On 6/18/06, Michael Snow wikipedia@earthlink.net wrote:
Let me say it clearly for all of you. If you want to participate in legal membership in the Foundation, considering just how broadly we contemplate the concept of membership, you are effectively expressing a willingness for your name and address to become a public record. Any member can get a Florida attorney (Jack Thompson comes to mind) to represent them and ask for the membership records on their behalf. And I don't expect it will be possible to screen out in advance members you consider undesirable any more effectively than we can do so for project editors.
Given how strongly attached some of the community is to privacy and anonymity, I don't know if that's a choice we want to be forcing on people. Certainly it's not a model we should adopt without making sure people have thought carefully about it.
No one is suggesting forcing anything on anyone. In order to become a foundation member, you would have to give your name and address. You don't have to be a foundation member in order to edit Wikipedia et. al.
If this is such an issue, and I don't see why it should be, I'm sure there are other states with more reasonable corporate laws. Florida is not a very popular state for corporations. Even Wikia moved out of Florida. IIRC, oregon is usually recognized for very liberal non-profit corporate laws.
Various possibilities lie ahead. One is that we adopt legal membership with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. If this is done in the name of remaining "open", it's just as possible that in doing so we'd be departing from our openness toward those who value their privacy. Another possibility in the scenario is that depending on how membership is determined, including cost, we may find that relatively few people "join". At which point it becomes obvious that despite this effort, some people will choose to complain that the community is not represented in Foundation affairs, and it may seem that the entire exercise was valueless. It should also be observed that any definition of Foundation membership which is not coextensive with the community (and I don't see how gaps can be avoided) has the potential to factionalize people along the lines created by these fissures. A community divided over member vs. non-member, rich vs. poor, out vs. closeted, or other potential distinctions is certainly a possibility.
We are already divided between board member and non-board member. Allowing people outside of the board to be members of the foundation makes the gap smaller, not larger.
Anthony