David,
thanks for that perspective. I agree that in theory the Foundation has the power you describe. But it is the same theory that lead to the implementation of Superprotect, and we know how this worked out. I do not think that the use of such a power would be accepted.
Or am I wrong?
Denny
On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 9:01 AM, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Whatever I may think of some of the recent actions of the board, I think its present role goes well beyond " bring stability and assure that the daily business is done: keep the platform online, deal with legal cases and keep a positive financial balance. "
The key roles are to ensure the quality of WP, and " to lead 'in a political manner' " the open information movement.
First, it it does have the power to deal with a situation where"Let's say, a specific Wikipedia would be in trouble - maybe there are reports that it was taken over by a small group of POV-pushers. " It has control of the trademark, and the ability to prevent any particular WP from using it. It cannot prevent any aberrant group from using our material while calling itself something else, but it can prevent it calling itself Wikipedia. True, this may not be effective in some cases as it used to be, before some of the individual language chapters had developed organizational and financial resources of their own, to the extent that some of them could well persist as the major free encyclopedia in their language communities even without the WP name
Second, when dealing with the ongoing threats to free information, the WMF can and does effectively speak for all those interested as perhaps the best known and the strongest voice. This is not something to be regarded lightly. It can organize the greatest general public indignation that any one organization can, and it can coordinate and act asa center for the work of others. Much as all languages in the world need a good free encyclopedia, all the people in the world need this freedom even more.
On the other hand, it is not needed financially--many other groups in the movement can successfully raise sufficient money to keep the whole operation going, if not to maintain the present number of programers working on ancillary projects
On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
Am I the only one who would rather see an independent body represent
the
communities than one subordinate to the Board?
My concern is that in the long run such a body may lead to excluding community representation from the Board ("since we have a community body already..."). Also, I think that we're lacking a senate, not a government per se.
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