[Foundation-l] The foundations of the Wikimedia Foundation (was: Wikimedia Council)

[Florence Devouard]

effe iets anders wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I'd like to thank Florence for bringing the issue up of the
> wikicouncil, and I thank Erik for his views. I think that the
> discussion has shifted by now so much, that we are no longer
> discussing some council that represents the view of hte community
> anymore, but we are discussing the very fundamentals of the Wikimedia
> Foundation. I am sorry this will become a very long email, but I am
> afraight I will need a lot of space to explain what I mean, and also
> to go through the whole spectrum I'd like to.
> 
> I think Erik has a very valid point to state that we can't see the
> Wikicouncil as a seperate structure, just another addendum to our
> system of Board of Trustees, Advisory Board, Committees, Staff and
> community. If you add a "power", an "authority" to a system, and
> Newton's third law of motion comes into play. If you add such an
> authority, this will most certainly have influence on the other
> authorities present. Hence I do think that the question whether the
> community representatives are still required is a valid one. However,
> I do not quite agree yet that this also means that they have to
> disappear.
> 
> But let's begin with the beginning. The Board of Trustees (Please note
> the difference with the Board of Directors, I think nomen est omen
> here) is the final and uttermost authority within the Wikimedia
> Foundation. The Board of Trustees sets rules and guidelines for the
> staff to work with, appoints the Executive Director, sets the strategy
> for the Foundation, where to go etc, can write and rewrite the bylaws,
> can appoint it's own members and can delegate authority to other
> bodies (which it did for instance to the Executive Director).
> 
> Of course it *is* possible to change the bylaws in such a way, that
> this final authority would be with another body. This is for instance
> the case with a membership organization, an association. The final
> authority is then with the members of that association, the General
> Assemblee. However, the Wikimedia Foundation does not have any
> membership any more, so I think that for the near future at least, and
> I doubt it will change actually, we are bound to a
> foundation-structure, with the Board of Trustees as the Final
> Authority.
> 
> If we consider this, and we bare in mind that the main assets of the
> Wikimedia Foundation are the Wikimedia Projects. And we consider that
> these projects are mainly build around the communities that belong to
> these projects. Especially if we consider how big of an influence the
> Wikimedia Foundation has on the lives of these people, who have
> dedicated a big part of their free time to these projects, I think it
> would only be fair to let these people have a say, even a big say in
> the final authority of this Wikimedia Foundation. But of course it is
> even more important that these people have a large influence on the
> projects, but also have a lot of knowledge about the core mission of
> the Wikimedia Foundation, and how to get there. They might very well
> know how the projects should run the best. So I think that it is
> obvious that these people should have a way to determine at least
> partially how the Final Authority functions. The most logical way
> would be to let them determine partially who will be a member of that
> Final Authority, the Board of Trustees.
> 
> This has already become costom, and the community elects yearly board
> members. I think this is a way to let the communities have a say in
> the membership of the Board of Trustees. However, iit is true of
> course that it might be better for the Foundation as a foundation to
> have also people with certain expertise in this Board. They can for
> instance make sure that the Board pays attention to the right advice,
> that the right points are put on the agenda, and that control is
> practiced when needed.
> 
> The past history showed us that people with this type of expertise
> will hardly be elected by the communities, partially because they are
> simply not available as candidates from within the communities. This
> makes it reasonable to have these people appointed as board members
> from outside the wikimedia communities. Actually, there are even more
> pro's to have people from outside the community in the Board. These
> board members might bring in fresh views on the way things are going,
> they might bring in contacts with other organizations, they might
> forceus to look outside our traditional scope and might also point us
> to opportunities we'd never have thought of ourselves.
> 
> I think that both community members and non-community member experts
> are very much welcome in the Board. Both have their advantages, and I
> think personally that about 50/50 would be an ideal mix for this. This
> because that will make it sure that both parties will always have to
> try to convice the other side of their right, to get a majority on
> their side if it is about very fundamental questions.
> 
> Then I hear people thinking, OK, very nice now, we thought about the
> Board of Trustees. But what about these other authorities? Well, I
> think we all agree on the staff. The staff falls under the authority
> of the Executive Director. The executive Director is appointed by the
> board, and all other staff is hired within the lines the Board set out
> by the ED. No doubt about that I think.
> 
> But now we come to the advises. Because a board can never consist of
> enough experts to cover every field, I do not think a Board should
> even want that, except the very fundamentals, an Advisory Board has
> been set up. The advisory Board consists of experts from the Open
> Source communities, but not directly from Wikimedia people. The
> Advisory Board has, as the name indicates, an advisory function.
> Because of the broad spectrum of members, it is likely that there will
> always be a kinda expert on board to give advice if the board asks or
> needs that. However, it does disturb the balance between the
> volunteers and professionals a bit.
> 
> Since the creation of the Advisory Board, or even before that
> actually, people have been calling for a Wikicouncil. A council which
> is different for everybody. Some people would like to see it as an
> advisory board counterweight for volunteers, A body that could give
> the Board of Trustees advice "from the community". However, there are
> also people who would like to see the WC as some kind of tribunal for
> the Wikimedia Communities, which would handle disputes, would be an
> uberarbcom or could be some type of parliament deciding which policy
> is wikimedia wide.
> 
> I think we have to be very carefull to share these responsibilities
> with one single body, because it will require a different type of
> members. For the function of advising, we would need people who can
> feel a bit what is good, who are preferrably into organizational
> stuff, are prepared to read a lot, and have a good look for the
> future, and can form an opinion on where the foundation should go, and
> what the implications would be.
> 
> For a court-like function, we would require mainly neutral people,
> people who can be some type of arbitrator. People who can take a case
> solely, and digg into it, form a judgement, and defend that. They
> should mainly have experience in how communities work, and how the
> relationships between the different communities should be.
> 
> For the last possible function, the policy stuff, we would need some
> type of parliament-like council. It would require the members to look
> at the mid-term effects, and would require very little activity. The
> members should mainly be discussing details and specific regulations,
> how they should be formulated etc.
> 
> These three types of people are not always compatible, and I would not
> think it very wise to have these three functions merged together in
> one body. For the arbcom-like part, I think it would for instance be
> much better to have a non-WMF body, a meta-arbcom for instance, that
> could make decisions if needed. There have been plans for that, but
> never in a final state.
> 
> What the Wikimedia Foundation needs here, is an advisory body that
> consists of community members, that can probably represent more or
> less the wish of the community, and which can have a say about the
> issues the Board of Trustees is about, the strategy etc. This would be
> a Wikimedia Council that would consist of somewhat more members the
> the Board probably, to make representation possible, and that would be
> similar to the Advisory Board.
> 
> However, as might be clear by now, this does not mean that the
> community representatives are no longer needed in the Board of
> Trustees. Because there is quite a difference between representatives
> in the Final Authority, and an Advisory Council.
> 
> Finally, I'd like to make a small mention about the size of the Board
> of Trustees. To make the external experts useful, there will have to
> be a few of them. Only one or two will not do. I think three external
> experts, three community members and Jimmy would be ideal. This would
> be a compromise between having a community majority in the board,
> having sufficient external experts and different community
> representatives, and keeping the board small enough to have real life
> meetups to talk about the strategy. At the same time, Jimmy could
> promise again that if all community representatives agree on
> something, he will vote with them. (like he did with Angela/Florence
> in the past. Actually I am not sure if he still stands with that
> promise)
> 
> To summarize: It is necessary to have both community representatives
> and external experts with their specific skills in the Board of
> Trustees. A Wikimedia Council should be comparable with the current
> Advisory Board, but then for volunteers. It is not necessary to have
> all experts in the Board of Trustees, but they might very well be in
> the Advisory Board too. It might though be wise for the Board of
> Trustees to involve these experts then somewhat more actively.
> 
> I hope you did not loose track, and I did not forget stuff here. Sorry
> again for the veyr long email.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Lodewijk

Lodewijk, as always, very thoughtful email. Thank you for it.

A couple of thoughts

You outlined very well three different potential roles in the wikicouncil
* an advisory board with community members
* a sort of tribunal, which would handle disputes project wide (meta arbcom)
* a sort of parliament, developing policies wikimedia wide

There might be a fourth role,
* development role (proposing projects, and looking for organizations 
who could help fund/implement them). Though I think this one could be 
"parliament type)

You outline very well that the three roles rather requires different 
skills and personnalities. I agree with this.

And I feel like suggesting that we should actually take the opportunity 
to create at the same time
* a wikicouncil parliament type and
* a meta arbcom

I think most of us can rather well imagine what the meta arbcom role 
will be; the difficulty will be to define working relationships with the 
various local arbcoms.

As for the wikicouncil, I stick to the idea that it should not be 
advisory only, but definitly have a a decision making authority.

I think advice will occur more or less naturally from this group, or 
from the current advisory group. It might be worth it to add some 
community members to the current advisory group.

Do not forget to check the meta page on wikicouncil :-)

Ant