[Intlwiki-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Time to set up Wikimedia ProjectCommittees

[Alex T.]

From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> > On Jan 24, 2004, at 15:04, Alex T. wrote:
> >
> >> Here is a proposal regarding the governance of individual Wikimedia
> >> projects;
> >> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Project_Governing_Committees
> >>
> >> The idea is to give the members of each Wikipedia and all the other
> >> projects, the
> >> freedom to develop each project independently of any hierarchical
> >> control by
> >> the Board of Trustees.
> >
> > Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the projects already have
> > the freedom to develop each project independently of any hierachical
> > control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists primarily to provide
> > material support (ie, servers and hosting) and maintain 'brand
> > awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?

If you want Wikimedia to be a real NPO it has to have some kind of
structure.

Jimbo has decided to make it a membership organization, members get into
disputes and they look to someone for resolution of those disputes.  This is
an attempt to give them a way to deal with those issues and to make sure
that there is a clear distinction between the "official" board of trustees
and
any other structure that might exist so that there is no "hierarchy" between
the Board of Trustees and the various projects beyond that which is
necessary
for the projects to legally be part of Wikimedia.  If you want the benefits
of
NPO tax exempt status you need some structure. My suggestion is to make
it as minimal and egalitarian as possible, each wikipedia community can do
what it wants to do, if you want a lot of structure, o.k., if you want no
structure,
some minimal foothold for dealing with issues. I agree with you Brian, each
project is independent but with so many people complaining that the Board of
Trustees are a bunch of shills of Jimbo perhaps there needs to be a line
drawn in the sand. This proposal is that line.

Regarding edit disputes, members already deal with that, this is just
recognizing
that the community of each Wikipedia project will have the right to decide
these
disputes in the way that they see fit with no interference from the outside
power
structure.

> Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
> another impression by reading the bylaws.
>
Why does everything have to be stated in the bylaws, the bylaws are just a
general
governing body document, they don't have anything to do with the day to day
activities
of the various Wikipedia projects, once again this is my point, keep the two
things
separate by saying they are separate and keeping some structure. The
reporting
requirement will be useful for Wikimedia's fundraising efforts and reporting
to the
IRS each year.

Alex756