SJ wrote: There certainly are people sufficiently active to be considered potential members who have concluded that they do not want to share their identity with the Wikimedia Foundation. But I don't think that's really the issue to be concerned about here. It's the much larger number who want that identity or other personal information hidden, as indicated, from other editors or the general public. Let me explain. The Florida statutes governing nonprofit organizations have detailed requirements, including many tied to legal membership in the organization. Given that we have the potential for a very large membership, this could get quite complex. The idea of using membership dues as a way to generate funds for Wikimedia was a nice-sounding notion; in reality, complying with the full requirements of a membership infrastructure would have substantial technical and administrative overhead. If the developers are offering to create the code to set this up and people really want to pay membership dues on the scale necessary, maybe we should, but already some skepticism is warranted. One point that has been alluded to is that the Foundation would maintain records of members' names and addresses. Florida law also provides that members are entitled to inspect and copy various Foundation records. This includes, significantly, the record of members itself. The laws regarding "membership" in this context are based heavily on the equivalent principles for shareholders in for-profit corporations. In such corporations, participants may have various business reasons to solicit each other at their addresses (proxies, buying and selling of shares, etc.). The corporations also have the resources to dedicate to the system, as well as the motivation, since they're ultimately dependent on it for capital. Many of these principles do not translate easily to the nonprofit context. The legal membership model probably works well for some common examples, such as a club organization or the homeowners' association for a condominium complex. I don't know if it suits our community very well. Not because it's inconvenient for Jimbo and the professional staff, though it may be, but because if the community is fully informed about the legal consequences, I'm not so sure we would choose it. 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. 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. Or, finally, after considering the benefits and drawbacks of legal membership, we might choose a path without using it. Certainly the Wikimedia Foundation needs to incorporate the community into its functions, but it ought to be possible to do that, formally or informally, in ways that avoid the drawbacks of the legal regime. We might even occasionally talk in terms of members, but ultimately should be careful to disavow the statutory definition if we follow this course. --Michael Snow