--- Traroth <traroth(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: Machine translated text: I posted the following text: "Wikimedia Foundation: the worm in the fruit? At the time of the constituent assembly of association Wikimedia France, it was known as that Jimmy Wales and Wikimedia Foundation refused the right to him to use the marks which she held (Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wktionary, Wikibooks...) if Foundation did not have a right of veto (the term made debate) on the decisions that would take the French foundation. Parrall�lement, during the creation of Wikimedia Foundation, Jimmy Wales imposed 3 seats out of 5, by reserving the seat of president, the 2 seats remaining being provided by election (what led to 4 anglophone members out of 5). This sipositif was not to be renewed, and a really democratic election was to take place this year (it is what had been known as at the time). One learns now that Jimmy Wales intends to continue with reserver the seat of president, with probably a right of veto on the decisions. Less democratic, that appears difficult. The one year shift was thus only one means of drowning fish. These manners of making push to be posed a certain number of questions: * For what are used these foundations? * Don't the givers have a right of glance on the use which is made money that they gave? * Isn't this to mislead people to only make believe that a foundation takes care of the inter�ts of Wikipedia, whereas it is only about one organization-tail, without real capacity of decision? * Is this step to mislead people only to give appearances of the democracy, without being to it less world? * What will make the community if Jimmy Wales makes decisions opposite with the opinion of the majority, as it could be that that is the case on the subject of publicity (Jimbo never decided clearly against)? To answer "Y has that to make a fork", it is to slap the givers in full face. We hear well: I do not have anything against Jimbo, and I would have been the first to be voted for him in 2004, and this, as a long time as there would have been ready to remain president. That would have been only one formality. Today, I would be more circumspect. Of what it is afraid exactly? Certain(e)s answered: that Board which would precisely make decisions opposite with the will of the majority. In addition to the fact that it is in complete contradiction with the concept even of democracy, the current system does not put to us with the shelter. Simply, this "privilege" is reserved to only one person. Personally, I intended to rather strongly imply me in the activity of French association, but now, I am with two fingers all to send p�ter. That would be already done if Wikip�dia and the other projects were not in GFDL, which wants to say that they do not belong to Foundation. Without hostility, I would like to work with a collective?uvre, and not with a species of monument to the glory of Jimmy Wales, whatever his merits. END TRANSLATION __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com

Please find herewith a revised translation for better understanding.

I have written to the original author privately to try to address his concerns and straighten out some factual errors. I do not mind complaints about the path we are taking towards a larger and more institutionalized board, although of course helpful comments that Assume Good Faith (which I think I have earned) are even better. :-) The irony here is that one reason I plan to evolve the institutional structure of the Wikimedia Foundation slowly is precisely to guard against a rogue board which does not respect the will of the community *and* to guard against a general evolution of the community away from the core goals of the project. This last point deserves some comment. This is not a democracy. This is a charitable humanitarian project with clearly defined goals and aspirations. The will of the community is absolutely important, and the will of the community is drawn around the goals that we have set for ourselves from the beginning. Therefore democracy can play a very important part in this, but so must a firm commitment to _principle_. And to suggest that I would answer in such a way is a slap in the face to me, of course. --Jimbo

Traroth wrote: O.k., good. :-) The point is: there are a lot of complex and competing considerations, including 1. The will of the community 2. The principles of the project 3. legal factors and questions. The possibility of a fork *is* of course one very wonderful control on the project, but I would react very strongly to anyone whose answer to a simple complaint is "well, why don't you just fork?" I seek very strongly to avoid forks for as long as we can, by trying to find ways to accomodate everyone. --Jimbo

Robin Shannon wrote: Familiarity with the rules includes familiarity with the very important one that says to ignore all rules. The ones who best apply that one also tend to also have enough personal familiarity with common sense to not appear as usual suspects before the ArbCom. Your reference to Good Faith is linguistically peculiar, even though I agree with the sentiment. Good faith describes a WAY of doing things - in our circumstances more particularly editing. The basic right, therefore, is to be _presumed_ to be using good faith. Ec