[Foundation-l] WMF project ownership (was Re: New draft of privacy policy (urgent))

[Anthony]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> However, I object to the use of the term "wikimedia foundation projects"
> or "wmf projects". WMF do not own the projects any more than other
> organizations, and the existence of most projects is actually older than
> the existence of the Foundation. I'll add that in people's mind, it
> could tend to give more weight to the idea that WMF is the one in charge
> (increase legal exposure).
>
I don't see the WMF doing very much to promote project
self-governance, though.  Obviously the projects are highly dependent
on the WMF - they require the servers and bandwidth and domain name if
nothing else (without the domain name the project's value would be
decimated or worse).  WMF employees have root access to these servers
and are needed to approve any major technical features.  And obviously
these provisions come with certain requirements -
[[Resolution:Licensing policy]] being a prime example, but most of
these requirements aren't written and clear.  At the very least, some
formal documentation as to what choices projects have and what is
mandatory would be useful.  Can the English Wikipedia overthrow the
ArbCom and still get to keep its domain name?  Do ArbCom rulings "in
fact hold greater authority than that of mobs, democratic or
otherwise"?  What is the formal role of Jimmy Wales?  Would the WMF
deal with a democratic body which isn't approved by him?  What type of
approval would a self-formed governance committee need for the WMF to
grant it permission to act as a liason between a project community and
the WMF, so that for example Brion need only ask this committee if
there is consensus for a change?  Where can we go to get answers to
these questions?

Have you gotten a chance to listen to Steve Smith's interview on
NotTheWikipediaWeekly (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly/Episode_18)?
 He talked about this point I believe very well.  Here's my transcript
in relevant part:

"The other thing of course that I really want to get into is giving
the larger projects especially the tools by which they can continue to
govern themselves.  I think self-governance, certainly of the English
language Wikipedia, has broken down and I don't think it's going to be
fixed until [sic] some intervention by the board.
[....]
I like almost everybody else would like to see the board of trustees
stay away from making direct policy decisions at the community level
(there's the 230 [inaudible] other issues there) but what I do support
doing is stepping in with a governance model - saying OK, we're going
to come in and impose this body that has some authority on you - you
have the authority to elect this body, to change its scope, to change
its mandate, and all the rest of it, but here at least is a tool by
which you can govern your own community, rather than being reliant on
whatever consensus might happen to mean on any given day and any given
debate." (transcript is dual licensed under the GNU Free Documentation
License and the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; please feel
free to correct any mistakes and please point me to a copy of any
fixes you make).

Would Mike Godwin sign off on such a plan?  If not, is there something
maybe a little less involved that the WMF can do to help?  I don't see
much happening without the WMF helping, at least by clarifying the
ground-rules as to how a self-governance model would look.  Although,
maybe the ArbCom is finally willing to take up the task - some recent
rulings and proposed rulings seem to imply it is finally willing to
expand its role and/or at least to help form a body to fill in the
gaps.