Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?
Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got another impression by reading the bylaws.
My understanding is that the bylaws are almost entirely legal statements, not really meaning to document "everyday practice". In theory, the board of directors controls everything. Why? Well, because the Wikimedia Foundation owns the servers, and the board of directors controls the Wikimedia Foundation, at least legally. But in practice, they don't *run* Wikipedia.
I consider it highly unlikely that the board will be involved in the day-to-day running of any of the Wikipedias, which ought to continue to operate as they see fit. Meaning the English Wikipedia decides its own matters, the German Wikipedia decides its own matters, and so on. Each Wikipedia can formulate its own process (the English Wikipedia has recently instituted a mediation committee and an arbitration committee to resolve disputes), but these aren't *legal* processes (since that'd be a real pain to set up), they're just the internal organization of each Wikipedia. The legal setup is that the Board of Directors runs the non-profit organization, but in a presumably hands-off manner.
-Mark