Walter wrote:
"But bothem line is that is the responsibly of very Wikimedia project wiki community to organize there own community and inform there local community. That it is not the task of the WMF to hire people to make translations. Like was written before here this is not a kindergarden."
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.
Dedalus
Hi (sigh), Jailed due to typhoon coming (and the weather report says my region is not YET in the most suffered area), and with a unfortunately broken TV set, I found there is nothing entertaining except the Net. *sigh*
On 7/14/07, Dedalus dedalus@wikipedia.be wrote:
Walter wrote:
"But bothem line is that is the responsibly of very Wikimedia project wiki community to organize there own community and inform there local community. That it is not the task of the WMF to hire people to make translations. Like was written before here this is not a kindergarden."
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.
It could be a part of reasons, while I have a different view comparing with the past results, it rather may depend if at least one candidate is active/speaking their language on their project.
* Top 6 projects are enwiki 2448: Mindspillage, Micheal Snow ... dewiki 332: (Eloquence) ... frwiki 245: Yann itwiki 192: Frieda plwiki 184: Ausir, WarX nlwiki 80: Oscar, (KimBruning) * Serbs have a chapter but less than 10 people voted from srwiki* this year. * As for Taiwan (zh) and Israel (he), it could be arguable: 25 and 22 respectively. I don't know the size of their communities, but 25 from zh sounds sort of a small number ... * From es, 92 people voted in 2006 when Juan David Ruiz ran for the election. This year it reduced into 38. Relatively higher than other projects, but less than a half of previous votes. * Similarly, in 2006 when WMIT and WMPL were fairly active already, the votes from those projects were 49 and 52 respectively.
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.
Indeed. I am amazed what an aggressive schedule we have been working ... it would be nice to team up the committee much before, perhaps months before, and to allow them to schedule the Election more flexibly.
Dedalus
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 11:30:10PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
- Top 6 projects are
enwiki 2448: Mindspillage, Micheal Snow, Kim Bruning ...
dewiki 332: (Eloquence) ... frwiki 245: Yann itwiki 192: Frieda plwiki 184: Ausir, WarX
nlwiki 80: Oscar
As a quick correction: As far as community membership goes, I'm a member of the enwiki community, not nlwiki.
To Aphaia and the Election committee: Thank you for all your hard work! :-)
Sincerely, Kim Bruning
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@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 11:30:10PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
- Top 6 projects are
enwiki 2448: Mindspillage, Micheal Snow, Kim Bruning ...
dewiki 332: (Eloquence) ... frwiki 245: Yann itwiki 192: Frieda plwiki 184: Ausir, WarX
nlwiki 80: Oscar
As a quick correction: As far as community membership goes, I'm a member of the enwiki community, not nlwiki.
To Aphaia and the Election committee: Thank you for all your hard work! :-)
Sincerely, Kim Bruning
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Hoi, When you consider positive discrimination, this is in essence what you are talking about, you will find that there are more categories that would benefit from more attention. There are the projects other than Wikipedia, there is the cultural diversity, in Yann and Oscar we would have had someone who does speak an Asian language (Hindi/Gujarati and Turkish respectively). We are fortunate that we have native speakers of four languages on our board.
When people state that ex-employees do not have to be prevented to become board member because the electors will see them for what they are (doubtful in my opinion) it is equally true that when a need is felt for people to represent a POV with regard to projects that they will present themselves. In this election there was for instance a platform for phasing out projects other than Wikipedia.
The best chances for election have those people that represent a generally accepted view. It does help when you have local support and it does help when you are already on the board. With positive discrimination you will have the problem how to make such a position available, it would mean that our election process has to be altered.. and I am not convinced that it would work that well given that the board is particularly busy with the governance of our organisation and not our projects.
Thanks, GerardM
On 7/18/07, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
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@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 11:30:10PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
- Top 6 projects are
enwiki 2448: Mindspillage, Micheal Snow, Kim Bruning ...
dewiki 332: (Eloquence) ... frwiki 245: Yann itwiki 192: Frieda plwiki 184: Ausir, WarX
nlwiki 80: Oscar
As a quick correction: As far as community membership goes, I'm a member of the enwiki community, not nlwiki.
To Aphaia and the Election committee: Thank you for all your hard work! :-)
Sincerely, Kim Bruning
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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?
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.
Most of us believe this as well, but the fact of that matter is that we rarely get anyone from such projects to stand. Your point is taken by us, but we are not the ones who need to hear it.
Casey Brown Cbrown1023
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of White Cat Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 3:14 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] (correction) Re: Notice of the results of theWMF Board of Trustees election
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 18/07/07, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
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?
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.
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.
That's what I was getting at when I said the board would need to be expanded. By your numbers, we could only have a representative of the smaller projects by having 10 elected seats. That's not likely to happen. Having such representation would involve giving members of smaller projects more votes than larger ones, which isn't very "fair", and probably isn't in the foundation's best interest.
On 18/07/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That's what I was getting at when I said the board would need to be expanded. By your numbers, we could only have a representative of the smaller projects by having 10 elected seats. That's not likely to happen. Having such representation would involve giving members of smaller projects more votes than larger ones, which isn't very "fair", and probably isn't in the foundation's best interest.
The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%!
The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%!
Hmmm... 253 wikis, top 5 is 2% and has 75% of the edits, top 10, or 4% has 90%. That's much greater inequality than the 80-20 rule!
On Wednesday 18 July 2007 19:55:35 Thomas Dalton wrote:
The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%!
Hmmm... 253 wikis, top 5 is 2% and has 75% of the edits, top 10, or 4% has 90%. That's much greater inequality than the 80-20 rule!
.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
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Thomas Dalton wrote:
The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%!
Hmmm... 253 wikis, top 5 is 2% and has 75% of the edits, top 10, or 4% has 90%. That's much greater inequality than the 80-20 rule!
There's nothing unexpected about this, of course, due merely to the way that human languages work. Anyway, that figure of 253 wikis is hardly useful. I wouldn't call the top 5 wikis "merely" 2%. I'd bet that at least a third of the world's population can speak at least one of the top 5 wikis' languages.
On 18/07/07, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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Thomas Dalton wrote:
The top five, incidentally - enwp, dewp, frwp, jawp and plwp - account for 75%; the second five for 15%!
Hmmm... 253 wikis, top 5 is 2% and has 75% of the edits, top 10, or 4% has 90%. That's much greater inequality than the 80-20 rule!
There's nothing unexpected about this, of course, due merely to the way that human languages work. Anyway, that figure of 253 wikis is hardly useful. I wouldn't call the top 5 wikis "merely" 2%. I'd bet that at least a third of the world's population can speak at least one of the top 5 wikis' languages.
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 :-)
On 7/18/07, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 11:30:10PM +0900, Aphaia wrote:
- Top 6 projects are
enwiki 2448: Mindspillage, Micheal Snow, Kim Bruning ...
dewiki 332: (Eloquence) ... frwiki 245: Yann itwiki 192: Frieda plwiki 184: Ausir, WarX
nlwiki 80: Oscar
As a quick correction: As far as community membership goes, I'm a member of the enwiki community, not nlwiki.
Thanks, Kim for your correction.
To Aphaia and the Election committee: Thank you for all your hard work! :-)
On behalf of Election committee, dank wel :)
Sincerely, Kim Bruning
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Dedalus schreef:
Walter's suggestion to "organize there own community" would I read as increasing the number of local chapters rapidly.
That is a possibility but that is not what I mean. What I mean is that it is the responsibility of every community of every wiki to take actions to inform there community about what is going on. Like posting certain news in there local village pump or other relevant page, local mailing list, translate some key information.
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, GerardM
On 7/14/07, Dedalus dedalus@wikipedia.be wrote:
Walter wrote:
"But bothem line is that is the responsibly of very Wikimedia project wiki community to organize there own community and inform there local community. That it is not the task of the WMF to hire people to make translations. Like was written before here this is not a kindergarden."
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.
Dedalus
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 7/14/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
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, GerardM
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]]
Hoi, For your comprehension: at arm's length: Avoiding a close relationship
For the comprehension of others: gibberish: speech or writing that is unintelligible, incoherent or meaningless
So what I understand is that you either fail to understand is that there are good reasons why chapters should want to keep their distance from the WMF projects or that you disagree but do not say so. Please inform us what is correct..
Thanks, GerardM
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/at_arm%27s_length http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gibberish
On 7/14/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
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, GerardM
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]] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 7/14/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, For your comprehension: at arm's length: Avoiding a close relationship
For the comprehension of others: gibberish: speech or writing that is unintelligible, incoherent or meaningless
So what I understand is that you either fail to understand is that there are good reasons why chapters should want to keep their distance from the WMF projects or that you disagree but do not say so. Please inform us what is correct..
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]]
Hoi, While you have your periods, consider, when a chapter, which is a legal entity, indicates its involvement with WMF projects, it creates legal responsibility for the projects and as a result people, organisations can sue it. This is not a good idea.
A chapter is an organisation that promotes activities for the people involved and interested in WMF projects. It also does promote the ideals of the WMF. But it does not involve itself in the projects themselves. It does not assume or accept any legal responsibility for whatever happens in WMF projects.
Given your use of a centipede, shooting in your foot is only painful when you have a thousand. When you are human and you have only two feet, shooting in your foot is a bad idea. Not only should a chapter not involve itself in the running of projects, many chapters cannot even claim that a partiucular language can be equated with the country, region a chapter is involved in. In my opinion it is a truly brain dead idea for a chapter to involve itself officially with WMF projects. If at all it is either the WMF itself or particular editors that can be considered responsible for what happens on a WMF project.
Thanks, GerardM
On 7/14/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, For your comprehension: at arm's length: Avoiding a close relationship
For the comprehension of others: gibberish: speech or writing that is unintelligible, incoherent or meaningless
So what I understand is that you either fail to understand is that there are good reasons why chapters should want to keep their distance from the
WMF
projects or that you disagree but do not say so. Please inform us what
is
correct..
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]] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 7/14/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, While you have your periods, consider, when a chapter, which is a legal entity, indicates its involvement with WMF projects, it creates legal responsibility for the projects and as a result people, organisations can sue it. This is not a good idea.
A chapter is an organisation that promotes activities for the people involved and interested in WMF projects. It also does promote the ideals of the WMF. But it does not involve itself in the projects themselves. It does not assume or accept any legal responsibility for whatever happens in WMF projects.
Given your use of a centipede, shooting in your foot is only painful when you have a thousand. When you are human and you have only two feet, shooting in your foot is a bad idea. Not only should a chapter not involve itself in the running of projects, many chapters cannot even claim that a partiucular language can be equated with the country, region a chapter is involved in. In my opinion it is a truly brain dead idea for a chapter to involve itself officially with WMF projects. If at all it is either the WMF itself or particular editors that can be considered responsible for what happens on a WMF project.
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]]
(Apols if I get the quoting wrong on this - there are too many levels!)
<begin Dedalus 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.
I believe this is wrong, or rather it is not a case of cause and effect as the OP suggested. Chapter generally have been and are being formed in the places where the editors living in that area are most active. As such it cannot be a surprise that their 'offline' activities are being matched by their 'online' prevalence for voting in the recent election.
On Sat, July 14, 2007 19:11, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
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.
Here I must again disagree. Speaking for a moment as the Chair of the UK Chapter, I would be *very* wary of our having a voice/vote in the selection of the Board of the Foundation because, imho, it *would* create a legal connection between us. Whilst there are certainly issues around the responsibility for 'edits' on the projects, there is a greater requirement that there is a clear separation of (legal) responsibilities as might relate to the ownership and content of the projects. I, for one, would not countenance a formal relationship of this kind.
Ec wrote:
I would have concerns about the intelligence of a person who accepts a job counting paperclips. I would quesion his suitability for a responsible Board position, and let my vote be guided accordingly. :-)
My bigger concern would be for the Board; these are online projects so what are the paperclips for! ;-P
Seriously though, I have absolutely no problem with former employees seeking to become elected representatives on the Board. Just as Civil servants in the UK are permitted to stand as councillors and MPs so long as they resign their {local|state} government job first, so we should welcome people who have been 'at the sharp end' in the Foundation and still want to see it improve by working _voluntarily_ (rather than as a _paid_ employee) to that end.
I would be *very* concerned though about the reverse; for someone to leave the Board and then be appointed within weeks or months to a paid position by the remaining board would, imho, be reprehensible and an unacceptable way to proceed.
Alison Wheeler
On 7/15/07, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
On Sat, July 14, 2007 19:11, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
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.
Here I must again disagree. Speaking for a moment as the Chair of the UK Chapter, I would be *very* wary of our having a voice/vote in the selection of the Board of the Foundation because, imho, it *would* create a legal connection between us.
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 Sun, July 15, 2007 14:17, Arne Klempert 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.
The usual test in this sort of case is one of "control". WMUK has a legal agreement - a contract - for the use of the name and logo with the Foundation, but that agreement - explicitly - gives no 'control' over activities or anything else to either party over the other.
WMUK having the ability to appoint (either alone or in concert with others) a member of the Board of WMF though would create a clear route of 'control' and create a line of responsibility, imho. as indeed would the WMF haing any representation in the operation of a Chapter.
I am aware that some other Chapters have different legal relationships with the Foundation, and that worries me over what could theoretically happen in the future in a 'worst case' scenario.
Alison
On 7/15/07, Alison Wheeler wikimedia@alisonwheeler.com wrote:
I am aware that some other Chapters have different legal relationships with the Foundation, and that worries me over what could theoretically happen in the future in a 'worst case' scenario.
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
On Sun, Jul 15, 2007 at 02:29:47PM +0100, Alison Wheeler wrote:
WMUK having the ability to appoint (either alone or in concert with others) a member of the Board of WMF though would create a clear route of 'control' and create a line of responsibility, imho. as indeed would the WMF haing any representation in the operation of a Chapter.
Understood: you need to keep legal firewalls between different chapters, and between chapters and the foundation.
So that means strong chapter influence over the foundation or vice versa by any means other than via contracts is a big nono, and shouldn't happen, correct?
read you soon, Kim Bruning
Kim Bruning wrote:
On Sun, Jul 15, 2007 at 02:29:47PM +0100, Alison Wheeler wrote:
WMUK having the ability to appoint (either alone or in concert with others) a member of the Board of WMF though would create a clear route of 'control' and create a line of responsibility, imho. as indeed would the WMF haing any representation in the operation of a Chapter.
Understood: you need to keep legal firewalls between different chapters, and between chapters and the foundation.
Yes.
So that means strong chapter influence over the foundation or vice versa by any means other than via contracts is a big nono, and shouldn't happen, correct?
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
Alison Wheeler wrote:
On Sat, July 14, 2007 19:11, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
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.
Here I must again disagree. Speaking for a moment as the Chair of the UK Chapter, I would be *very* wary of our having a voice/vote in the selection of the Board of the Foundation because, imho, it *would* create a legal connection between us. Whilst there are certainly issues around the responsibility for 'edits' on the projects, there is a greater requirement that there is a clear separation of (legal) responsibilities as might relate to the ownership and content of the projects. I, for one, would not countenance a formal relationship of this kind.
I agree that caution is warranted. I find a very high level of legal naïveté among some of our colleagues, and that can be frightening. In a few areas, like copyright or defamation, the Community is relatively conservative, but blissful ignorance prevails in far too many other areas. The leadership in national chapters need to be aware of many pitfalls.
Ec wrote:
I would have concerns about the intelligence of a person who accepts a job counting paperclips. I would quesion his suitability for a responsible Board position, and let my vote be guided accordingly. :-)
My bigger concern would be for the Board; these are online projects so what are the paperclips for! ;-P
Seriously though, I have absolutely no problem with former employees seeking to become elected representatives on the Board. Just as Civil servants in the UK are permitted to stand as councillors and MPs so long as they resign their {local|state} government job first, so we should welcome people who have been 'at the sharp end' in the Foundation and still want to see it improve by working _voluntarily_ (rather than as a _paid_ employee) to that end.
In some places they take an unpaid leave-of-absence when they stand, but only need to resign if they are successful. This especially makes more sense when a person is in a low level job.
I would be *very* concerned though about the reverse; for someone to leave the Board and then be appointed within weeks or months to a paid position by the remaining board would, imho, be reprehensible and an unacceptable way to proceed.
We agree on this.
Ec
GerardM wrote:
Hoi, While you have your periods, consider, when a chapter, which is a legal entity, indicates its involvement with WMF projects, it creates legal responsibility for the projects and as a result people, organisations can sue it. This is not a good idea.
Errr. "To have one's periods" is rather explicit language :-)
ant
On 7/14/07, Dedalus dedalus@wikipedia.be wrote:
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.
There's no way to tell whether you're right or wrong, because there is no information available as to which countries voters came from, only from which project they voted. The only way to test the accuracy of your impression would be to make the assumption that all editors of a given language edition come from a particular country, which would be foolish.
On 15/07/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/14/07, Dedalus dedalus@wikipedia.be wrote:
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.
There's no way to tell whether you're right or wrong, because there is no information available as to which countries voters came from, only from which project they voted. The only way to test the accuracy of your impression would be to make the assumption that all editors of a given language edition come from a particular country, which would be foolish.
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.
On 14/07/07, Dedalus dedalus@wikipedia.be wrote:
Walter wrote:
"But bothem line is that is the responsibly of very Wikimedia project wiki community to organize there own community and inform there local community. That it is not the task of the WMF to hire people to make translations. Like was written before here this is not a kindergarden."
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.
I think this is a correlation, not a causation - the same factors which lead to large turnout lead to a local chapter. Relatively small community, high sense of involvement, close links between editors.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org