[WikiEN-l] Arbcom has completely lost its mind

[John Lee]

BJörn Lindqvist wrote:

>On 2/17/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 2/17/06, BJörn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>If Wikipedia isn't mine, then who owns it? Who gets to decide whether
>>>      
>>>
>>Wikipedia is, to the best of my knowledge, owned by the Wikimedia Foundation.
>>    
>>
>
>I agree. But the Wikimedia Foundation only owns Wikipedia in one of
>thre three following facets of Wikipedia:
>
>1. Wikipedia, the worlds biggest collection of organised information.
>2. Wikipedia, the great community who have created #1.
>3. Wikipedia, the trademark and the servers used to run #1.
>
>You argued that since I am not a member of the Wikimedia Foundation I
>don't have the write to write "I'm a fish" on my user page, if I
>recall. Also, to the best of my knowledge the Wikimedia Foundation has
>not banned writing "I'm a fish" on my user page. And since you are
>not, AFAIK, a part of the Wikimedia Foundation you really can not ban
>writing "I'm a fish" on my user page.
>
>Do you understand? The question of ownership is utterly irrelevant to
>this discussion. Neither you nor I are owners, therefore please do not
>try to make it sound like your opinion is the Wikimedia Foundation's
>one.
>  
>
Actually, the charter of the Foundation appears to indicate all of us 
are members of the Foundation. Maybe you mean "not a member of the 
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees"? And I think much of the rest of 
your post is a strawman -- Steve only pointed out a fact (Wikipedia is 
owned by the Wikimedia Foundation); he didn't ban (or say he could ban) 
you from putting "I'm a fish" on your userpage. And while you certainly 
can do that, the Wikimedia Foundation can very well ban you from doing 
it. So, yes, the question of ownership is very relevant to this 
discussion, especially since you brought it up ("If Wikipedia isn't 
mine, then who owns it?").

John