User talk:The Thadman/Give Back Our Membership

Do you think it will really happen?

Since this is a subpage to your user page I am not going to make any changes without discussing them here first. I added some information on the Wikimedia Foundation page and a comment on the user page under "Fundraiser controversy" to point out some things about this abrupt change in the bylaws. I know that some WMF "Officials" feel that they gave adequate notice of Brad's unilateral revision of the bylaws that he did right after he came "on board" in June 2006 but this was also around the same time that Jimbo stated on the mailing list that he was hiring Brad so that Brad would "continue" to work with all the other pro bono lawyers of the foundation (like myself and Soufron for example). I may be wrong but I have no evidence that ever happened; what appears to have happened is that all legal work after that point was monopolized at HQ. What did happen for sure is that the bylaws were quickly rewritten without notice(I had originally written a provisional set of bylaws creating a membership organization that could be used to submit along with the IRS application for tax exempt status) and without any consultative committee or bylaw revision committee that is customary when such an event occurs so that a group of people can discuss the current bylaws before changing them or suggesting changes in order to analyze how the bylaws failed to function before making several proposals on new or amended bylaws. While it is true that the bylaws stated that they could be amended simply by the board of trustees I think there is an issue about members being given adequate notice of this change and that it not have been done just days before a fundraiser without any announcement or press release. As I also stated people contributed to WMF projects under a license that gave away most of their rights, they did that with the belief that they at least maintained membership rights in the organization that controlled those contributions and made them available to others to easily modify. Quaere: is the GFDL contingent upon the material representation of membership rights and can the unilateral denial of those rights lead to an invalidation of that license based upon misrepresentation?

Regarding your page I would also like to point out that the changes in the bylaws not only take away the right to vote but all rights (entitlements) and obligations (responsibilities) of "entrenched" representation. While the Board has passed some resolutions "promising" to include "community" members on future boards none of this is clearly defined (i.e. what is the so called community?). Also the idea that everyone who contributed was a member has been replaced that everyone is just a user, complete disenfranchisement. Members normally have a right to complain, to state grievances, etc. like in any "democratic" structure. Taking away the "rights" of members also takes away the board's direct "obligation" towards those members to be replaced with a vague idea that if someone is a "member" of the "community" somehow (without any formal procedure in place) their grievances will be responded to. My recent experience along these lines, as I told you on the telephone yesterday, was that the board and its members are generally unresponsive and getting in touch with a bunch of people who have delegated all their authority to a staff that routinely fails to return member phone calls is a royal waste of time unless you threaten to sue (strange that gets their attention when my idea when I first got involved was to create a membership structure that prevented anyone from filing suit in a court but the revision of the bylaws left that as an open option to anyone who has a grievance against the corporate structure).

I think the way to proceed is to start a new Association of Wikipedians and Wikimedians and it should be totally independent of the WMF servers, it should have its own structure, tax exempt status and should be a place where anyone who has contributed to WMF or any of its projects (not necessarily as a volunteer editor) should have a place to comment and critique what is going on in that organization without judgment or creating any kind of pressure on the individual participants to conform to the so-called ideals of WMF. Such a Union of Members could act as a real arena of reform that could exert positive influences on a culture that is become complicated, confusing and debilitating to true collaborative work.

I am also adding the following notice to my user page and I suggest that everyone do so as a sign of protest over what has happened:

Alex756 never thought when granting a GFDL license to the foundation that his membership rights would be unilaterally terminated and he hereby gives notice that he also revokes all GFDL and CC licenses due to said misrepresentation of the Board of Trustees (BoT) and herewith demands that all his contributions prior to this page be removed because they are infringements on his copyrights. Alex756 06:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, you can't do that. You agreed to license your work under the GFDL when you submitted it – Qxz 04:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Copyrights: "You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever." – Qxz 04:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Ha, ha, that is very funny. So you are saying that the board can take away membership without giving proper notice, fail to have annual meetings and they can break their own rules but the rest of us peons have to do something because they said so? This is exactly the problem. I made all those contributions because I thought I was part of an association of people whose voices would be guaranteed by legal means, now those legal rights have been taken away from me, the social contract has been smashed, not by me, but by them. They revoke my membership, I revoke my license, it is that simple. Alex756 15:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

misunderstanding?

I believe there were never actually any members. I think I read about this on the foundation-l mailing list some time ago...This is what I remember reading: The different membership classes only indicate potential members, for instance "CONTRIBUTING ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP" would be only for contributors but no contributors were ever given this membership. The reason the membership section was removed is because is was not being used, it was just a relic. Its removal does not change anything. You never were a member in the first place. S Sepp 17:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC) edit: I remember where I heard this. It was on an episode of the wikipedia weekly podcast. S Sepp 17:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC) edit 2: It seems it is more complex than I thought. S Sepp 20:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is all a misunderstanding. I suggest you contact a memeber of the Board if you want a full explanation – Qxz 18:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There were never actually members? What about elected member representatives? They had elections and you had to have a certain number of edits to vote? How can there not be members? The old bylaws clearly stated: "All active members shall have the right to vote in this Foundation at any membership vote for Member Representative to the Board of Trustees." The fact that the board never seemed to follow its duty to create a membership fee or a membership application (you could suggest that becoming a user was a membership application and the board decided to waive the fee or set the fee to zero) does not negate membership rights. The right to vote for representation, the right to know what the board is doing, attend meetings, be active in the association. As far as "volunteer active members" the old bylaws said the following:

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.

As it clearly states all volunteer active member does not have to pay dues, or do anything, they were automatically entitled to vote.

I am saying these things because I wrote these bylaws with Jimbo Wales, I don't think anyone on the board knows as much about them as I do. To my recollection I never stated that there were no volunteer active members. If you have any indication otherwise, please be specific about your sources. Alex756 18:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You obviously know a lot more about this than I do. I will just refer to my source in case you are interested. It is in Wikipedia Weekly episode 6 at time 28:40 where they talk about members and the bylaws. A semiquote from there "to the best of my knowledge there is some dispute about whether no person or one person has completed the [membership] process". The podcast can be downloaded here. I will leave this discussion now. S Sepp 19:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I listened to this podcast and there is some talk about the Contributing Active Membership category which required an application and the payment of a membership fee and it is suggested that only one person "joined" in that category. The other (and most common) type of membership was opened to all members and was what was used as the basis of voting rights during all the annual election meetings that we held annually as required by the Florida statutes and the bylaws; as the quote from the bylaws shows (it is highlighted) no membership application or other formality was necessary for that to be done. Alex756 20:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be concerned that you've lost your right to vote in something. The only Foundation-related thing that there has ever been voting for is the elections for Board membership. Observe: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation — there are no plans to discontinue this. What exactly is the issue? – Qxz 03:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact, the bylaws agree with this too. Observe: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_IV_-_THE_BOARD_OF_TRUSTEES Section 3 part (C):

Persons elected by the community shall be appointed for a term of two years. The Board of Trustees shall determine the dates, rules and regulation of the voting procedures. The Board shall determine who shall be qualified to vote in the election.

All they mean by "determine who shall be qualified to vote in the election" is set a minimum edit count and/or time since creation that a user account must meet in order to vote. This has been the case with all previous elections, too; currently it is 400 edits. Again, what exactly is the issue? – Qxz 03:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Consensus Exception?

The petition states, "Article III reads now: 'The Foundation does not have members. (Fla. Stat. Section 617.0601).'" The noted change cites this Florida statute and the petition seems to question whether legal notice was give and whether the Board of Trustees legally needed the consent of the active members to take such an action. Wikipedia:Consensus#Exceptions may apply to this petition. -- Jreferee 17:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Old Bylaws, Article XIX Section 5: "The Board of Trustees shall be empowered to make any and all regulations, rules, policies, user agreements, terms of use, and other such decisions as may be necessary for the continued functioning of the Foundation not inconsistent with these bylaws." Furthermore, is Wikipedia:Consensus extrapolated to the Foundation? Or does it deal specifically with Wikipedia and consensus issues here? אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 05:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Membership

I remember much disscussion on foundation-l about whether the membership clause should be fixed or done away with completely. As far as I can remember one big objection to membership was that the law required a membership roster which recorded legal names and addresses of members and was to be available to any other member on request. Many people disliked the idea that of having a memebership that would fail to include anyone who does not feel like sharing their address with any other member. It is all very well to make a petition for restoring membership, but you have not addressed any of the objections that people brought up as to why membership was not really working at all. Some disussion was in this thread [1] but the issue was brought up several times as I recall with no one giving suggestions as to how to make membership workable. I would suggest you approach the Board asking them why the by-laws were changed in this way and then respond to their answer rather than to strongly put out the position of restoring "membership" which was never well-defined in the first place.--BirgitteSB 18:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Florida statute 617.0601(1)(a) now cited in the bylaws states "A corporation may ... have no members." Florida statute 617.0601(4) states "A corporation shall keep a membership book containing ... the name and address of each member. The corporation shall also keep records in accordance with s. 617.1601." The bylaws may be amended by a majority of the entire Board of Trustees. The Give Back Our Membership petition states that "the bylaws were amended without a vote by the members" and "without our consent (and in most cases without our knowledge)." -- Jreferee 19:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

"The bylaws may be amended by a majority of the entire Board of Trustees" --> "provided that at least ten days written notice is given of intention to alter, amend or repeal or to adopt new Bylaws at such meeting." This did not happen in accordance with Article XIX Section 3 "Whenever any notice is required by the Bylaws, it shall be deemed to be sufficient if mailed via first class mail to the last known address of the intended recipient or to the last known email address of the member. Such notice may be waived in writing by the intended recipient." As such, the current revision should not have happened. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 23:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do you not think that the notice is being required to all people who registered thier name and address in the member book and instead believe that section pertains to you?

This section of your petition is incorrect On MetaWiki's foundation-I list summary, only the following is found in reference to the bylaws (with broken links), emphasis added: I have given a link above from August and that was the second call for input into the by-laws rewrite. Please remove such claims that there was no prior reference to this rewrite.--BirgitteSB 14:02, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Where is this link? I would like this petition and discussion to be factual, so if you could post it here I'll update the petition to reflect it. However, this still would not satisfy the notification of all members by snail mail or email as stated in the previous Bylaws. I really do wish that it was addressed somewhere. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 01:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the llnk from my intial comment--BirgitteSB 14:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Foundation-l Revised Bylaws post

Here is the Foundation-l Revised Bylaws post stating the reasons for the membership change:

2) Membership does not legally exist. Membership was previously described in the bylaws but not actually implemented. We've discussed this issue at some length and decided that the risk of membership do not outweigh the potential benefits. The risks include: (i) Disclosure of identity to others. We do not want to limit participation in WMF activities to those who are willing to disclose their identity to other members. (ii) Hostile takeover. Given the power of members to elect or recall the Board, the risk then arises of large numbers of people being affiliated with some entity (economic, political or religious) to attempt to restructure the organization to their liking. (iii) Unnecessary hierarchy. It is possible that legal membership would negatively impact the social dynamics of the project when members and non-members are treated differently. (iv) Administrative overhead. WMF is simply not presently in an organizational position to effectively manage thousands of membership registration. (v) Questionable benefits. We can have most of the benefits of a membership system without legally encoding it in our bylaws.[2]

-- Jreferee 20:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Provided that I am not mistaken in my understanding of how the government views the procedure, these bylaws were registered when the Wikimedia Foundation was incorporated which makes them legally binding. They simply cannot be ignored or retroactively declared as unimplemented (as they -were- implemented as part of the incorporation process). As such this claim that membership "[did] not legally exist" would be factually incorrect and a major mistake has been made. This is one of my grievances. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 23:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Clarification?

Right I can't be the only one failing to see the real issue here, so my question is this: I'm your regular Joe Q. Wikipedian who occasionally edits the encyclopedia and might vote for members of the arbcom if I feel particularly strongly about it. Why should I sign this petition? M A Mason 00:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If your personal interaction with Wikipedia or any of the Wikimedia Foundation projects is casual and you don't have an interest in the greater goings on in the Wikimedia Foundation then I really can't think of a compelling reason to sign it. If you do have a vested interest in where the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects are and where they are going and find yourself regularly contributing to them, then you might be interested. It's a choice and decision that is up to you to make. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 03:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the concise response :) M A Mason 12:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

OK... I am a regular contributor, and I do care about where the Wikimedia Foundation's project are going. Now why should I sign? I still haven't heard a compelling argument that there is any problem – Qxz 15:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If you believe that what you have read so far is not compelling to you, then simply don't sign. In the end it is your personal choice. :-) אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 16:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I never had any intention of signing; I am simply very concerned that a number of contributors seem sufficiently annoyed with the Foundation to demand that all their edits be removed (even though they can do no such thing, a GFDL matter unrelated to the Foundation), and I am curious as to why. The argument seems to be either that a right that we never had has been taken away ("membership"), or a right that we actually still have has been taken away (ability to vote for Board members). Both of these arguments result from an apparent misunderstanding, and possibly stem from more personal issues involving Jimbo, or the way in which the projects are run in general, rather than anything relevant to the Board of the Foundation. See also my response in the next section – Qxz 18:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me see if I can answer some concerns here, and I'll also look over your below response. Right now, the petition is about getting the membership outlined in the old bylaws reinstated, not removing GFDL edits. That is Alex's response to having his membership removed (which I believe was more to illustrate the contradictory nature of the situation, changing bylaws against the provisions in the bylaws vs. unlicensing content against the provisions in the content licenses). Now to take myself as an example, I do not know Jim (except by name and place here on Wikipedia, so I suppose you could say that I don't know him on a personal or even face-to-face level), and he probably does not know me. As such, I really can't have a personal issue against him by definition or otherwise. However, reading over the original Wikimedia Foundation bylaws I've seen membership, which is (among other things) a stake in what the Foundation is, where the Foundation is, and where the Foundation is going, removed in apparent contradiction to and against the means outlines in how the bylaws, themselves were written. Certain parts of the bylaws were not kept up upon and I believe (based upon what I have seen happen) that other parts were completely skirted. Since the bylaws are a legal document and necessary for incorporation under the law, I see this is a big inconsistency on part of the Wikimedia Foundation board that I want to see addressed. I personally have a very large vested interest in Wikipedia, and I try to play an active role in shaping the areas that I am involved in (which at this point in time are mostly the AMA and work on the Aramaic Wikipedia to keep them, both viable projects). Keeping the Wikimedia tools truly free, I believe, is an important issue. Not only free in terms of use, but free in terms of direction and scope; things that are defined and shaped by the Wikimedia community. Removing one's membership, which before the change was granted simply by being an active contributor (i.e. a body of persons who already shape the community), not only loosens that bond to the community, but puts the entire project's form behind a small group of people, who are not representative of the user body, and away from those who have literally given it life. The users, under these new rules, are helpless, and the vast majority of them are not even aware that they had a stake in the Foundation. All of these shortcomings, I believe, need to be mended and I also believe that this may be the first step. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 01:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK... but other than the wording of the bylaws (which let's face it, nobody really reads anyway), does any of this actually make any difference to the way things are run? The individual projects still have as much control over their own scope and direction as they always have done; the procedure for proposing new projects on Meta is still the same; everyone with more than 400 (or however many) edits is still entitled to participate in Board elections. What has actually changed? – Qxz 17:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: I don't agree with you

Alex756 wrote:

You stated on the petition talk page: "There are no plans to discontinue this" How can you prove that?

See the Meta page I referred you to. If you don't believe me, ask a member of the Board.

Do you know that people fought and died for the right to vote for elected representation in many countries and have that right entrenched in a constitution?

This is hardly the same thing. You aren't comparing like with like.

Here it is all at the discretion of the board...

As it always has been. The Board has always had the ability to define "contributor" for the purpose of the elections, currently specifying 400 edits. There's nothing to stop them specifying 1,000,000 edits and having nobody able to vote — except good faith and common sense, neither of you have factored into your argument.

...which is the same thing that goes on in a dictatorship.

No, it isn't. Again, you are not comparing like with like.

The board can do whatever it wants. It has complete control;...

Within reason, yes, provided it is compatible with the Foundation's goals. That has always been the case.

...they can decide to give the donations to pay high salaries to big corporate bosses...

No, they can't. That would be incompatible with the Foundation's goals.

...or spend it all paying board members to fly them around the world to go on various "retreats"

No, they can't "spend it all" this way. They do indeed spend some of the money this way. A very, very, small fraction of it. I'd argue that's an acceptable use of funds.

The servers and bandwidth only cost about $50,000 a month as far as I can tell.

Actually, it's slightly more than that, and remember that $50,000 a month is $600,000 a year, and that's before you factor in depreciation and increasing costs caused by the inevitable continued growth of the projects. The proceeds of the last fundraiser (about $1 million) will barely see out the year.

The bylaws also said that we should be given notice of all changes to the bylaws and elections (if you read it carefully I think you can figure that out) but no proper notice was given of any of those attempted changes.

I agree that the changes were sudden and unannounced, contrary to the bylaws, and that this may be viewed as a problem. However, this is a procedural complaint. In addition to this, you are complaining about the content of the changes, and I disagree with this part. You seem to be claiming that some right has been taken away; I fail to see that this has happened.

In fact if you read the Florida statutes it says that we are supposed to have an annual meeting, did the board ever have an annual meeting?

Yes.

NO.

No, really, it did. In fact the board has been meeting a lot more often than annually. It's had one meeting this year already, and it's only Februray. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_meetings.

It has been operating in secret all these years being totally unaccountable to the (former) membership.

"All these years"? It's only been in existence for three and a bit, and it's spent most of that time doing nothing at all. The recent changes to the bylaws are part of the current push to actually get things going.

If tomorrow the board past a resolution stating that all the members of the Board were to be personal friends of Brad Patrick that would be perfectly legal under the bylaws as they are now written.

Oh, don't be rediculous.

How is that fair? How is that respecting our rights as volunteer contributors?...

You have precisely two rights; the right to leave, and the right to fork.

Many people were thinking they were volunteering because they could participate in an open and transparent organization.

Open and transparent? Well they can forget the Board, then, they should be more worried about the administrator cabals.

The people who "took" control...

You make it sound like some sort of hostile takeover. Half of them were elected, by us (well not me, because I wasn't here, but "us" the community).

...have perverted that into a board that does mostly everything in secret who has employees give "notice" on obscure web pages

It was posted on the Foundation website, linked from the home page. Given that Wikimedia projects operate almost exclusively over the Internet, how else do you suggest they do it? You want them to phone you up in person and tell you?

and expects that all us volunteers have to check every web page on Wikipedia...

They don't have to check any pages on Wikipedia. Though I recommend you do so anyway; there's a lot of interesting stuff buried in there.

...and if we don't it is our hard luck. You think because someone says that they will do something that they are obligated to do it? About three weeks ago Jimbo Wales told me he was going to write to me a few days later because he was too busy flying out to California (from Rotterdam) before he went back to Florida (that was around the 20th). Now I just found out he was here in NYC giving a talk at NYU on Wednesday and he didn't even bother to write me and tell me that (I live in NY and was at NYU a few days ago going to a talk by real friend of mine Madison Smartt Bell who just published a new and fascinating book on a real revolutionary, not an internet crackpot).

You're confusing Jimbo's own personal life, arrangements and relationship with you with the Board and its goals.

Jimbo is too busy to respond to us "peons" -- we are not important to him,...

Well, there are a lot of us. I count over 3,000,000 registered user accounts on the English Wikipedia alone. He can't attend to all our individual needs in person.

...he has much more important things to do and so what if he promises a volunteer something and does not follow through, after all we are all working for nothing here, so our time is worth nothing, unlike him because he *is* the Foundation; that million dollars *he* just raised is for *him* and his *pals*...

With all due respect, you're just beginning to sound ignorant now. Jimbo has no personal control over that money, or over Wikipedia, (which he once owned but has now donated to the Foundation) or over the Foundation. He was once chair of the Board, and two of the Board members were essentially friends of his who did as they were told. However, neither of those things is true any longer.

...to use to keep us enslaved...

Oh, please. The two rights that we do have more than take care of this. Right to leave and right to fork, remember?

as the real workers that make his fame and fortune possible. Think about it, the only edits I could find

You're not seriously using EDIT COUNT to judge the activity of the BOARD, are you? For goodness' sake... even the Editor Review people know not to do that.

...that he has made recently (besides deleting defamatory stuff that people complain about) were to change the history of Wikipedia to erase Larry Sanger as co-founder.[3].

Yes, he has been engaging in an edit war with his co-founder. I certainly don't condone that, but that is an entirely separate (and in the scale of things, unimportant) issue from any Foundation business.

I guess when you are an internet millionaire (he runs and *owns* a company that has about 40 employees and his just received *private* financing from Amazon.com)...

Are you referring to Wikia? That's not solely under his control, or even close to it. See Wikia, Gil Penchina, Angela Beesley. I think you're also overestimating his personal assets a little, though obviously that's a private matter and I have no figure for it.

...and prophet even though you tell everyone else not to edit their articles you can do so yourself because who is going to tell you to stop doing that? Eh? No man is above the law, but someone is above "Official Policy" at Wikipedia. Food for thought. Alex756 15:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't even be bothered to respond to that. Forgive my laziness – Qxz 09:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

This does sound like it's making a mountain out of a molehill. I'm withdrawing my signature from the petition.--///Jrothwell ^(talk)/// 18:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this a 'good thing?

If anyone who had made any edits were allowed to vote, it would be rather easy for the foundation to be taken over hostially, would it not? I'm not involved in this, but frankly, members can still vote for some board members, etc.. that's what matters. --Zantastik talk 06:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This is why there was originally a clause in the Bylaws to set a minimum set of requirements to define an "Active" editor, and if that was the case, what would the problem be? Would it be wrong or even a "bad" thing for the active editing community to decide which direction the Wikimedia Foundation was going? The body of active editors is where practically all of the content of these projects comes from. :-) אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 14:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean this clause?

Persons elected by the community shall be appointed for a term of two years. The Board of Trustees shall determine the dates, rules and regulation of the voting procedures. The Board shall determine who shall be qualified to vote in the election.

That's still there. Article IV section 3 part (c) – Qxz 16:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Any proposal?

Hi. I had quite a few questions since I first saw User:Alex756 mentioned about it. I now see some questions answered on this page. Thanks for the discussion and information.

I wonder if any of you have some idea how the membership should be defined. I see some points why the membership was eliminated, as explained in the Foundation-l post. Do you think simply reinstating the previous language is better? Or is there any way to address some of the concerns that led to the change while still maintaining the broad membership?

Tomos 11:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe that in order for the Wikimedia Foundation projects to be truly free information commons that they must be governed by their content contributing communities. To me that only makes sense, as the projects are (literally) defined by the community. :-) Most of the other points that I have seen seem to hinge upon the fear that somehow the wheel of the organization is going to be taken away from the Board, which does have its merits and is a very valid fear, as well as a few issues of privacy. Let me see if we can dig up the discussion about the bylaws changing and post them here for further picking over. You wouldn't happen to have a link directly to the pertinent emails? All of the links on the summary pages are broken. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) • Give Back Our Membership! 14:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

All links to mail archives from before January have been broken ever since the mailing lists were moved last month. Annoying; I don't know if there's any way to fix it – Qxz 16:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure which links you were referring to, but I manually fixed two that appeared on the content page of the Give Back Our Membership.

And thank you for your reply, Steve Caruso.

I think it is good if we can somehow avoid the risk of takeover while maintaining the open membership to everyone who is actively involved in the project to a more than certain degree. I also think that there is a risk of takeover of the Board of Trustees when there is no invervening power to it. I trust Jimbo and Florence. But in a long run, we don't know what's going to happen with such a body. In principle, a select few people are probably easier to influence by money, threat or other means than a swarm of Wikimedians..

In short, I don't see either the previous or the current arrangement clearly superior to the other. If you or any others have argument for other or the previous arrangement, I am interested to hear that. Tomos 18:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)