Hello,
I have given a bit of thought in the issue during the past few days, in reading all the emails on this list, and I had the opportunity today to talk with one of the co-founder of the Apache Foundation, in particular about the way their Foundation is organised. I put wikitech in copy, because I am pretty sure some of the guys there know the organisation and will be able to correct me if necessary.
I thought that his description of his Foundation... would very possibly fit pretty well what it seems many on this list are looking for and solve some of our current problems.
It has some points in commons with the previous Wikicouncil on which we had worked, but one of the problems with the Wikicouncil was ... the rather unclear role of this one. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
I will try to describe below, using largely what is explained on their site + his comments. Please correct me if you view some misunterpretations. Also, if you know the organisation from the inside, please comment.
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Ant : Bare facts : their goals (please compare with our goals)
What is the Apache Software Foundation?
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America and was formed primarily to:
* provide a foundation for open, collaborative software development projects by supplying hardware, communication, and business infrastructure * create an independent legal entity to which companies and individuals can donate resources and be assured that those resources will be used for the public benefit * provide a means for individual volunteers to be sheltered from legal suits directed at the Foundation's projects * protect the 'Apache' brand, as applied to its software products, from being abused by other organizations
Ant : Aside from point 3, that's roughly similar to us
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The Foundation structure
At the time the ASF was created, there were several separate communities, each focused on a different side of the "web serving" problem, but all united by a common set of goals and a respected set of cultural traditions in both etiquette and process.
Ant : in short, several projects with rather individual communities and a common goal.
These separate communities were referred to as "projects" and while similar, each of them exhibited little differences that made them special.
In order to reduce friction and allow for diversity to emerge, rather than forcing a monoculture from the top, the projects are designated the central decision-making organizations of the Apache world. Each project is delegated authority over development of its software, and is given a great deal of latitude in designing its own technical charter and its own governing rules.
The foundation is governed by the following entities:
Board of Directors (board) governs the foundation and is composed of members.
Project Management Committees (PMC) govern the projects, and they are composed of committers. (Note that every member is, by definition, also a committer.)
Ant : for us, we currently have the board. Something similar to the PMC was suggested on the list recently, so as to separate more strictly board and projects
-----------
Board of Directors (board)
The board is responsible for management and oversight of the business and affairs of the corporation in accordance with the foundation Bylaws. This includes management of the corporate assets (funds, intellectual property, trademarks, and support equipment) and allocation of corporate resources to projects.
However, technical decision-making authority regarding the content and direction of the Apache projects is assigned to each respective project management committee.
The board is currently composed by nine individuals, elected between the members of the foundation. The bylaws don't specify the number of officers that the board should have, but historically, this was the number of the first board and it has never changed. The board is elected every year.
Ant : note that the board is elected by the members of the Foundation (ASF Member). Not by all developers whatever their status, but only ASF members (see below how to get ASF member).
Ant : Lars told me that the board was entirely elected. So entirely came from within the community.
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Project Management Committees (PMC)
The Project Management Committees are established by resolution of the Board, to be responsible for the active management of one or more communities, which are also identified by resolution of the Board.
Each PMC consists of at least one officer of the ASF, who shall be designated chairperson, and may include one or more other members of the ASF.
The chair of the PMC is appointed by the Board and is an officer of the ASF (Vice President). The chair has primary responsibility to the Board, and has the power to establish rules and procedures for the day to day management of the communities for which the PMC is responsible, including the composition of the PMC itself.
Ant : in our case, the PMC (rather than the chair really) might have the power to make the rules over copyright issues for example
The role of the PMC from a Foundation perspective is oversight. The main role of the PMC is not code and not coding - but to ensure that all legal issues are addressed, that procedure is followed, and that each and every release is the product of the community as a whole. That is key to our litigation protection mechanisms.
Secondly the role of the PMC is to further the long term development and health of the community as a whole, and to ensure that balanced and wide scale peer review and collaboration does happen. Within the ASF we worry about any community which centers around a few individuals who are working virtually uncontested. We believe that this is detrimental to quality, stability, and robustness of both code and long term social structures.
As the PMC, and the chair in particular, are eyes and ears of the ASF Board, it is you that we rely on and need to trust to provide legal oversight.
The board has the faculty to terminate a PMC at any time by resolution.
------------
How does someone get PMC Member ?
PMC member is a developer or a committer that was elected due to merit for the evolution of the project and demonstration of commitment. They have write access to the code repository, an apache.org mail address, the right to vote for the community-related decisions and the right to propose an active user for committership. The PMC as a whole is the entity that controls the project, nobody else.
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How does someone get ASF Member
ASF member is a person that was nominated by current members and elected due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members care for the ASF itself. This is usually demonstrated through the roots of project-related and cross-project activities. Legally, a member is a "shareholder" of the foundation, one of the owners. They have the right to elect the board, to stand as a candidate for the board election and to propose a committer for membership. They also have the right to propose a new project for incubation (we'll see later what this means). The members coordinate their activities through their mailing list and through their annual meeting.
Ant : note the subtle difference between an PMC member (dedicated to his project , acquire a right to manage his project) with an ASF member (dedicated to the Foundation or at least the general goal as opposed to a specific project). Most people on this mailing list are typically ASF type...
Ant : a subtility mentionned by Lars is that there is no limitation to the members of ASF. It is a sort of confirmation process rather than election. A person is recognised as "involved and trusted", hence she becomes a member. So, there is not this notion we had previously thought in the wikicouncil idea that 5 seats should be given to english wikipedia, whilst only 3 for the french wikibooks and 1 for the catalan wikiquote. As a result, the membership grows and grows... roughly 150 people if I remember well. Lars mentionned that when the quorum for vote will become hard to reach, they will probably un-ASF memberise the inactive members.
What do ASF members do ?
They elect the board...
Ant : now, think about it. If ASF members are *officially* ASF members, they are not anonymous. All of them have their real name known. They are real members of a legal entity. For us, anons or people refusing to give their real names (at least privately) could not be ASF members. However, they could elect (or support) other people to become ASF members.
Ant : another thing not mentionned on their website but which I was explained : each project committee must mandatorily have at least 2 ASF members on it. They also have an incubator area, where new projects are started and tested. Similarly, these projects must be "headed" by a committeee (elected by its own members), on which must be found at least 2 ASF members.
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Other Foundation Entities
After infrastructure and incubator, the foundation hosts several other entities more or less formalized open to ASF members and to invited experts or individuals that do not directly create code but serve for specific purposes. They are:
the conference organizing committee (aka concom) -- responsible for the organization of the official ASF conference (aka ApacheCon)
the security committee -- responsible for the handling of potential security holes in the software produced by the foundation that might impact our users. It gets contacted by the finders of the problems before the problem report is made available to the public, to allow the projects to provide a fix in time for the report, thus reducing vulnerability to a minimum
the public relations committee -- responsible for the fund raising (collaborates with the concom since the conference is one of the major sources of income of the foundation) and public relations - including trademark licensing and other issues regarding management of the Apache brand, raising of funds, and is responsible for the press-related issues like press releases for major ASF events or dispatching requests for interviews.
the JCP committee -- responsible for the liaison between the ASF and the Java Community Process (the ASF is a member of the JCP Executive Committee)
the licensing committee -- responsible for the legal issues associated with licensing and license compatibilities and for the revision of the Apache Software License
Ant : guess what ? That looks as our committees...
------
Congrats to all those who made up so far. I summarize.
An organisation with * a board * members (ASF members) * aside committees (event, public relations etc...)
ASF Members elect the board.
A collection of projects, whose participants elect ASF members.
Each project has a governing committee in charge, on which there are at leasts 2 ASF members, and which report to the board of the ASF.
Comments ?
Ant
Anthere wrote:
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
It could work, except that all the democratic bits would have to be cut out. I've been pushing a membership model with an elected board for a long time, but it's become clear that the powers that be are fundamentally opposed to it. The ASF model could work, with the modification that the Board would be appointed by Jimbo and the members wouldn't exist.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
It could work, except that all the democratic bits would have to be cut out. I've been pushing a membership model with an elected board for a long time, but it's become clear that the powers that be are fundamentally opposed to it. The ASF model could work, with the modification that the Board would be appointed by Jimbo and the members wouldn't exist.
-- Tim Starling
Okay
But could we discuss the impossible idealistic option nevertheless ?
ant
Tim Starling napisał(a):
Anthere wrote:
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
It could work, except that all the democratic bits would have to be cut out. I've been pushing a membership model with an elected board for a long time, but it's become clear that the powers that be are fundamentally opposed to it. The ASF model could work, with the modification that the Board would be appointed by Jimbo and the members wouldn't exist.
If I may, I would like to throw in a little personal comment. Please, don't take this personal Tim, your mail is not a reason in itself, rather it's an excuse to say the things I've been thinking for the past 2 or 3 weeks.
Here goes...
The level of cynism in this debate is starting to get on my nerves at times.
Some of you don't like the way the Foundation works right now. I'm perfectly OK with that.
Some people may not really dislike the way the Foundation works, but think it could work better and are trying to change it for the better. Great, go for it.
What I don't like is when the first group keeps saying things which I can only summarize as "Har har har. Good one, really. You do know this is never going to work, right?"
Please, do *not* do that. It is really annoying.
If you want things to change - help Ant and the others out. If you don't want to change anything - say so. Or you can just sit back, relax, *refrain from throwing in cynical remarks* and see what happens next. There is no other option.
Thank you.
Anthere wrote:
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
Seems reasonable to me. Of course we don't have to copy every detail exactly, but as a general method of organization it both seems like a good idea and has a track record of success.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Now, from what I understood from Lars description, I think the Apache Foundation model could rather well fit us... if so, why trying to reinvent the wheel ?
Seems reasonable to me. Of course we don't have to copy every detail exactly, but as a general method of organization it both seems like a good idea and has a track record of success.
-Mark
My understanding of the Apache Foundation is that it is involved with and supported small groups of sophisticated technical developers focused on a specific field of software development and maintenance.
Might be worth considering how the track record translates to a Foundation attempting to attract and support the efforts of millions of volunteers for parallel philanthropic tasks.
regards, lazyquasar
On 6/15/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I have given a bit of thought in the issue during the past few days, in reading all the emails on this list, and I had the opportunity today to talk with one of the co-founder of the Apache Foundation, in particular about the way their Foundation is organised. I put wikitech in copy, because I am pretty sure some of the guys there know the organisation and will be able to correct me if necessary.
I thought that his description of his Foundation... would very possibly fit pretty well what it seems many on this list are looking for and solve some of our current problems.
Thanks for sharing that.
Let me try and summarize in "applying to us" to see if I have understood well.
So we'd have the following defined roles
*Community members (members of all Wikimedia projects)
*Project management committees - for us, these would be people within the community appointed by resolution of the board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Once appointed, the PMC members have a right to propose to add members in their PMC. The PMC would be in charge of making sure the legal aspects of each projects are taken care of and observed, make sure that procedures are followed in the development of the projects. These are not automatically the editors with the greatest number of edits, but rather those who have shown a commitment to the organisation and the day-to-day running of the projects, taking care of legal issues, procedure issues etc. They'd have a responsibility and an oversight role. Not an editing power as such (ie. they can't impose their POV on an article). Their frame of action will have to be very clearly defined, but if it is, they'd be an asset to the projects.
*Wikimedia Foundation members - those would be nominated by the board, proposed to the board by anyone else who feels someone should be a Foundation member. They could be issued directly from the community, from the PMCs or from anywhere else.
*Wikimedia Foundation board of directors - are elected within the pool of members of the Wikimedia Foundation.
*Special tasks committees : those are issued from the pool of members of the Wikimedia Foundation, or created around and with external individuals which show the necessary skills to lead/participate in those committees.
I think that's it.
As I see it, this is indeed an interesting bit. To answer Tim's concerns (and I agree with Lukasz comment, btw), I believe the fact that members of the Wikimedia Foundation would be appointed by the board actually make it pretty "safe" for anyone who might have a problem with a community elected body. For the record, I am one of those. A great editor in a virtual project does not make a great board member in a real-life organisation, and the predominance of one language or one project does not ensure harmonious representation. The model might seem restraining at first (only the board's "friends" could be considered as members of the Wikimedia Foundation) but in a mid-term perspective, I cannot see the board only appointing their best friends/supporters, as it would not scale. And the larger the body that nominates, the more diversified the people on it.
The way the PMC are set up also gives the board an oversight. However, it would be stupid from the board to appoint on the PMCs people who have absolutely no community support, because it would make the PMC members' job way harder. So in our case, the appointement of PMCs could be coupled with polls within communities as to who should be on the PMCs. Note that as I understand it, PMCs members have a real life responsibility, which would call for a disclosure of their real life identity. I would argue that PMC members are not necessarily stewards or bureaucrats, which would still be elected as "trusted" community members", but rather people who have made clear what their skills and agendas are as to the responsibility they are offered in being part of a PMC.
I would probably still consider a body such as the Wikicouncil in such an organisation of things, ie. people voted as "community" representatives, who have no "real life" responsibilities per se, but are tasked with making sure the communication between community members and the Wikimedia Foundation flows. It is high time the community be represented by someone(s) rather than speaking through a myriad of individuals who, in the end, have no other voice than their own.
I believe that in the end, it is indeed an interesting model. At least, it seems to me to make a very clear distinction between projects and organisation (the PMCs are the organisation's representatives in the projects). My belief is that in the mid-term, this lack of separation can be very dangerous, both for the projects and the Foundation. This model makes the separation very clear, without shutting out the community from accessing the responsibilities within the organisation, and without shutting it out from decision, as it provides a model for working harmoniously together (everyone knows what they have to do and what they're here for).
Delphine
Delphine Ménard wrote:
*Community members (members of all Wikimedia projects)
Even that requires defining what a project member is. This is the most fundamental question upon which to build. Initially the elected directors were intended to represent the general editorship and the dues paying members. The latter never got off the ground, and we ended up with two directors elected by the general editorship. People who become involved beyond the mere occasional edit need to feel that they have some ownership in the project, and they need to feel that there is hope that their influence will grow with time and contributions.
A person growing up today, has access to information and opinions on a scale unimaginable to even the most powerful leaders of a century ago. He also learns to work with these massive quantities of data in his own way, since most of his teachers, who learned there own skills in managing information a mere generation ago, cannot pass on experiences they never had. Autodidactism breeds innovative minds There is nobody there to tell us the accepted way of doing things, or the received wisdom of the professionals. We have to figure it out for ourselves, and our solutions run the gamut from the utterly stupid to the absolutely brilliant. We awaken the Mr. Bean within each of us.
Apply these lessons to the socio-political sector where personal analyses and proposed solutions are at odds with the play that goes on legislative sandboxes around the world, and you have alienation. Alienated people act out; at the extreme this can even come in deadly ways.
To get back to earth, how does this affect WMF? Perhaps it would be in devising a system of membership (or citizenship?) that ensures the empowerment of those members to whatever extent is appropriate for that individual.
*Project management committees - for us, these would be people within the community appointed by resolution of the board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Once appointed, the PMC members have a right to propose to add members in their PMC. The PMC would be in charge of making sure the legal aspects of each projects are taken care of and observed, make sure that procedures are followed in the development of the projects. These are not automatically the editors with the greatest number of edits, but rather those who have shown a commitment to the organisation and the day-to-day running of the projects, taking care of legal issues, procedure issues etc. They'd have a responsibility and an oversight role. Not an editing power as such (ie. they can't impose their POV on an article). Their frame of action will have to be very clearly defined, but if it is, they'd be an asset to the projects.
Although there is much that I agree with in this, I also have concerns. A PMC leader who is appointed rather than elected is probably in a better position to deal with diverse factions without alienating his voters.. That being said, a leader who is constantly battling his membership is not likely to be a very effective leader. His personal authority will suffer, and so would the project. The qualities that make a good leader are not always obvious to the general editorship.
It is in legal issues that the arms length relationship between the projects and the WMF is most important. Copyright, defamation and pornography are the most frequently mentioned. It needs to be remembered that maintaining safe harbors depends very much on the degree of editorial control which the WMF has over the projects. It's important to establish protocols where complaints received by the WMF about a particular project are passed on to the affected projects for action in accordance with established protocols.
*Wikimedia Foundation members - those would be nominated by the board, proposed to the board by anyone else who feels someone should be a Foundation member. They could be issued directly from the community, from the PMCs or from anywhere else.
I argued for a two-tiered governance from the very beginning. Perhaps "Council" might be a less misleading term than "members". PMC leader of all projects of a certain size should certainly be a part of this. As a project gets bigger it can probably have more representatives. The directors could also add such other persons as it deems fit.
*Wikimedia Foundation board of directors - are elected within the pool of members of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Perhaps it should be a bit bigger than what we have now. The respective roles of the directors and other Foundation members should be clearly spelled out.
*Special tasks committees : those are issued from the pool of members of the Wikimedia Foundation, or created around and with external individuals which show the necessary skills to lead/participate in those committees.
OK. Perhaps with a similar structure to the Council, but not necessarily composed of the leaders, and with varied mambership threshholds.
As I see it, this is indeed an interesting bit. To answer Tim's concerns (and I agree with Lukasz comment, btw), I believe the fact that members of the Wikimedia Foundation would be appointed by the board actually make it pretty "safe" for anyone who might have a problem with a community elected body. For the record, I am one of those. A great editor in a virtual project does not make a great board member in a real-life organisation, and the predominance of one language or one project does not ensure harmonious representation. The model might seem restraining at first (only the board's "friends" could be considered as members of the Wikimedia Foundation) but in a mid-term perspective, I cannot see the board only appointing their best friends/supporters, as it would not scale. And the larger the body that nominates, the more diversified the people on it.
I agree. There need to be safeguards to minimize the risks that you mention. It can't be avoided completely
The way the PMC are set up also gives the board an oversight. However, it would be stupid from the board to appoint on the PMCs people who have absolutely no community support, because it would make the PMC members' job way harder. So in our case, the appointement of PMCs could be coupled with polls within communities as to who should be on the PMCs. Note that as I understand it, PMCs members have a real life responsibility, which would call for a disclosure of their real life identity. I would argue that PMC members are not necessarily stewards or bureaucrats, which would still be elected as "trusted" community members", but rather people who have made clear what their skills and agendas are as to the responsibility they are offered in being part of a PMC.
Whom the Board appoints it can also unappoint. Stewards are not necessarily just representatives of specific projects. Bureaucrats would probably be the first place to look for initial representatives, but not the only place. Each project big enough needs to be given separate consideration.
I would probably still consider a body such as the Wikicouncil in such an organisation of things, ie. people voted as "community" representatives, who have no "real life" responsibilities per se, but are tasked with making sure the communication between community members and the Wikimedia Foundation flows. It is high time the community be represented by someone(s) rather than speaking through a myriad of individuals who, in the end, have no other voice than their own.
Yes. The best leaders are most often not the loudest. They just carry on with their duties, and limit their complaints to what really matters.
I believe that in the end, it is indeed an interesting model. At least, it seems to me to make a very clear distinction between projects and organisation (the PMCs are the organisation's representatives in the projects). My belief is that in the mid-term, this lack of separation can be very dangerous, both for the projects and the Foundation. This model makes the separation very clear, without shutting out the community from accessing the responsibilities within the organisation, and without shutting it out from decision, as it provides a model for working harmoniously together (everyone knows what they have to do and what they're here for).
It's not just a matter of how PMCs are chosen. Defining the distinctions is even more important.
Ec
Hello,
On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 01:54:15AM +0200, Anthere wrote: ...
I have given a bit of thought in the issue during the past few days, in reading all the emails on this list, and I had the opportunity today to talk with one of the co-founder of the Apache Foundation, in particular about the way their Foundation is organised. I put wikitech in copy, because I am pretty sure some of the guys there know the organisation and will be able to correct me if necessary.
I thought that his description of his Foundation... would very possibly fit pretty well what it seems many on this list are looking for and solve some of our current problems.
...
Each project has a governing committee in charge, on which there are at leasts 2 ASF members, and which report to the board of the ASF.
Comments ?
One dissimilarity - what are the "projects"? In the sense of ASF it may be Wikipedia, Wikinews, Commons, etc. Here the projects are language versions of "meta-projects". Commiters have common languages - code and English. Wikimedia projects do not. You can hardly effectively oversight a Wikimedia project if you dont understand the language. => question - if you take board members and their freinds, and maybe even theirs friends, does it cover the spectrum of Wikimedia languages? I would guess it doesn't.
Another dissimilarity is in the existence of local chapters. How do they fit in the above scheme?
Anyway, it would solve some current problems, but not all.
Jan Kulveit
Jan Kulveit wrote:
Hello,
On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 01:54:15AM +0200, Anthere wrote: ...
I have given a bit of thought in the issue during the past few days, in reading all the emails on this list, and I had the opportunity today to talk with one of the co-founder of the Apache Foundation, in particular about the way their Foundation is organised. I put wikitech in copy, because I am pretty sure some of the guys there know the organisation and will be able to correct me if necessary.
I thought that his description of his Foundation... would very possibly fit pretty well what it seems many on this list are looking for and solve some of our current problems.
...
Each project has a governing committee in charge, on which there are at leasts 2 ASF members, and which report to the board of the ASF.
Comments ?
One dissimilarity - what are the "projects"? In the sense of ASF it may be Wikipedia, Wikinews, Commons, etc. Here the projects are language versions of "meta-projects". Commiters have common languages - code and English. Wikimedia projects do not. You can hardly effectively oversight a Wikimedia project if you dont understand the language. => question - if you take board members and their freinds, and maybe even theirs friends, does it cover the spectrum of Wikimedia languages? I would guess it doesn't.
If course it does not... I would be tempted to say that Wikimedia projects are the projects (so, Wikipedia, Wikinews etc...), rather than by breaking down to language. Why so ? Because even if they have a different language, the various language versions share the same goals (or precisely *should* share the same goal), the same needs and the same threats.
A direction of thought would be to examine to areas of authority of the PMC. Here are my suggestions * ensuring all projects are following the same goal * overseeing tm issues (the project logo, the project tm, domain names...) * overseeing the general threats facing this particular project (legal threats faced by wikiquote are definitly different from those faced by Wikipedia) * overseeing the licencing issue of the project (note that this naturally occured when wikinews chose another set of licensing... for all language version wide) * oversee technical needs (wikiversity or wiktionary needs are specific to a project, not to a language version)
etc...
Naturally, the PMC can not cover all languages version. But if that committee has 20 members (for example), I guess they will always cover more languages than the current board ;-)
Another dissimilarity is in the existence of local chapters. How do they fit in the above scheme?
I do not see why local chaters would get a specific involvement in the PMC scheme. They could get involved in the membership scheme by also having up to a certain number of representative on the Foundation.
Anyway, it would solve some current problems, but not all.
Sure.
Remind me what are the other problems you have in mind ?
Jan Kulveit
On Thu, Jun 15, 2006 at 12:27:47PM +0200, Anthere wrote:
Jan Kulveit wrote:
One dissimilarity - what are the "projects"? In the sense of ASF it may be Wikipedia, Wikinews, Commons, etc. Here the projects are language versions of "meta-projects". Commiters have common languages - code and English. Wikimedia projects do not. You can hardly effectively oversight a Wikimedia project if you dont understand the language. => question - if you take board members and their freinds, and maybe even theirs friends, does it cover the spectrum of Wikimedia languages? I would guess it doesn't.
If course it does not... I would be tempted to say that Wikimedia projects are the projects (so, Wikipedia, Wikinews etc...), rather than by breaking down to language.
Thats nice idea and I would like it to be that way, but is it reality? In social sense, how much are the people from various language connected? Do they form one community, pay attention to the same disscussions?
Why so ? Because even if they have a different language, the various language versions share the same goals (or precisely *should* share the same goal), the same needs and the same threats.
They share ultimate goal, but wether thay have the same needs and threats is questionable. Wikipedias are very different in size and age and needs and threats may scale differently with size.
For example the problem of en: with libelous articles about living perosns is practically nonexistent in cs: - the RC are of such size that still every new article is inspected by several users. Problems which led to semi-protection on en: can be easily solved by hand - if there is an attempt to vandalize an article about a controversial politician in average one in a weeks, its easy to revert it by hand. If the frequency is once per minute, it makes normal editing impossible. Etc.
Apart from that, the communites may be in various stages of [[meatball:WikiLifeCycle]]. Somewhere the community is just finding its way how to decide policy issues and if someone wants make a new recommendation/policy, all he has to do is be bold and write it. Elsewhere it a formal process with voting and, elsewhere matter of weeks of wikipolitics and reading of megabytes of old talk,...
A direction of thought would be to examine to areas of authority of the PMC. Here are my suggestions
- ensuring all projects are following the same goal
Sure, but thats very broad.
- overseeing tm issues (the project logo, the project tm, domain names...)
That's IMO more suitable task for one specialized tm/domains officer of the foundation. (should be one person responsible for dealing with firestormforces in case of wikipedia.eu, other for wikimedia.eu, yet another for www.wikimania.eu?)
- overseeing the general threats facing this particular project (legal
threats faced by wikiquote are definitly different from those faced by Wikipedia)
As I wrote above, threats scale. There may be wider difference among Wikipedias than among projects in general.
- overseeing the licencing issue of the project (note that this
naturally occured when wikinews chose another set of licensing... for all language version wide)
That doesnt seem practical. While in theory, language versions are independent of countries, in practice in many cases law of some country is more equal than some other. (eg image licensing issues)
- oversee technical needs (wikiversity or wiktionary needs are specific
to a project, not to a language version)
Dont forget Commons, which are even more different :)
etc...
What in areas where responsibility toward foundation may clash with will of project contributors? Overseeing the threats - ok, but in case of legal threats, who will be that one to interfere with the normal editor process of the project, and who will be liable for the results?
Naturally, the PMC can not cover all languages version. But if that committee has 20 members (for example), I guess they will always cover more languages than the current board ;-)
Another dissimilarity is in the existence of local chapters. How do they fit in the above scheme?
I do not see why local chaters would get a specific involvement in the PMC scheme. They could get involved in the membership scheme by also having up to a certain number of representative on the Foundation.
Anyway, it would solve some current problems, but not all.
Sure.
Remind me what are the other problems you have in mind ?
It was allready disscussed here. Generally the overwhelming scope of board members work, from long-term planning to investigating trollish email complains about checkuser abuse.
If you wanted more specificic examples what bother me - I won't give examples of problems in day-to-day tasks, but in longterm perspective IMO there are some things which are talked about for years, it seems everybody agrees, yet there are very little visible results. Single login, some "stable version/validation/1.0/..." support, etc.
Jan Kulveit
Anthere wrote:
Jan Kulveit wrote:
One dissimilarity - what are the "projects"? In the sense of ASF it may be Wikipedia, Wikinews, Commons, etc. Here the projects are language versions of "meta-projects". Commiters have common languages - code and English. Wikimedia projects do not. You can hardly effectively oversight a Wikimedia project if you dont understand the language. => question - if you take board members and their freinds, and maybe even theirs friends, does it cover the spectrum of Wikimedia languages? I would guess it doesn't.
If course it does not... I would be tempted to say that Wikimedia projects are the projects (so, Wikipedia, Wikinews etc...), rather than by breaking down to language. Why so ? Because even if they have a different language, the various language versions share the same goals (or precisely *should* share the same goal), the same needs and the same threats.
A direction of thought would be to examine to areas of authority of the PMC. Here are my suggestions
- ensuring all projects are following the same goal
This is really a question of how detailed the goal will be. The goal of building an encyclopedia is general enough, as is ensuring NPOV, but once you get away from general pronciples and start to micromanage the whole thing will fall apart. As the goals become more detailed ensuring should not depend imply enforcing.
- overseeing tm issues (the project logo, the project tm, domain names...)
- overseeing the general threats facing this particular project (legal
threats faced by wikiquote are definitly different from those faced by Wikipedia)
- overseeing the licencing issue of the project (note that this
naturally occured when wikinews chose another set of licensing... for all language version wide)
- oversee technical needs (wikiversity or wiktionary needs are specific
to a project, not to a language version)
etc...
Naturally, the PMC can not cover all languages version. But if that committee has 20 members (for example), I guess they will always cover more languages than the current board ;-)
PMCs are not needed for all projects in all languages. A small language project may do quite well with a one man governance model, and may very much benefit from that even if that person has dictatorial tendencies. However, as these projects grow applied governance models should grow with them until they are big enough to need a full-scale PMC
Another dissimilarity is in the existence of local chapters. How do they fit in the above scheme?
I do not see why local chaters would get a specific involvement in the PMC scheme. They could get involved in the membership scheme by also having up to a certain number of representative on the Foundation.
Some level of chapter involvement in both the Foundation and PMCs is lkely desireable, but for different reasons. At the Foundation level they would participate in co-ordinating responses to the legal situations in each country. At the project level they could would likely help to co-ordinate issues relating to national dialects. In French it would make sense if Canadian, Belgian and Swiss chapters were represented on the PMC for each French language project.
Ec
On 6/14/06, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
How does someone get ASF Member
ASF member is a person that was nominated by current members and elected due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members care for the ASF itself. This is usually demonstrated through the roots of project-related and cross-project activities. Legally, a member is a "shareholder" of the foundation, one of the owners. They have the right to elect the board, to stand as a candidate for the board election and to propose a committer for membership. They also have the right to propose a new project for incubation (we'll see later what this means). The members coordinate their activities through their mailing list and through their annual meeting.
Ant : note the subtle difference between an PMC member (dedicated to his project , acquire a right to manage his project) with an ASF member (dedicated to the Foundation or at least the general goal as opposed to a specific project). Most people on this mailing list are typically ASF type...
Ant : a subtility mentionned by Lars is that there is no limitation to the members of ASF. It is a sort of confirmation process rather than election. A person is recognised as "involved and trusted", hence she becomes a member. So, there is not this notion we had previously thought in the wikicouncil idea that 5 seats should be given to english wikipedia, whilst only 3 for the french wikibooks and 1 for the catalan wikiquote. As a result, the membership grows and grows... roughly 150 people if I remember well. Lars mentionned that when the quorum for vote will become hard to reach, they will probably un-ASF memberise the inactive members.
What do ASF members do ?
They elect the board...
Ant : now, think about it. If ASF members are *officially* ASF members, they are not anonymous. All of them have their real name known. They are real members of a legal entity. For us, anons or people refusing to give their real names (at least privately) could not be ASF members. However, they could elect (or support) other people to become ASF members.
Ant : another thing not mentionned on their website but which I was explained : each project committee must mandatorily have at least 2 ASF members on it. They also have an incubator area, where new projects are started and tested. Similarly, these projects must be "headed" by a committeee (elected by its own members), on which must be found at least 2 ASF members.
I think this is the most interesting part of the organizational structure. In terms of Wikimedia, I'd like to see membership as an extremely open thing. But at the same time, I don't want to see it so open as to being "members of all Wikimedia projects", as Delphine describes it.
One potential problem is that Wikimedia is way too big to have voting for every single member. For this reason and also so that it remains "no big deal" like adminship was supposed to be, I'd be strongly opposed to voting. Rather, there should be a clear standard for identification and activity and anyone who meets this can apply. Once a member you remain a member as long as you remain active and aren't kicked out.
The activity rules would be project specific, and should be met on a regular basis in order to continue membership. I'd like to see the activity rules be somewhat tough, just editing a few times a year shouldn't cut it. But participation in offline activities would also be taken into consideration. For example if you show up to stuff envelopes you're definitely considered active for that quarter. Eventually there should probably be a committee which decides on the activity rules.
Yes, this whole idea directly contradicts the ideas of some of the people currently in power. But unlike Tim Starling I don't think it's an idea that should be given up. The composition of Wikimedia's board is not static, and neither is the opinion of any member of it. I think we can convince the board that this is the way to go. Wikimedia is a public charity, not a private foundation. Ultimately it is dependent on receiving a broad base of community support, not just the support of a few insiders.
Anthony
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
In terms of Wikimedia, I'd like to see membership as an extremely open thing. But at the same time, I don't want to see it so open as to being "members of all Wikimedia projects", as Delphine describes it.
Extremely open membership is a great ideal, but it can make it difficult to know just who your members are at any given time. It is also difficult to establish any kind of continuity in policy when attendance at meeting is highly random.
One potential problem is that Wikimedia is way too big to have voting for every single member. For this reason and also so that it remains "no big deal" like adminship was supposed to be, I'd be strongly opposed to voting. Rather, there should be a clear standard for identification and activity and anyone who meets this can apply. Once a member you remain a member as long as you remain active and aren't kicked out.
I don't think that I would go so far as to characterize these positions as "no big deal". The kind of disputes that arise over the naming of admministrators suggest that that slogan is not consistent with what happens. Inactive members should be subject to automatic suspension in the absence of maintaining a minimal level of activity, but their reinstatement would be just as automatic when they once again meet that standard.
The activity rules would be project specific, and should be met on a regular basis in order to continue membership. I'd like to see the activity rules be somewhat tough, just editing a few times a year shouldn't cut it. But participation in offline activities would also be taken into consideration. For example if you show up to stuff envelopes you're definitely considered active for that quarter. Eventually there should probably be a committee which decides on the activity rules.
That's acceptable.
Ec
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Congrats to all those who made up so far. I summarize.
An organisation with
- a board
- members (ASF members)
- aside committees (event, public relations etc...)
ASF Members elect the board.
A collection of projects, whose participants elect ASF members.
Each project has a governing committee in charge, on which there are at leasts 2 ASF members, and which report to the board of the ASF.
Comments ?
Ant
Personally, I really like this model a great deal. I like it much better as it is here than with any of the modifications which have already been proposed. This really could work easily without major elections in most cases. I think we should keep it as simple as possible. Start off with all current buearucrats being Project Members ask them to immediately nominate one(?) other person from where they are a bueruecrat and two(?) people from a language too small to have a buerucrat. That is the seed membership which should allow initial elections of officers and voting on basic bylaws etc. From then on any Project Member can nominate anyone to join as in Apache, also future buearucrats do not automatically become members. Once that is setup we begin to worry about how to seed the Foundation Memebership. I think that Foundation Membership should be drawn from Project Members and Chapter Members pretty much exclusively without "making a choice" of which membership card one person can carry. Although I do not think *officers* at the Project Level should hold any position on Foundation Level commitees at the same time, I do not see a problem with an officer being simple voting Foundation Member. Nor do I see a problem with Foundation Committee members being simple voting Project or Chapter Members. I imagine the Foundation Membership would be pretty self-balancing. If for example the Foundation Membership begins to be over weighted with Wikipedia Project Members the Chapter Members and other Non-pedia Project Members could easily put a stop to more Wikipedia Projects Members being confirmed and confirm people from other areas to restore balance.
As to concerns that smaller languages will be left out, and that they have different issues. I think the first can be easily avoided as so many people strongly believe in promoting smaller languages. Honestly can they be more left out in this new system than they are now? That they face different challenges according to size is even more reason to keep them together so they can learn from each other. A place were RC can be checked by hand will one day grow, and to learn in advance how to deal with libel on a larger project can only be a benifit. The problems faced at a smaller languages can find many suggestions from those who have already "been there and done that". But I think the Project Membership (especially non-pedia ones) will be as concerned with common technical issues as legal or procedural ones. Besides that there are many issues that *do* scale. How to encourage people to work on core topics, instead of pet projects for example. There could always be a backdoor built in to allow the Board to appoint people from un-representented languages to Project Membership if a complaint comes up through the Chapters. But I do not think it would come to that.
Birgitte SB
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Birgitte SB wrote:
Personally, I really like this model a great deal. I like it much better as it is here than with any of the modifications which have already been proposed. This really could work easily without major elections in most cases. I think we should keep it as simple as possible. Start off with all current buearucrats being Project Members ask them to immediately nominate one(?) other person from where they are a bueruecrat and two(?) people from a language too small to have a buerucrat. That is the seed membership which should allow initial elections of officers and voting on basic bylaws etc. From then on any Project Member can nominate anyone to join as in Apache, also future buearucrats do not automatically become members. Once that is setup we begin to worry about how to seed the Foundation Memebership. I think that Foundation Membership should be drawn from Project Members and Chapter Members pretty much exclusively without "making a choice" of which membership card one person can carry. Although I do not think *officers* at the Project Level should hold any position on Foundation Level commitees at the same time, I do not see a problem with an officer being simple voting Foundation Member. Nor do I see a problem with Foundation Committee members being simple voting Project or Chapter Members. I imagine the Foundation Membership would be pretty self-balancing. If for example the Foundation Membership begins to be over weighted with Wikipedia Project Members the Chapter Members and other Non-pedia Project Members could easily put a stop to more Wikipedia Projects Members being confirmed and confirm people from other areas to restore balance.
As to concerns that smaller languages will be left out, and that they have different issues. I think the first can be easily avoided as so many people strongly believe in promoting smaller languages. Honestly can they be more left out in this new system than they are now? That they face different challenges according to size is even more reason to keep them together so they can learn from each other. A place were RC can be checked by hand will one day grow, and to learn in advance how to deal with libel on a larger project can only be a benifit. The problems faced at a smaller languages can find many suggestions from those who have already "been there and done that". But I think the Project Membership (especially non-pedia ones) will be as concerned with common technical issues as legal or procedural ones. Besides that there are many issues that *do* scale. How to encourage people to work on core topics, instead of pet projects for example. There could always be a backdoor built in to allow the Board to appoint people from un-representented languages to Project Membership if a complaint comes up through the Chapters. But I do not think it would come to that. /listinfo/foundation-l
This would be a helpful approach to getting the ball rolling.
We begin with what works, and deal with problems pragmatically rather than trying to imagine every conceivable hurdle ahead of time. By-laws should reflect practice; not the other way around.
Ec
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