From: "Ulrich Fuchs" mail@ulrich-fuchs.de
The best way to deal with that issue would be two seperate the corporation running the wiki service from the corporation being "Wikimedia". Wikimedia would just buy in (or get donated, we don't need to discuss that in detail already at this point) the *service* to run the wiki from that other corporation (I call that one "Service Provider" for now).
You raise some interesting point Ulrich that are worth considering. I have previously mentioned the issue of the informal association of Wikipedians on meta: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Wikimedians and I am glad you recognized a main point, just because there is a legal entity that does not define all the activities of all the members. Just think of some organization that allows people to use its facilities, i.e. a club or recreational centre for instance. There are rules, i.e. only members can use it, they can only use if for legal purposes. There may also be costs for membership dues or even pay per use service fees, i.e. you want eat in the club restaurant, you have to pay for your food (perhaps at a subsidized or profit free rate).
I see Wikimedia/Wikipedia the same way. There are things members can do, i.e. create accounts, edit pages. Create their own language Wikipedia or other Wikimedia project. However, there are community wide standards, i.e. no advertising, no personal attacks, etc.. There is structure to each project as well. We even have a cafe on some Wikipedias like the Francophone Bistro! (though coffee and sandwiches are not yet available there ;). Anyone can start a trust fund or a private foundation whose purpose would be to donate money to Wikimedia to support its worthy endeavors. There does not need any permission to do that from Wikimedia or Jimbo, just as no permission is needed to create a user account or edit anywhere in the Wikimedia universe, so each individual Wikimedia has autonomy and it could not be otherwise, but there is an overarching structure, the original data is all on a set of computers owed by Wikimedia. It must maintain standards in order to convince the tax authorities in the US that it has a valid not-for-profit charitable purpose and it must maintain some control over its members.
All membership organizations do that if they mention it in their bylaws or not. Just read Robert's Rules of Order that is the standard rule for parliamentary bodies and associational organizations in the United States. It is an inherent right of an organization to have some body that is able to remove members for some reason as well as discipline them. Why not have it stated and codified rather than remain an undocumented right. It seems good to me that it is stated in the bylaws because then members can argue about it, put pressure on the board to change it and make sure that it is only used for proper purposes so as not to subvert the goals of the organization.