User:The Thadman/Give Back Our Membership

Give Back Our Membership! Wikimedia Contributors' ability to vote has been removed with new Bylaws.

What is this about?

On December 11, 2006 the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws were amended to the effect that
all membership within the Wikimedia Foundation was removed.

What does this mean to you?

If you were an active editor of Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia project (or satisfied other criteria),
you have now lost your ability to vote within the Wikimedia Foundation.

What to read:

• The original Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws Article III which outlines all forms of membership. For example (emphasis added):

B. VOLUNTEER ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP:

This membership shall be open to all persons interested in supporting the activities of the foundation who have contributed under a user name to any Wikimedia project prior to the election ballot request deadline. The board may set minimum contribution requirements for the purpose of eliminating fraudulent votes. Volunteer Active Members shall have all the privileges of Contributing Active Members. Volunteer Active Members are automatically qualified to vote, do not need to register as a member prior to voting, and can opt out of membership at any time.

• How Article III reads now:

• "The Foundation does not have members. (Fla. Stat. Section 617.0601)"

• On MetaWiki's foundation-I list summary, only the following is found in reference to the bylaws (with broken links), emphasis added:

• [1]Anthere gave a report on a board meeting in the WMF office in Florida, reporting, among other things, that the new bylaws have been approved by all members(??), that board expansion was approved, that Anthere would be reappointed to the board for another year in July (extending her term until june 2008), and that the audit is complete. (Reference: [2])
• [3]Erik Möller noted that the revised Foundation bylaws were now online. (Reference: [4])

What can you do?

• Post a link to this page in your signature or userpage.
• Contact the Wikimedia Foundation and voice your opinion.
• Spread the word as you believe is appropriate.
• Sign the below petition.

Petition

Purpose: We, the following former Contributing Active Membership, Volunteer Active Membership, Life Membership, Sustaining Membership, Corporate Membership and Honorary Membership of the Wikimedia Foundation,Inc., demand to have our status, rights and obligations as Members, such status which was dissolved without our consent (and in most cases without our knowledge), restored to us; and we reserve all rights that we may have to redress of this grievance in any appropriate forum.

(Sign below in the following fashion on a new line: #~~~~)

1. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 06:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
2. Alex756 07:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
3. LordHarris 16:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Fred-Chess 17:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC) (although I wouldn't be surprised if his petition is forcefully closed prematurely)
5. Flexxx 17:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
6. ///Jrothwell ^(talk)/// 18:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC) Signature withdrawn - see talk page
7. American Patriot 1776 00:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
8. Aclapton 00:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
9. Galanskov 08:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
10. Warhol13 13:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
11. Some Person 17:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
12. Rwbarat@gmail.com 01:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
13. Lackinglatin 03:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
14. Manjithkaini 04:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
15. Import007 08:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
16. 209.144.249.147 19:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
17. Asher Heimermann
18. Walton monarchist89 17:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
19. Geo. 17:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
20. Umalee 17:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
21. CalJW 03:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
22. Lwarf 09:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
23. Splintercellguy 09:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
24. Dvyjones^t·c·e 16:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
25. Lcarsdata 20:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
26. Cocoaguy 従って _contribs^talk 23:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
27. Nareklm 00:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
28. -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 05:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
29. Eli Falk 09:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
30. Xhin 21:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
31. User:Pedant 13:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
32. IWhisky 19:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
33. I think we're entitled to some explanation here. Butseriouslyfolks 07:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
34. Alex43223 ^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 21:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
35. Zouavman Le Zouave _{(Talk to me! • O))))} 15:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
36. Oliver202 05:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
37. RyanB88 04:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
38. Blah0401 21:20, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
39. Imageboy1 05:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
40. MosheA 02:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
41. Jhfireboy I'm listening 21:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
42. clpo13 00:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
43. --Shirahadasha 01:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
44. – Emperor Walter Humala · ^{( talk? · help! )} 18:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
45. Big Boss 0-They cannot do this to us!!! 00:56, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
46. Æon ^{Insanity Now!} 23:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
47. ÄtΘmicR€£igione^sїgñ
48. David Spart (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) 21:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
49. Jet123 (talk · contribs)
50. ~AFA ^{Imagine I swore.} 03:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
51. Deryck C. 14:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
52. —AldeBaer user:Kncyu38 02:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
53. Amphy 03:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
54. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 12:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
55. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
56. Chezza — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.100.70 (talk • contribs)
57. — jacĸrм (talk) 02:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
58. Digitalr (talk) 16:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
59. Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 04:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
60. Dragpyre (talk) 12:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC) (i believe that this opression should not be tolerated. Most of us have the right to vote from our governments, so why can we not have it here, to give equality to all of us)
61. Psemmusa (talk) 14:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
62. --Supercopone (talk) 03:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
63. New England Cop (talk) 17:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
64.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC) (For what it's worth, I opposed the membership thing in the 2000s as too much legal overhead. I no longer think that's true, and editorial community input is something of which WMF needs a lot more.)
65. -- That lying sneak sold us all down the river back in 2006. McGrath Clan Kirk (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
66. The Foundation has repeatedly shewn itself to be (at best) not fit for purpose, and to be operating contrary to the interests of the encyclopaedia and the community which builds it. DuncanHill (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)