Dear friends,
Recent events have made me curious to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation's origins and history as a membership organization. The revelations about the Wikimedia Foundation Board elections being a recommendation for appointment rather than a direct vote seem to have been a surprise to many of us, and almost ten years after membership was eliminated, we see strongly suggestive "directly elected" language still being fixed on the Foundation's own Board elections page.[1]
It turns out that this history is colorful, the Foundation was a membership organization from 2003-2006 and Board seats were indeed, originally, intended to be directly elected by member-Wikimedians. It seems that the membership issue was never quite resolved. I've put some of my notes on metawiki, please forward to any wiki historians who might be interested in throwing their weight on a shovel.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_membership_controversy
As a current WMF staff member, and having received a formal scolding two weeks ago for expressing my professional and personal opinions on this list--that a hierarchical corporate structure is completely inappropriate and ineffectual for running the Foundation--I don't feel safe editorializing about what membership could mean for the future of the Wikimedia movement. But I would be thrilled to see this discussion take place, and to contribute however I am able.
A note to fellow staff: Anything you can say about this history is most likely protected speech under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, since we're asking whether state and federal laws were violated.
In solidarity, Adam Wight [[mw:User:Adamw]]
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board_of_Trustees&diff...