Birgitte writes:
> The US sub-national issue is not about power but logistics. One
> national chapter will never self-organize in the US. All the
> incentives to do so (tax-deductabilty, legal support, press
> contacts) have been "stolen" by the WMF.
So far as I know, there is no legal prohibition or hurdle that
prevents either a national chapter or a subnational chapter from
forming in the United States. Such a chapter certainly could organize
itself as a nonprofit, seek tax-deductible status, and so on.
I do wish you hadn't used the word "stolen," even if you mean for it
to be a metaphor.
I agree that there are geographic hurdles with regard to a U.S.
national chapter, but would stop short of predicting that a national
chapter will "never self-organize." Over the course of my career,
I've frequently been surprised at the willingness of large geographic
groups to self-organize.
--Mike
Hello,
I created a page on meta, where we can brainstorm about ways the
chapters can determine their method for selecting Board seats.
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats>
This is going to happen, so let us work together to get the best of all ideas.
I put two sections, 1) "how to gather candidates" and 2) "how to
select among candidates".
I guess the traditional view goes like this:
Community elected: 1) nominations from the community, 2) votes from
the community (1p=1vote)
Board appointed: 2) nominations and 1) votes from the Board (this has
the inefficiency, that the Board may like to appoint someone who is
not willing to serve)
I find it interesting to consider mixing these up:
a) Nominations from the community + votes from the chapters
b) Nominations from the chapters + votes from the community
Of course, for "the chapters", there are multiple possibilities - all
members? comm members? one 'vote' per chapter? (each chapter has to
reach a decision internally) all chapter 'votes' equal? proportional
to membership? something else?
I look forward to seeing what ideas others have.
cheers,
Brianna
--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/
Birgitte writes:
>> I do wish you hadn't used the word "stolen,"
>> even if you mean for it
>> to be a metaphor.
>>
> What I really mean is preempted but I try to tone down my level of
> English for the international crowd. In any event I mean it
> indifferently without a value judgment on the situation. The quotes
> were meant to undermine the negative context.
Thanks for saying this.
> It is more than the high-cost of the geographic hurdles; there is
> also the lowered benefit because of the existence WMF Incorporated
> in the US. And while I will give you that anything is possible, you
> must agree that it would be foolish to stake the credibility of the
> whole "chapter's are the membership arm of WMF" platform on such
> tiny possibility.
Legally speaking, there are good reasons not to consider chapters as
the "membership arm of WMF." The last thing we want is for WM UK (for
example) to be summoned into a British court because of a BLP issue on
a Foundation-operated project. If the chapters are considered to be
part of WMF in any respect, it creates the risk of legal liability for
chapters and their members based on Foundation operations or (somewhat
less likely) liability for the Foundation based on chapter operations.
Obviously, the Board's recent restructuring actions were aimed in part
at validating the role the chapters play in promoting the larger
Wikimedia movement, but at the same time the chapter-selected Board
members will be required to cut formal ties -- only during their term
on the WMF, it must be said -- with the chapters and to act as
fiduciaries to the Foundation as a whole. Part of this is
straightforward nonprofit corporation law, and part of this is due to
the need to limit legal liability in all directions.
--Mike
Samuel writes:
> What is the scope of these responsibilities? I have heard the term
> "fiduciary responsibilities" used in Wikimedia circles as a way of
> shutting
> down conversation -- thought not for some time -- and as a result I
> would
> appreciate a proper definition.
See for example <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary_duty>.
> Trusting someone to give good topical advice and trusting them to
> make good
> long-term decisions and remain true to their principles are rather
> different.
Well, sure, but that's why the law imposes fiduciary responsibilities
on the Board of Trustees (even the appointed ones). The checks and
balances you are concerned about are built into the law itself.
> As long as we are using extra quotation marks... the Board is in a
> position
> to attempt to "optimize fundraising" by taking on advertising, tying
> the
> brand[s] to specific companies, or starting a
> censorship^B^B^Bcontent safety
> campaign to make the sites more friendly to potential donor groups.
The Board has always been in the position of taking action that would
destroy the community responsible for making the projects as vital and
rich as they are. No Board has been stupid enough to do so, and I
can't see how the restructured Board would suddenly become stupid
enough to do so.
> Of particular concern to me is that there is no mechanism for passing
> extraordinary measures or referenda, no matter how overwhelmingly
> desired by
> the collected Wikimedians; and that there is no trusted eminence
> that could
> veto board actions in extraordinary circumstances. A simple
> majority of
> board members could alter the bylaws however they saw fit, and then do
> anything at all.
This has always been the case. Nothing about the restructuring changes
this.
> You have been around for longer than I have, but I have seen my
> share of
> good governing bodies that fail to prepare for a future in which
> they are
> replaced by not-so-good boards, and regret the results. The way to
> avoid
> this is to prepare checks and balances, not to give everyone the
> benefit of
> the doubt until something goes wrong -- by when it is often too late.
As a constitutional lawyer, I think about "checks and balances" as a
feature of government, not of a nonprofit corporate board. In a
government, there are strong arguments for checks and balances (this
is a primary topic in the Federalist Papers), but with corporate
governance, the checks are primarily external ones (corporate law, the
legal system, etc.). If you want to paralyze a non-profit (and almost
all of my entire career has been working for nonprofits), by all means
ensure that every single action the entity takes is subject to a
referendum.
> You suggested no limits on what is acceptable for the board to carry
> out
> without explicit notice.
Is there a legal restriction that I'm overlooking? Please advise. The
Board certainly has to operate within the constraints of the law.
> By this reasoning, a future board, after a general
> discusion about structural change, could alter its composition by
> 30%, with
> an arbitrary reshuffling of community, external, voted and appointed
> seats.
There's a difference between "could" and "is likely to." No one can
make policy based on the worst imaginable cases. You have to assume
most people will act well most of the time, or this whole enterprise
collapses.
--Mike
One thing I am curious about: after the US, Japanese is the most prominent
Wikipedia project. According to Alexa, it accounts for some 9 percent of
traffic (in comparision, German is 6.4 percent), and it is the fifth-largest
wikiproject by # of articles. Does anyone know if there is a discussion taking
place among the Japanese about forming a chapter and having some voice in
Foundation governance?
Danny
**************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family
favorites at AOL Food.
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Birgitte writes:
> Are you not concerned that incorporating chapters into the bylaws of
> WMF, instead of considering them as wholly independent organizations
> that happen to license WMF's trademarks, might make them part of WMF
> in some respect?
Not to any great degree. I anticipate that there will be some
plaintiff here or there that tries to make something out of the fact
that chapters select two seats on the Board, but the requirement that
new Trustees resign from chapter positions should reduce the risk that
chapters may be held liable for Board actions.
To put it another way, the fact that I get to vote for Barack Obama
doesn't mean I'm legally liable for anything the Obama Administration
does.
--Mike
Charles Matthews wrote:
> Well, maybe we should discuss the downside first. Not having project
> pages on Google would certainly impede my work. You know, some of us
> still develop articles, and so on.
This is a valid point, and I think it needs to be addressed in a couple
of ways:
1. First, narrowing the scope of the noindex request.
2. Second, finding out what it would take to improve internal search to
make it more usable for people developing articles and so on.
> Ah, but I do. Isn't it a better solution to blank some AfDs, than to
> say "the mission has to come second"? After all, really negative
> material should be off the site, not just harder to find.
I would support that for some kinds of pages, blanking should be the
default upon the close of discussion.
-----
I wonder how hard it would be to have a technical change whereby
articles could be tagged with a {{noindex}} template which would set the
meta headers appropriately. This could be liberally applied to project
pages that may be magnets for bad behavior.
And then user space could be the only thing removed from google by default.
Thoughts?
--Jimbo
In a message dated 5/1/2008 2:27:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
polimerek(a)gmail.com writes:
But the cost of travel by plane is similar around USD 500 - and
practically - time of travel as well if you take into consideration
time spent to get to airport and time spent in custom, check-in etc.
And believe me - the difference between London and Warsaw is much
higher than between LA and NY in terms of language, habits, level of
personal income etc. We are not going to travel across Europe and US
on horses, so the distance in miles is not so important :-)
Sure, the cultural differences are vast. I was simply addressing geographic
differences, which facilitate interpersonal contact, a key component of
chapter building.
As for some of the other comments: sure, regional US chapters can raise
money, but for what purpose? As for PR, let's say that a chapter forms in
Atlanta: are they going to be the ones to speak on CNN, or will it be the
Foundation? Similarly, what if Bill O'Reilly wants to interview someone: will it be the
Chair of Wikimedia New York or the representative of the Foundation. As for
a "death of titles," that should not be what this is about. It only serves to
highlight differences in rank, rather than eliminate them. Once we used to
pride ourselves on an admin being nothing more than an ordinary user with a
mop. Why create a culture of hierarchies when it is not needed?
D
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Top-posting
For what it's worth, I would find it productive if some participants
on this list thought about sometimes *not* top-posting, but trimming
the message they're responding to so as to make it clear *what* and
*who* it is they're responding to. In threads with 50+ emails and
delayed responses, it makes reading much easier.
Thank you,
Delphine
--
~notafish
http://blog.notanendive.org
NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent
to this address will probably get lost.
Anthony writes:
> That's what I was thinking. Classifying a worker as a contractor who
> holds substantially the same position as another worker you classify
> as an employee, is a good way to rack up a hefty bill with the IRS
> (for employment taxes, penalties, and interest).
The Foundation has spent a significant amount of time and money over
the last 10 months reviewing precisely these issues (both internally
and in consultation with outside counsel), and we're taking pains to
be compliant with IRS regs and various state and federal labor-law
requirements. It's complicated work, but we're not quite dumb enough
simply to classify employees as contractors just for convenience.
That said, the outside contractors who are also community members seem
to me to be particularly well-qualified and well-informed enough to
vote in Board elections, if they choose to do so. Even if they
conduct the bulk of their work outside the office (they are, in fact,
outside the USA altogether).
--Mike