From: "Elisabeth Bauer" elian@djini.de
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia projects; http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other projects, the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical control by the Board of Trustees.
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?
If you want Wikimedia to be a real NPO it has to have some kind of structure.
Jimbo has decided to make it a membership organization, members get into disputes and they look to someone for resolution of those disputes. This is an attempt to give them a way to deal with those issues and to make sure that there is a clear distinction between the "official" board of trustees and any other structure that might exist so that there is no "hierarchy" between the Board of Trustees and the various projects beyond that which is necessary for the projects to legally be part of Wikimedia. If you want the benefits of NPO tax exempt status you need some structure. My suggestion is to make it as minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you want no structure, some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I agree with you Brian, each project is independent but with so many people complaining that the Board of Trustees are a bunch of shills of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. This proposal is that line.
Regarding edit disputes, members already deal with that, this is just recognizing that the community of each Wikipedia project will have the right to decide these disputes in the way that they see fit with no interference from the outside power structure.
Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got another impression by reading the bylaws.
Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are just a general governing body document, they don't have anything to do with the day to day activities of the various Wikipedia projects, once again this is my point, keep the two things separate by saying they are separate and keeping some structure. The reporting requirement will be useful for Wikimedia's fundraising efforts and reporting to the IRS each year.
Alex756