote in AGMs, but the board members do conduct opinion polls of their customers, some of which will no doubt also be shareholders. Not a particularly good way to run a company, I'd suggest. Some of the arguments why editing should not automatically result in membership have already been made. Firstly the user base would be gigantic, which dilutes the utility of the legal fall back provided by Florida law. Secondly being an editor, even a competent one, does not go hand in hand with understanding Wikimedia and what is necessary for its continued existence and success. Thirdly, setting any kind of equivalence between edits and paid membership is economically equivalent to paying people to edit. (Say I have an account with an enough edits to be eligible for membership. I can sell my membership (or my votes, same thing), for 1c less than the going rate and be fairly sure of a buyer if there are any unscrupulous forces trying to buy votes.) As I'm sure you can imagine this is a bad idea in many ways, not least that it actually provides an economic incentive for useless edits in the far from impossible situation of individuals being prepared to pay for votes. (An intermediary stage of userdom between joining and being an admin has been proposed, which relied on community support for your edits, and yes if membership was linked to this stage this problem would be ameliorated. However the concept of having "community support for your edits" is surely on even shakier legal ground than the community. The potentials for abuse of such a guideline and resulting big law suits are not really sound legal grounds for an organization.) OK so you are now thinking, but what about the community? We surely do not want Wikimedia to be controlled by those with money rather than those who work on it. But this need not be the case even with a paying membership. There are several ways of giving both the community and the membership power. For example a community election of the current form could first be held, with the total number of votes for each candidate being recorded. Each member would then be asked to veto as many candidates as they deemed inappropriate. Any candidate having received veto votes from over 50% of the members who voted would be removed from the running. Of the remaining candidates, the one(s) with the highest number of community votes would be deemed to have been elected. The community gets the principal say; the members get to remove inappropriate candidates. Based on the discussions in this thread I think I am not the only one who would view this as the "best of both worlds". What is more, because of the membership the community have a guarantee that their right to vote etc. will be protected by the board, as the membership will largely be from the community (though I do not pretend it will be a statistically random sample necessarily), and as members of the community always have the option of becoming members if their rights are in danger. As a final note many of mentioned the unfairness of membership dues on the unemployed/those in third world countries etc. This is certainly a solvable problem. (Indeed it is one that almost every multinational charity has solved.) It is common practice to have an "unwaged" rate, and to adjust membership fees in line with PPP adjusted GDP per head. The data's ready and waiting on en.wikipedia... Anyway just my two cents, sorry for contributing to what is already an overcrowded discussion. Tom (User:Cfp everywhere)

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Re: [Foundation-l] bylaws (second call)
by Michael Snow 15 Aug '06

15 Aug '06

Erik Moeller wrote: > On 8/15/06, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: > >> Under the Florida Statutes, the members of a non-profit have a right >> to remove any board member upon a majority vote. (Florida Statutes >> 617.0808) So no, legal membership would make a difference if a few >> board members did something outrageously stupid. > > I didn't realize that (note to self: read Florida Statutes). That's a > pretty compelling argument for membership -- it could be a long term > safeguard for the Foundation's principles. I think this overstates the value of such a safeguard. The statute actually reads, "Any member of the board of directors may be removed from office with or without cause by the vote or agreement in writing by a majority of all votes of the membership." Glossing over for a moment the procedural niceties that follow, equating "a majority of all votes of the membership" with a majority vote is a little simplistic. If I read this right, removal requires an absolute majority of the entire "electorate", not merely a majority of votes cast. Even if it did seem desirable, does anybody think it would be plausible to mobilize the necessary votes? Keep in mind that with the kind of turnover we experience, over time we'll have an increasing number of members who no longer actively participate. The dissatisfied are especially likely to be in this group, perhaps undermining their preferred outcome. I suspect that even in the unlikely possibility of an unopposed vote for removal, it might not command enough votes. (I'd also note my guess that the ballots cast in board elections so far probably have not amounted to a majority of eligible voters.) The one method I can imagine of preserving this as a useful safeguard is to regularly prune the membership records. Considering the liberal eligibility being suggested for membership, and the general culture of openness in our community, such an approach would seem, to my mind at least, hypocritical in the extreme. >> Regarding anonymity, I think that keeping Wikimedia governance >> separate from Wikipedia editing (for example) increases anonymity. In >> order to have elections you have to have some sense of identity, >> otherwise sockpuppetry would run rampant. But that identity doesn't >> have to be connected to your edit history. > > Do membership records have to be public? They have to be available for inspection and copying to members (or their agents or attorneys). Given the scope of membership that seems to be contemplated, that's pretty public. If you're going to solicit a vote to remove a director (i.e., board member), you need to be able to contact those who can vote. --Michael Snow

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[Foundation-l] Emergency on Wiktionary
by Sean Whitton 15 Aug '06

15 Aug '06

According to IRC user Connel, there is a rogue admin loose on the English Wiktionary and several dangerous actions have been performed (main page deletion, open proxy unblocks etc.). A RfP has been up for several days and the admin has not been desysopped. I don't have any evidence of this right now and am trusting the user's words as a steward is needed *now*. Thanks, Xy -- —Xyrael ~ <xyr> sean(a)silentflame.com | xyrael.net

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[Foundation-l] Announcement regarding the Election
by Dariusz Siedlecki 15 Aug '06

15 Aug '06

(Copy/paste from Meta, yes, I'm lazy) Following the Boston Board meeting on August 4, we the Election Officers announce hereby the upcoming September election will fill the board position of Angela Beesley. We wish all candidates good luck, Datrio, Essjay, & Aphaia 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC), Election Officials, Wikimedia Election Committee 2006

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[Foundation-l] Public speaking re: Wikimedia Foundation & projects
by Brad Patrick 14 Aug '06

14 Aug '06

Hello: If you have _ever_ given a public presentation regarding Wikipedia, Wikimedia, or any of the projects, please send me an OFFLIST email with details. (Board members are exempt from this request). =) It would help us tremendously to understand what is being solicited in the form of speaking engagements and what is being presented by Wikimedians in those engagements. If you have a copy of slides you used, that would be nice too. Thanks, Brad

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[Foundation-l] Composition of the board
by Jussi-Ville Heiskanen 14 Aug '06

14 Aug '06

On 8/13/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: ...snippage... <lots of valuable analysis of the bylaws> > > The current section on "Community" is nothing more than an exercise in > condescension. It purports to support communities without saying what > that really means. Indeed. I am not fully clear how well the law understands what we mean by community, when we do not necessarily agree between ourselves. One thing which would help give the concept at least a modicum of tangible meaning might be if we created a user status of "regular user". Along with voting rights in foundation elections, they might be given some extra non-dangerous bells and whistles to their editing tool-set. > > TRUSTEES > The key issue now is number and composition. I'm not dealing now with > some of the issues in this part, but this should not imp[ly that I am > without opinions. > > I am not entirely opposed to an open-ended maximum for the number of > trustees, but there needs to be some recognition that if the total > number of trustees becomes too high the Board could become unmanageable. Better than a strict limit would be a heuristic of checks and balances. > > If the total number of Trustees is to be flexible it is not appropriate > that the number of member elected trustees could remain stuck at two. I > would suggest that at least 2/3 of the Trustees be from the community, > and that at least 1/3 of the Trustees be elected by the community. (To > be clear, hat 1/3 would be included in the previous 2/3.) This would > leave the remainder as potentially from outside. It should be noted > that if a 3/4 vote is required for certain fundamental changes it would > be very difficult for rogue membership to subvert the purposes of the > Foundation. Personally I don't think a fixed minimum ratio of elected Trustees is the best way to go. Only one vote over the necessary threshold for a given vote to pass is necessary for it to pass. Personally I would like to see a composition of the board which required that for board sizes up to 9 members, the number of elected Trustees should exceed the number of appointed trustees by at least one but no more than two; from 10 members (if it should ever grow to that size) upwards, at least two elected trustees more than the number of appointed trustees but never more than three should be the rule. I think such an arrangement would also function as a useful curb on the growth of the board, if the two were to be in lockstep. In my view more important than thinking about the ratio of appointed members coming from the community would be a requirement that all appointed *permanent* members of the board be from the community. This would effectively prevent a hijacking or "staking of a corner" of the board by outside interests. To put it more clearly, all appointed members from outside the community should serve for a fixed term, just as elected Trustees do. Supermajorities for certain actions would be a very good idea. > > The other restriction would be to forbid the appointment of any person > to the Board if that would result in the majority of the Board being > citizens of any one country. I will note in passing that this state of affairs does not obtain at present, although it could change in the very near future. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

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[Foundation-l] Revised proposal
by daniwo59＠aol.com 13 Aug '06

13 Aug '06

I had no idea of the maelstrom point seven in my proposal would lead to. That said, I want to remove that point as contentious, and resubmit the proposal without it for now. In response to some of Anthere's questions, I believe that most speaking requests continue to come through the office or the communications committee. Many of the private requests were actually directed to individuals through the office or the comcom. Although I admit that we cannot enforce it, in the event that people are asked privately, we can ask them to inform the Foundation. For one thing, it is good to know where people are speaking, while we also stand to benefit from their experiences and can provide support if we have a repository of speeches, questions, AV material, etc. available for them. While I believe that we can turn down speaking engagements, the reason should never be because the requesting group has no money. As for budgeting talks, I have no problem at all if the order of 3 and 4 are reversed. My feeling is, however, that for talks in Europe, it is probably wiser to send someone locally than to send someone from the US. Nevertheless, this also involves costs and questions. If a free talk is requested in Romania, is it cheaper to send someone from Serbia or from England. That should be a consideration too (until we find an ideal Romanian speaker--this is only an example). Finally, I believe that we should be as wary of the use of our logo and tm in talks as we are when it is used online. Having said all that, I submit an amended proposal. 1. Requests for speakers from the Foundation will be approved by a subcommittee of the Communications Committee to be known as the "Speakers Subcommittee." 2. The Speakers Subcommittee will determine whether and how fulfilling the request furthers the goals of the Foundation. This will be called Speaker Objectives. 3. The Speakers Subcommittee will then determine whether the Speaker Objectives are equal or greater to the costs involved in sending a speaker to the event. 4. The Speaker Subcommittee will then determine which representative of the WMF is best suited to deliver the talk, based on considerations of language, geography, skills, conference needs, availability, etc. 5. Basic costs for speakers will include a. transportation b. per diem (hotel, food) c. ancillary (babysitting, formal wear such as renting a tux, other) 6. The Speaker Subcommittee will negotiate with the requesting organization to ensure that they cover as much of these costs as possible. Should the event be deemed worthwhile, but the requesting organization is unable to cover these basic costs, the Speakers Committee will determine a budget for the speaker to participate. 7. A calendar of speaking engagements and speakers will be maintained in a public space, such as wikimediafoundation.org. 8. The Foundation will discourage the use of logos, registered tms, etc., except by speakers approved and appointed by the Speakers Subcommittee. 9. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will provide a written report to the Speakers Subcommittee in which they describe whether and how the Speaker Objectives were met. 10. The written report will include a summary of the talk, major questions asked, and a copy of handouts, PowerPoint presentations, etc. as necessary. 11. These materials will be made easily available to other speakers so as to enhance their own presentations. 12. Upon completing their speaking engagement, speakers will also submit any receipts for *approved* expenses. 13. Upon submission of receipts, the written report, and ancillary materials--and only upon their submission--the speaker will be reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses.

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Re: [Foundation-l] board, babysitting, speaking engagements, etc.
by daniwo59＠aol.com 13 Aug '06

13 Aug '06

In a message dated 8/12/2006 4:53:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, beesley(a)gmail.com writes: On 8/12/06, daniwo59(a)aol.com <daniwo59(a)aol.com> wrote: > This conversation had jumped back and forth from single-instance expenses > (eg. babysitting costs) to much larger issues such as speakers fees. With the > number of speaking requests pouring in to the Foundation (and they come in at > an ever increasing rate), I want to suggest the following guidelines for board > members and others giving talks about the Foundation. What about the requests that don't come in via an official Foundation address? If individuals are approached, are you expecting them to follow these guidelines, or would those not count as official Foundation talks? Do we have any way of knowing which events are expecting an official representative of the Foundation? All speaking requests in which people go out and represent the Foundation should be under the auspicies and supervision of the Foundation. The Foundation should know who is going out speaking on its behalf, what they are saying, and to whom--especially when registered trademarks and logos are concerned. We are wary of people misusing our logo and trademark on websites--why should we not be equally wary of people misusing our logo and trademark in the real world? Finally, when people contact the Foundation asking for a speaker, it is safe to assume that they expect an "official representative." > 7. The Speaker Subcommittee will also request an honorarium > , to be paid to the Foundation, for providing a speaker. Are you suggesting that this Subcommittee would only send people if an honorarium was to be received? Or would you just be requesting it on the slim chance there is one? Considering I've only ever once been offered one, it doesn't seem very likely most speakers are going to get this, unless you want to start turning down the opportunity to promote the projects except in the very rare cases where money will be involved. No, I am suggesting that the Subcommittee request an honorarium as well as expenses. It is possible that none will be available. The Subcommittee will then decide whether or not to send someone. Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, not every request for a speaker must be met. It is also okay to say no for any number of reasons. An additional point to consider is whether this subcommittee will be the ones booking the transport. That would depend on who is paying for teh transportation. Danny Angela.

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Wikimedia-l August 2006