In no way am I criticizing the election, but I think at least one of the member of the board should be from a wiki not in the top 4-10. After all the board represents us all and not just the top 4. Just an idea? What do you think? - White Cat On 7/17/07, Kim Bruning <kim(a)bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:

The only way I can see that we could do that is with some kind of constituency system. Projects are grouped together in some way so that we have as many equal sized groups as there are seats available. Each group then elects one person from that group to the board. I think this would only work if the board was significantly enlarged. I'd say 6 or 7 elected seats would be a minimum, otherwise the groups would be too large. There would also be a significant difficulty in working out how to group the projects (should all projects in the same language go together, or should all Wiktionarys go together, or what?). The other thing to consider is that we would have a board where the board members are representing a particular subgroup of the community which runs the risk of increasing conflict within the board (the Wiktionary members wants to spend the extra publicity money on Wiktionary, the Asian languages member wants to spend it in Asia, etc.). That increased conflict might be worth it to get smaller projects the attention they need, but I doubt it.

On 18/07/07, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com> wrote: The top 10 (counting Wikipedias only) account for ~90% of our edits. I don't have solid editor numbers - Greg might have some for eligible-by-project? - but that seems a reasonable indicator that they have about 90% of our community. Yes, the board represents us all. But putting mandatory background restrictions on what communities people have to come from does not seem the best solution. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 18/07/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%! -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On Wednesday 18 July 2007 19:55:35 Thomas Dalton wrote: .oO(blubb blubb) Guys can you please talk a bit more reality- and task-based? It's not funny anylonger to read on this list mere political chatting instead of useful Wikimedia project coordination. Arnomane

On 18/07/07, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys(a)gmail.com> wrote: en - 980m all told de - 170m all told fr - 350 to 500m all told ja - 130m all told pl - maybe 55m all told As it is, three of the top 5 are German, Japanese and Polish, which whilst pretty populous countries aren't major "multinational languages" (though I was pleasantly surprised by the number of second-language German speakers). The next five has Spanish and Portugese, but the really big one is zhwp, in twelfth place. Unfortunately, being blocked in China has handicapped zhwp's growth something awful - we'd be in with a very good shot at a third otherwise :-) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

On 7/14/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: It is true that it is important that chapters do not become legally liable for editing behaviour onwiki. But to phrase the way to accomplish that: "A chapter should keep itself at arms length of the projects..." is frankly incomprehensible gibberish. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On 7/14/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: There are reasons to avoid legal liability for onwiki action. Period. That is a good thing to do. Period. There is no good reason for chapters to keep their distance from WMF projects. Period. To suggest there are good reasons for chapters to keep their distance from WMF projects is incomprehensible, illogical, impossible in the utmost, and totally unfathomable in the absolute. Period. Since you wish to be informed of what is correct (notice you are still using the royal "we"); let me inform you of something you may not have noticed, namely that the chapters almost solely consist of editors *from* the WMF projects. Saying that the chapters should stay at arms lenght from the WMF projects is like saying that a Centipede should stay an arms length from it's legs. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On 7/14/07, GerardM &lt;gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Now let's see, this convo started with Dedalus writing (quoting full message): <begin quote> "My impression is that voter turn out in countries with a local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation are highest ranking. Correct me if I'm wrong. Walter's suggestion to "organize there own community" would I read as increasing the number of local chapters rapidly. My suggestion to the election process would be not to change anything - but only to start preparing and planning the election - starting with appointing a election committee as soon as possible to have plenty of time for arranging evertything that is needed." <end quote> To which you (GerardM) replied on your own part (again quoting in full): <begin quote> "Hoi, A chapter should keep itself at arms length of the projects.. this is to ensure that it does not become liable for what happens in the projects. Thanks," <end quote> Please inform *me* what in heavens name in Dedaluses message suggests any form of unacceptable connexion between the chapters and any other organ of anything at all that would create legal liability? The only thing needed to avoid legal liability for on-wiki action is that there is no *formal* linkage with official organs of the projects, which make binding editorial judgements etc. such as arbcoms, checkuser and the like. The chapters *should* actively encourage editing by new editors, and old editors alike, as private persons, and in this sense they should very much indicate their willingess to be involved with furthering active editing by people, but of course not the chapters making any sort of editorial judgements. That really would create legal liability. And in the absolute, the members of the chapters should be normal editors themselves. Naturally the people who are in positions of trust in the chapters should not concurrently hold positions of _Editorial_Responsibility_. Involvement with a project does not equate to editorial responsibility, apart from the normal responsibility that we all have as editors to do the right thing. I'll go further than that. The chapters being active in the election of board of trustees would in no way or shape of form create legal liability for edits on the wikies run by the Foundation, any more than a citizens action group promoting interest in some national election would by this action assume legal liability for passing the laws written by the governing body to which the representatives were elected. I am sure you are the only one reading this to whom this needs to be explained. -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On 7/15/07, Alison Wheeler &lt;wikimedia(a)alisonwheeler.com&gt; wrote: There are already many legal connections between Chapters (A) and Foundation (B). But: A and B having legal connections isn't the same as A being responsible for something B does or vice versa. I really can't see any legal problem here. Of course IANAL, but I do have some experience regarding this question, through WM-DE's involvement in different law suits regarding Wikipedia content. Cheers, Arne

On 7/15/07, Alison Wheeler &lt;wikimedia(a)alisonwheeler.com&gt; wrote: I you're going to invoke a worst case perspective, I believe all Wikimedia "related" entities (Wikimedia chapters as well as the Wikimedia Foundation) should immediately stop doing what they're doing. They should mutate into stamp collecting organisations -- that would lower the risks drastically ;) Cheers, Arne

Kim Bruning wrote: Yes. I wouldn't say that either needs to have a strong control over the other. Contracts are fine, and even necessary for such things as the use of trademarks and logos. They help to define the relationships between chapters and the WMF. That still says nothing about the relationships between chapters and the contributors in their respective countries. We just need to proceed with caution. Ec

GerardM wrote: Errr. "To have one's periods" is rather explicit language :-) ant

On 15/07/07, Stephen Bain &lt;stephen.bain(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: There's no *solid* information, but using edit count as a proxy for community location we can get a rough idea. 93% of all edits to jawiki came from Japan 86% of all edits to itwiki came from Italy 80% of all edits to plwiki came from Poland dewiki, nlwiki, svwiki, fiwiki, hewiki all were in the 70-79% band of edits from "their" countries. (All these figures *may* be undercounting by a few %) So, yeah, there's a definite correlation. One Western country speaks the language, and it's not a first language elsewhere? You're seeing a strong link between "nationals" and "editors". And this covers our two highest-turnout projects; Italian and Polish. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk