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

[Alex T.]

From: "Elisabeth Bauer" <elian at djini.de>
> Alex T. wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> And IMO seems to be a good line.
>
> >> 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,
>
> The bylaws say otherwise at the moment - they give the board of trustees
> the right to interfere with the projects. And, giving you the same
> answer Jimmy gave the German wikipedians: this may be fine now, but we
> have to think of the situation in 20 years. Even in 20 years, it should
> be guaranteed that the welsh wikipedians decide over the policies of the
> welsh wikipedia, the wikibookists over wikibooks and so on.
>
> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, collecting
> funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but not for
> enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all projects.

There must be some ultimate forum for enforcing rules whomever makes them
up. What this committee structure is stating is that each Wikipedia and
other
wikimedia project makes them up. The board of trustees is who has to deal
with lawsuits, not individuals who are only voluntary commitees. The rules
are ONLY enforceable by the Board, they may delegate them, let members
make them up and do whatever they want but the Board is the final arbiter
of those as it is protecting the corporate entity which is not just the
servers, it
is the sum of what Wikipedia is, that is what people are giving money for,
to
make sure Wikipedia keeps running, not just to make sure there is server
hardware and bandwidth.

As far as what is going to happen in twenty years no one knows. The Bylaws
do not give anyone any more certainty in this regard. They can be changed,
any corporate document can be changed.  Right now it can be changed by
three people, later it will be five.  I would rather that they delegate
their
authority to governing committees and let the governing committees run the
individual Wikipedia and other wikimedia projects. As far as the future is
concerned this is not the United States of Wikipedia or the European Union
of Wikipedians, it is just a small group of volunteers having the time of
their
life creating the world's largest knowledge base encyclopedia.  At this
point
that encyclopedia can exist even if Wikimedia dies a sudden death, so
what is the big deal about a few bylaws that are required for a bunch
of accountants and lawyers to justify their jobs. Let them have their
bylaws I say and let's get on with making more Wikipedias!
No one is going to start telling the Welsh Wikipedians what
to do, except more Welsh speaking volunteers, you know that don't you?
Isn't that obvious? What is Jimbo going to do, start finding translators to
read every page on every different language Wikipedia to make sure that
no one is breaking the rules?  No, it is obviously going to be self
enforcement.
Each individual project makes its own rules, if there is some need for a
final
statement, i.e. you are banned from this project, then the Board of
Wikimedia
can just make a final statement for that committee. The committee can then
rely upon the Board to make sure that the decision is implemented and in
a way the Board of Trustees becomes a limited type of appeal just to make
sure that there is nothing that would call Wikimedia's not-for-profit status
into question. That's all. Why don't you see that?

Alex756

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