[Foundation-l] Board-announcement: Board Restructuring

[Lars Aronsson]

David Goodman wrote:

> 3) make plain our total repugnance for officers of the 
>    foundation who talk about the people who create Wikipedia as 
>    not having or deserving the right to the running of the 
>    project.

The people who create Wikipedia *do* run the projects, that is, 
they run Wikipedia.  What they don't run is the Foundation or its 
board of trustees.  I'm surprised when I hear people on this list 
suggest that the community can only get its voice heard every two 
years, when we're in fact editing Wikipedia every day, including 
the wiki pages that constitute its policies.  The volunteer 
community also writes the software that is used.

> 4) "Self-selecting fiduciary boards" are a well established way 
>    of preventing organisations from reflecting the will of their 
>    actual constituency.

This was discussed already in 2003 when Jimbo set up the Wikimedia 
Foundation as it now is, rather than as a "democratic" membership 
organization.  At the time, the opposition was voiced most 
strongly among the Germans, and one year later they founded their 
"verein" (membership association), Wikimedia Deutschland e.V., 
that became the role model for how to organize a chapter.

However, still today WM-DE has only about 400 members, which is 
far fewer than the volunteer community in that country.  The idea, 
that all Wikipedia contributors should want to have a say in a 
democratic fashion, turned out to be little more than a beautiful 
dream.  There are some who want this, and they are free to join 
the chapter, but they are a minority.  Shock and horror, even when 
they are given the opportunity, most contributors seem happy to 
have no formal influence at all.  This could be taken as an 
indication that Jimbo was right in 2003. If you claim that people 
feel left out on a large scale, this is something you need to 
prove.  Because Germany is proof of the opposite.

Most countries have yet to organize chapters.  Nothing stops them 
from doing so, as far as I know, but they don't seem to be in any 
hurry.  Instead of getting themselves organized, some people cry 
out on this list that the WMF board of trustees should do the work 
for them.  This is a great shame and a waste of time.  Democracy 
can only grow from below, never be given from above.

Board elections, volunteer councils, chapter seats, or not.  They 
are only decoration. The WMF was incorporated as something else 
than a membership organization.  They keep the servers running and 
promote free knowledge.  I think they do a pretty good job.  But 
they're not a membership organization.  If you want one, you need 
to create it yourself.  Who's stopping you?

Background: I'm user:LA2.  I was present when WM-DE was founded in 
Berlin in 2004, but never joined.  In 2007 I helped organize the 
Swedish chapter and was elected to its board.  I'm posting to this 
list as an individual.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se