[Foundation-l] Are we a club?

[Ray Saintonge]

Mike Godwin wrote:
> Birgitte writes
>> In another thread, Mike Goodwin said WMF can't be a
>> club anymore and the concerned feelings come from
>> those who miss the club.
>>     
> It's "Godwin," not "Goodwin."  I make no special claim to goodness.
>   
Is there any mnemonic value to remembering that a Godwin invented 
Frankenstein, and another was father of Philosophical Anarchism.
>> I find this completely
>> off-base.  WMF is *becoming* a club now.  In the past
>> it was more like a trading center.
>>     
> I think this criticism of my remark is fair. All analogies fail when  
> you analyze them enough.  I do believe that, in some ways, the  
> Wikimedia projects (and the Foundation) were like a club -- now they  
> are less so.  I think it is a defensible argument that some people  
> miss the club.  Nevertheless, p.rofessionalizing the infrastructure is  
> an important, positive step.
>
> That said, I would prefer it if the community felt like a club to long- 
> time participants. I think it's important that community members feel  
> that they are a member of something real (which is my belief), and I  
> think the projects depend upon the communities in a fundamental,  
> irreducible way.  So I think it's important that we continue to  
> increase our engagement with community members in mailing lists and  
> elsewhere. 
>   
The demarcation between the Foundation and the various communities has 
never been clear to many people, so that questions of governance can 
become quite muddled.  To its credit, the Board avoids involving itself 
in the perpetual disputes between community members.
> I speak as someone who worked to develop other communities -- the  
> WELL, cyberliberties activists, and others -- so I worry that Birgitte  
> is interpreting my anti-club remark as an anti-community remark.
A lot of this depends on how one interprets club.  After all, major 
professional sports teams call themselves clubs, and that's hardly the 
kind of club we would want.

Ec