The articles already specify: 2.3(a) The Directors may only refuse an application for membership if, acting reasonably and properly, they consider it to be in the best interests of the charity to refuse the application.
This strikes me as fairly broad but also means the Board will need a good reason to reject an applicant.
My reading of these draft rules are that they would further restrict the Board's discretion on these matters. Is this the intention? I certainly agree that the membership form should explicitly require an applicant to state that they support the charity's Object and wont bring it into disrepute but I'm not sure it's a good idea to restrict the Board like this.
The draft then goes on to say:
"Invalid reasons for rejecting membership include behaviour, activity or inactivity on the Wikipedia Foundation websites"
What if, say a repeat sock-puppet or vandal applied to join the charity? Would their membership help us achieve our Object or would it hinder us? What if they had disrupted, say, discussions on these meta pages or the email list? Both these examples could be legitimate reasons for refusing membership. Restricting the Board as proposed could end up causing real problems for a Board that wanted to bar a disruptive applicant but found they couldn't.
Andrew
The aim of these "rules" were to more clearly define the reasons why the Board could reject an applicant. Perhaps we want them more as guidelines, rather than firm rules, though (there's a reason why I've been putting that in quote marks).
The second part depends on how clearly we want to distinguish ourselves from the Wikimedia Foundations. I would view disruption on the meta pages or the email list as disrupting WMUK, hence being rejectable.
Thanks, Mike PS: I've seen your emails, Tom, but really need some sleep before I reply to them...
On 31 Oct 2008, at 00:13, Andrew Turvey wrote:
The articles already specify: 2.3(a) The Directors may only refuse an application for membership if, acting reasonably and properly, they consider it to be in the best interests of the charity to refuse the application.
This strikes me as fairly broad but also means the Board will need a good reason to reject an applicant.
My reading of these draft rules are that they would further restrict the Board's discretion on these matters. Is this the intention? I certainly agree that the membership form should explicitly require an applicant to state that they support the charity's Object and wont bring it into disrepute but I'm not sure it's a good idea to restrict the Board like this.
The draft then goes on to say:
"Invalid reasons for rejecting membership include behaviour, activity or inactivity on the Wikipedia Foundation websites"
What if, say a repeat sock-puppet or vandal applied to join the charity? Would their membership help us achieve our Object or would it hinder us? What if they had disrupted, say, discussions on these meta pages or the email list? Both these examples could be legitimate reasons for refusing membership. Restricting the Board as proposed could end up causing real problems for a Board that wanted to bar a disruptive applicant but found they couldn't.
Andrew
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