Hoi, I do not want to have our board or any body be dumbed down. Please, when we are to chose people to represent us let them people who understand what the f***k they are talking about and who understand what the impact is of what is proposed and what is considered. The last thing we want is to have a group of people, properly democratically elected, that do not have a clue what it is that they are doing. The Wikimedia Foundation does not have members. Making the WMF a member based organisation is NOT what is being proposed. What is proposed is giving the community a way in which it can make for a more coherent way of running the projects. When this means that there is a need for involvement of the WMF organisation, it will be something that needs to be discussed with the organisation and possibly with the board. When you make this proposal a power play, you will not achieve what you hope to achieve. In my opinion, we have an organisation that is working its arse off to make sure that we have the budget so that they stay in a job and we will get the things done as proposed in the budget. The board is responsible for the oversight of the organisation and it has the power to enforce certain requirements on the projects. In the mean time there is nobody who really cares about the existing projects who will consider request like the one for the closure of the Tatar Wikipedia. The one thing where we really suck is in the management of our projects. When this proposal is only seen in terms of power, I consider this proposal a complete failure. When we want to give our projects, our communities more involvement then the first thing it has to do is get our act together and make sure that our projects, communities are sane and the universal requirements are implemented on all our projects for all the languages. You do not do this by telling the organisation, the board how to do *their *job. Thanks, GerardM On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Milos Rancic wrote: I think the board does a great job. I have not bothered to comment on (or participate in) these elections, because I would be perfectly happy if Jimbo personally appointed new members. There are so few positions to fill, that I think it is futile to try to make them representative of anything else than their own good judgement. I think it would be a loss if members of the board or the proposed volunteer council would start to "represent" their part of the community (against other parts) instead of trying to do what's best for all. And I don't want to be represented. The requirement for voting in these board elections has been at least 400 edits in a single project over at least 90 days. The number of voters have increased from 1484 (2005) to 4170 (2007). But I find no information on meta how many voters were eligible. The English Wikipedia alone now has more than 6 million user accounts, but how many of these have more than 400 edits? Is 400+ edits going to be the definition of "community" membership with the proposed volunteer council too? I think we need to know how large this community is and exactly who is included, even if we don't call this a formal membership. Eligible community size could be new column in [[m:List of Wikipedias]], etc. -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

or you could organize an international wikimedia conference in the Middle-East. BR, Lodewijk 2008/3/22, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

as I said, there might be no need, even by your definition. It all depends on the report and whether accepted by the board. So please do not act hastely here and do not try to get everything done at once. Rome isn't biult on one day either. 2008/3/17, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

although off topic here: because it gives a signal by the board that they are willing. because it gives a clear timeline because it gives a little pressure because this report would not be "just a report" BR, Lodewijk 2008/3/17, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>om>:

I agree that we don't need to hurry about other aspects of our organization now. However, I think that it is useful to talk about that. Actually, I don't remember when we were talking last time about a need to have fully democratic control over the Board. On 3/17/08, effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote: