[Foundation-l] Community representation

[Florence Devouard]

Brianna Laugher wrote:
> On 12/01/2008, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Membership associations (and things like company stockholders) generally
>> have powers to force issues like these, but as you may remember the WMF has
>> no membership.  I could be wrong, but I don't believe there is any formal
>> process currently existing for the wiki communities to force the WMF to
>> consider or act on anything.  Which pretty much just leaves whining about
>> things.
>>
>> That's not to say that the WMF couldn't adopt such a process.
> 
> Right, this is my line of reasoning too.
> However, you can't say something will happen when X% of the
> member/community do something unless you know how big the
> membership/community is. And you don't know how big the
> membership/community is until you define what it is to be a member (of
> the comunity) or the membership requirements. These are still
> unresolved problems.
> 
> Some ideas.

Please Brianna...

Do us the favor to not imagine we have NEVER given any thoughts to the 
matter. I remember spending hours on this in the past.
See all the pages here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Membership

And explanations for change of bylaws
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-December/025543.html

Ant

> 1) Memberhip by paying membership fees. If this happens I think it
> should come with legal power, ie membership of WMF. So it would mean
> changing the bylaws. However I think there would be majoy concerns
> about equity, in terms of is the fee reasonable in XYZ countries and
> does Paypal even accept those countries' currencies. [I recently
> looked at the membership of a couple of "digital rights" type
> charities and while non-US citizens can join they really do seem to be
> mainly concerned with Americans. I think WMF could not reasonably
> adopt such a stance, so this is a problem.]
> 
> 2) Membership by wiki requirement (single project 200 edits, > 6
> months, not banned) + self-appointment, ie put your name on a list
> somewhere.Can only sign up for membership for six months at a time,
> due to the natural easy-come-easy-go nature of the community. This
> limits "dead wood" membership, ie people who signed up ages ago but in
> reality are no longer present.
> 
> Effeietsanders said "I think we should not be so "arrogant"  to
> compare ourselves with a
> whole country ;-)"
> I don't think it is arrogance but we need to recognise the limitations
> of that comparison. National citizenship generally doesn't have a
> participation-in-society requirement. If I leave Australia and live in
> every country of the world for a year each, I will still be an
> Australian citizen even if I hate Australia, have no idea who the
> government is or even where it is on the map. It's not trivial to pick
> up citizenship of another country, generally.
> 
> However, it is really easy to become a member of the Wikimedia
> community. Just pick a project you like and do peaceful work for a few
> months. There are no money or legal requirements. Time is the only
> thing every person on the planet is given equally, 24 hours every day.
> :)
> So community membership is generally thought of as being related to
> activity, I think. I don't think people want a definition where once
> you've done enough editing, BOOM - you're a member for life. No,
> you're a member as long as keep having some appropriate level of
> activity. Easy come, easy go.
> 
> cheers
> Brianna
>