[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] A proposal for organisation

[Ray Saintonge]

Delphine Ménard wrote:

>On 6/15/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Delphine Ménard wrote:
>>    
>>
>>Note that a suggestion I would do is to include amongst groups of
>>voters, meta and chapters. This would largely tip the balance in favor
>>of those who are *actually* working for Foundation issues.
>>    
>>
>You forget that many meta users and chapter members are *also* editors
>in a project or another. This could lead to people either voting
>twice, or having to choose sides (the project or the chapter? meta or
>wikipedia?)
>
Representing more than one project should in no way give a person two 
separate votes.  There's nothing wrong with choosing to vote one way or 
the other.

>>We might get to something like
>>* Wikipedia can elect up to 30 members overall to become members
>>* Wikibooks can elect up to 20 ...
>>* Wikiquote can elect up to 1 ... (just kidding)
>>* Meta can elect up to 20 members
>>* All chapters members can elect up to 20 members
>>
>>etc...
>>
>>It may be that people are supported in two places. So what ? Who cares
>>if there is no strictly fixed number ?
>>
>>There is another point...
>>You said "a good project editor does not necessarily make a good
>>Foundation member".
>>Yup... so what about "forcing" people to make a *choice* ?
>>Either PMC member... or Foundation member ?
>>The same skills are not required...
>>    
>>
>Yes, that is indeed a must-be requirement. You have to chose your battles.
>
Most Foundation members/councillors should be PMC members.representing 
that PMC.  Why should people be forced to make a choice?

>>(as a reminder, all PMC must have 2 Foundation member on them. These 2
>>guys may volunteer or be appointed by board or appointed by MWF members.
>>But only these 2 may be both on WMF membership AND a PMC).
>>
I don't see the point of this

>>The *most* important point would be to very very clearly define their
>>scope of action. They would have no particular rights as editors over
>>the other editors for example, nor would they have the right to
>>run/manage the local projects as "editor in chief".
>>    
>>
>This is where any model fails, coming to think of it. If the PMC's are
>elected by the community and have some kind of oversight granted by
>legal means, where does the "legal" part of their task stops and the
>"community mandate" starts? If those PMC's are held by community
>recognition, it is my belief that they will, at some point, have to
>make a choice.
>
No.  In a federal system of government citizenship in the broader 
country is not incounsistent with citizenship in a constituent state.  A 
PMC would be the governing body of a project.  Members of that project 
who choose to operate outside the law need to accept the legal 
consequences..  Your expression "oversight granted by legal means" is 
unclear.  In terms of legal obligations it doesn't matter how the PMCs 
are chosen.  To maintain the separation that you mentioned before it is 
important to maintain the autonomy of the projects.

>The big problem with Wikimedia as I see it, is that we are trying to
>apply something that works to build an encyclopedia (utter democracy,
>collaborative community decisions) to a world with different rules
>(legal, financial, etc.), and most of all, rules which can't really be
>changed with a community decision the way we change spelling or
>bibliography rules.
>
Does this need to be a problem?

>The same way copy/pasting the ASF model, or the Greenpeace model, ot
>the US Federal model, you name it, doesn't work, copy/pasting the
>Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects model to the organisation doesn't work
>either.
>
We can use any of these for ideas, but ultimately it would be our own model.

Ec