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Board-announcement: Board Restructuring

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shimgray at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 8:14 AM

Post #26 of 189 (864 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

2008/4/27 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro [at] gmail>:

> As I queried earlier, is it the intention that in the future
> there will also be earmarked seats for developers, OTRS
> members etc.

I wonder how long until this turns from a board into a senate...

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray [at] dunelm

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saintonge at telus

Apr 27, 2008, 9:58 AM

Post #27 of 189 (864 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Dan Rosenthal wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the rationale was explained: The
> Board wants the Chapters to have more involvement in the governance of
> the foundation, and since the chapters presumably would know good
> candidates for the board (as they'd probably have already identified
> some as candidates for their own boards) the move benefits both Board
> and Chapters. Presumably, these would be something like "appointed
> community seats" as opposed to "elected community seats".
This could very well be the case, but Chapters do represent national
interests. Perhaps some day chapters should indeed be represented, but
I'm afraid that at this stage it's a half-baked idea that opens up a
whole new can of worms.

Ec

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swatjester at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 11:06 AM

Post #28 of 189 (864 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

I don't disagree with you Ec, I'm simply trying to find a way to talk
about this without saying my true feelings about the restructuring,
which would likely get me moderated ;)

-Dan
On Apr 27, 2008, at 12:58 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Dan Rosenthal wrote:
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the rationale was explained: The
>> Board wants the Chapters to have more involvement in the governance
>> of
>> the foundation, and since the chapters presumably would know good
>> candidates for the board (as they'd probably have already identified
>> some as candidates for their own boards) the move benefits both Board
>> and Chapters. Presumably, these would be something like "appointed
>> community seats" as opposed to "elected community seats".
> This could very well be the case, but Chapters do represent national
> interests. Perhaps some day chapters should indeed be represented, but
> I'm afraid that at this stage it's a half-baked idea that opens up a
> whole new can of worms.
>
> Ec
>
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tim at tim-landscheidt

Apr 27, 2008, 11:07 AM

Post #29 of 189 (867 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

"Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher [at] gmail> wrote:

> [...]
> (Ironic...
> We are happy to let the content in the world's top reference source be
> decided by anyone who puts their hand up, but not the governance nub
> of same.
> When do we under- and when do we over-estimate our own power?)

> With the recent professionalisation of WMF - massively expanded staff,
> and the end of the "working Board", is this fear still well-founded?
> (if it ever was)
> [...]

IBTD. A lot of users will happily create articles, revert
vandalism and ensure NPOV on their turf but won't be inter-
ested to follow foundation "politics" and so will either not
participate in elections or maybe cast their vote for the
most populist candidate.

What I find most interesting about the whole quest for
councils and board seats (vulgo: power) is that there is no
incentive to those positions: The funds are earmarked (and
rather small) and as soon as you make a decision that is
contrary to the community's consensus, they will walk and
you will have to cover yourself whether Amy Winehouse is so-
ber or stoned at the moment. Or, in other words: There is no
power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.

Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
cross any legal limits.

Tim

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bryan.tongminh at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 11:16 AM

Post #30 of 189 (865 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 8:07 PM, Tim Landscheidt <tim [at] tim-landscheidt> wrote:
> "Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> > (Ironic...
> > We are happy to let the content in the world's top reference source be
> > decided by anyone who puts their hand up, but not the governance nub
> > of same.
> > When do we under- and when do we over-estimate our own power?)
>
> > With the recent professionalisation of WMF - massively expanded staff,
> > and the end of the "working Board", is this fear still well-founded?
> > (if it ever was)
> > [...]
>
> IBTD. A lot of users will happily create articles, revert
> vandalism and ensure NPOV on their turf but won't be inter-
> ested to follow foundation "politics" and so will either not
> participate in elections or maybe cast their vote for the
> most populist candidate.
>
> What I find most interesting about the whole quest for
> councils and board seats (vulgo: power) is that there is no
> incentive to those positions: The funds are earmarked (and
> rather small) and as soon as you make a decision that is
> contrary to the community's consensus, they will walk and
> you will have to cover yourself whether Amy Winehouse is so-
> ber or stoned at the moment. Or, in other words: There is no
> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.
>
> Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
> end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
> maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
> cross any legal limits.
>
> Tim
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

I fully agree.

Bryan

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effeietsanders at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 11:44 AM

Post #31 of 189 (863 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

2008/4/27, Tim Landscheidt <tim [at] tim-landscheidt>:

> Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
> end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
> maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
> cross any legal limits.
>
>
> Tim

I am not sure how to read this, but I would like to state that the
mission of the Foundation (and actually of the Movement, which is much
more important) is much broader then that. If we would only care about
the servers, software and legal limits, I would very seriously wonder
why we are continuing, because Free knowledge is about much more then
that.

There are roughly four aspects of Free Knowledge in the game here.
Creating, Maintaining, Gathering (but not creating yourself) and
spreading. All those are of major importance. To create Free
Knowledge, you need a community (which you have to maintain) and good
infrastructure (ie, software), to maintain the Free Knowlegde you need
both a Community and the Technical things (ie, servers). to gather you
need much more contacts and goodwill, knowledge of local customs etc,
and to spread, you need again another set of skills and resources.

So please let's be proud on our mission, and try to work it out in
it's full glory.

BR, Lodewijk

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tim at tim-landscheidt

Apr 27, 2008, 1:34 PM

Post #32 of 189 (866 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

"effe iets anders" <effeietsanders [at] gmail> wrote:

>> Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
>> end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
>> maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
>> cross any legal limits.

> I am not sure how to read this, but I would like to state that the
> mission of the Foundation (and actually of the Movement, which is much
> more important) is much broader then that. If we would only care about
> the servers, software and legal limits, I would very seriously wonder
> why we are continuing, because Free knowledge is about much more then
> that.

> There are roughly four aspects of Free Knowledge in the game here.
> Creating, Maintaining, Gathering (but not creating yourself) and
> spreading. All those are of major importance. To create Free
> Knowledge, you need a community (which you have to maintain) and good
> infrastructure (ie, software), to maintain the Free Knowlegde you need
> both a Community and the Technical things (ie, servers). to gather you
> need much more contacts and goodwill, knowledge of local customs etc,
> and to spread, you need again another set of skills and resources.

> So please let's be proud on our mission, and try to work it out in
> it's full glory.

There is much pathos in those words, and I seriously doubt
that many users see themselves as part of "the Movement" (or
would want to pledge themselves to anything like that). But
be that as it may.

So, assuming the end is "is to empower and engage people
around the world to collect and develop educational content
under a free license or in the public domain, and to dissem-
inate it effectively and globally", you have identified four
(possible) means to achieve it. I do not see that board com-
position or councils are among them and I could not imagine
how they would be able to foster the stated end anyhow.

Tim

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putevod at mccme

Apr 27, 2008, 2:08 PM

Post #33 of 189 (864 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

> What I find most interesting about the whole quest for
> councils and board seats (vulgo: power) is that there is no
> incentive to those positions: The funds are earmarked (and
> rather small) and as soon as you make a decision that is
> contrary to the community's consensus, they will walk and
> you will have to cover yourself whether Amy Winehouse is so-
> ber or stoned at the moment. Or, in other words: There is no
> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.
>
> Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
> end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
> maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
> cross any legal limits.
>
> Tim
>

To put it in an impolite way, I do not care a sh*t about power. I joined
this list because some things I was dealing with were not (and are not)
running smoothly. Of course you can not give orders to volunteers, but if
there is an understanding that certain things should be done you can help
the volunteers to get them done.

Cheers,
Yaroslav

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tim at tim-landscheidt

Apr 27, 2008, 3:28 PM

Post #34 of 189 (857 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

"Yaroslav M. Blanter" <putevod [at] mccme> wrote:

>> What I find most interesting about the whole quest for
>> councils and board seats (vulgo: power) is that there is no
>> incentive to those positions: The funds are earmarked (and
>> rather small) and as soon as you make a decision that is
>> contrary to the community's consensus, they will walk and
>> you will have to cover yourself whether Amy Winehouse is so-
>> ber or stoned at the moment. Or, in other words: There is no
>> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.

>> Personally, I would not mind if the current board's terms
>> end 2099 as long as the servers are running, MediaWiki is
>> maintained and developed and the financial conduct does not
>> cross any legal limits.

> To put it in an impolite way, I do not care a sh*t about power. I joined
> this list because some things I was dealing with were not (and are not)
> running smoothly. Of course you can not give orders to volunteers, but if
> there is an understanding that certain things should be done you can help
> the volunteers to get them done.

Feel free to elaborate. Without looking at the archives, my
memory serves the following non-meta issues discussed here:

- Ancient Greek Wikipedia

Maybe I did not pay enough attention. What did I miss?

Tim

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wikimail at inbox

Apr 27, 2008, 3:36 PM

Post #35 of 189 (857 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Tim Landscheidt <tim [at] tim-landscheidt> wrote:
> Or, in other words: There is no
> power because you cannot give orders to volunteers.
>
This meme is oft-repeated but still untrue. Almost every volunteer
organization has a hierarchy and "gives orders" to its members to some
extent. Its members are, of course, free to ignore those "orders",
but the organization is then free to disallow them from further
participation.

Seriously, what volunteer organization can you think of where
volunteers are told to just do whatever they feel like? Does the
Obama campaign committee give volunteers a bunch of blank signs and
say "go support Obama", or do they assign people to particular routes
and ask them to follow particular rules while canvassing?

The Wikimedia Foundation may run this way, and maybe it's even a good
way of running things, but it's certainly not impossible to do it any
other way.

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delirium at hackish

Apr 27, 2008, 7:23 PM

Post #36 of 189 (843 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Florence Devouard wrote:
> The chapter seats comes from several considerations.
> Essentially, the mission of the WMF is to work in coordination with a
> network of chapters. The mission is shared between all of our
> organizations, and the WMF controls certain assets needed by the
> chapters (trademarks), which made the partnership a certain one-sided
> collaboration. Providing seats to chapters is both a way to foster a
> real coordination between all of our organizations, and a way to
> recognize the chapter role in the great scheme of things.
>

This may be a laudable long-term goal to aim at, but for the medium
term, the vast majority of countries are not represented by a
chapter---and those regions that do have chapters are already
disproportionately well-represented. So this will, if anything, tend to
increase the disparity in representation.

For the record, this is the current chapter distribution:
Europe - 9
East Asia - 2
Middle East - 1
South America - 1
Australia - 1

-Mark

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Anthere9 at yahoo

Apr 27, 2008, 7:33 PM

Post #37 of 189 (844 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Delirium wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>> The chapter seats comes from several considerations.
>> Essentially, the mission of the WMF is to work in coordination with a
>> network of chapters. The mission is shared between all of our
>> organizations, and the WMF controls certain assets needed by the
>> chapters (trademarks), which made the partnership a certain one-sided
>> collaboration. Providing seats to chapters is both a way to foster a
>> real coordination between all of our organizations, and a way to
>> recognize the chapter role in the great scheme of things.
>>
>
> This may be a laudable long-term goal to aim at, but for the medium
> term, the vast majority of countries are not represented by a
> chapter---and those regions that do have chapters are already
> disproportionately well-represented. So this will, if anything, tend to
> increase the disparity in representation.
>
> For the record, this is the current chapter distribution:
> Europe - 9
> East Asia - 2
> Middle East - 1
> South America - 1
> Australia - 1
>
> -Mark

You are absolutely correct Mark.
But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily elect
chapter members ?
I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
avoid that trap ;-)

Ant

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delirium at hackish

Apr 27, 2008, 7:40 PM

Post #38 of 189 (843 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Florence Devouard wrote:
> You are absolutely correct Mark.
> But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily elect
> chapter members ?
> I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
> avoid that trap ;-)
>
Well that's true, but they still get the vote---even if they elect
someone else, they have the power to decide who to elect. I'm not sure I
like the power being distributed with such a skew, that for example
Europeans get 9 input into the process nine times, and Japanese zero.

Of course I don't really like the idea of chapters in the first place,
so that's a whole separate issue (I tend to dislike nation-based
organizations, especially as they tend to promote nationalism).

-Mark

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swatjester at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 7:55 PM

Post #39 of 189 (833 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

I share your concerns. For instance WMF AU and WMF UK are going to be
more likely to want to pick someone from the en.wp community, but are
not likely to be familiar with potential candidates from say, ru.wp. A
theoretical WMF Japan, however, would likely be wanting to pick
someone from the jp.wp and have absolutely no familiarity with anyone
from the en.wp, de.wp or other communities.

The end result is either that the chapters pick from their own, or
they take outside direction as to who to pick (which then defeats the
purpose of it being a community seat).

-Dan

On Apr 27, 2008, at 10:40 PM, Delirium wrote:

> Florence Devouard wrote:
>> You are absolutely correct Mark.
>> But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily
>> elect
>> chapter members ?
>> I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
>> avoid that trap ;-)
>>
> Well that's true, but they still get the vote---even if they elect
> someone else, they have the power to decide who to elect. I'm not
> sure I
> like the power being distributed with such a skew, that for example
> Europeans get 9 input into the process nine times, and Japanese zero.
>
> Of course I don't really like the idea of chapters in the first place,
> so that's a whole separate issue (I tend to dislike nation-based
> organizations, especially as they tend to promote nationalism).
>
> -Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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aphaia at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 8:17 PM

Post #40 of 189 (841 views)
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Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

First I think it would have been nice this decision making would have
had a public comment phase, before the Board simply resolved that as
such, while most of its current members come from the community. It is
rather, a issue of process of formalization of decision making, not
criticism to its outcome. <OT>Adherence of good formalized process is
a strong feature of tea ceremony and Japanese way of thought in
general.</OT> .

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> > For the record, this is the current chapter distribution:
> > Europe - 9
> > East Asia - 2
> > Middle East - 1
> > South America - 1
> > Australia - 1
> >
> > -Mark
>
>
> You are absolutely correct Mark.
> But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily elect
> chapter members ?
> I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
> avoid that trap ;-)

Hopefully so,$B!!(Band Kurt seems to show such a wisdom already (and you
are also WMFR Board member, right?), so in a short time it would be
okay (or am I too optimistic?), but for a long run, I'm not sure the
scheme announced is the best composition and schedule.

Several brainstormig ideas:
* Why not having the "chapter seats" as of appointed ones and keep the
community vote seats in the current number or so?
* Why distribute into 3/2/1/4? Why not 4/2/ ... and have the
community to elect 2 in one year?
* Why (always) need 4 appointed? (I think it was already brought
up...) why not say "up to 4"?
etc etc.

The chapter seats may have many implications. It may be seen as an
alternative of current community seats, so from this view, it could
be seen as reduced the power of community, specially when one have no
near future possibility to settle a chapter in his land (e.g. PRC Main
Land, excluding HK and Macau). Reflecting more thought from the
chapters, in respect to their experience, is fine. But reducing the
representation of the rest of community is not always fine.

However, I have another thought it wouldn't make the situation change
drastically at least at this moment: my gray cell units whispers
"anyway most of votes come from the project whose volunteers or at
least some of them have formed a chapter or more?" And I am tempting
to say "yeah, exactly" .... For 2007: top ten projects of voters were
en [UK and now Austria], de [DE, CH and now AU], fr [FR, CH], it [IT,
CH], pl, nl [NL], ja, commons, no [now NO], es [now AR and we know
already some planning chapters] . Only ja has no chapter even in the
plan, and we may remove commons for this consideration because of
their service project characteristic.. In top twenty, we will find
also he and zh. sv and sr had relatively small numbers of voters (10
and 8 respectively) but anyway there are many projects which had no
voter at all).

I won't say the issue of overweight is purely theoretical, since I
believe the composition of Board should be considered carefully, both
in a short term and in a long run. But even such consideration is
genuine theoretical, it should be based on facts we know and have
faced. I think I don't so much like of this chapter seat and its
distribution ideas, but currently I won't reject it simply either.

Re: community election schedule. As a past election committee member I
tend to support a election in every two years, because of overhead of
election process, but on the other hand, I believe the basic idea of
having an election every year is good to keep the BoT composition to
reflect the latest community concerns, specially considering the
possibility the chapter seats will be able to be taken by people not
coming from the community.

And my first question was: is there any potential problem to have
other orgs (legally chapters are other orgs based in another country,
at least at that moment, right?) voices to select WMF BoT and not vice
versa? I suppose the Board had consulted Mike and he nodded, but I
would love to get further explanation.

--
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

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cimonavaro at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 9:54 PM

Post #41 of 189 (845 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Aphaia wrote:
> First I think it would have been nice this decision making would have
> had a public comment phase, before the Board simply resolved that as
> such, while most of its current members come from the community. It is
> rather, a issue of process of formalization of decision making, not
> criticism to its outcome. <OT>Adherence of good formalized process is
> a strong feature of tea ceremony and Japanese way of thought in
> general.</OT> .
>

*nod*

> The chapter seats may have many implications. It may be seen as an
> alternative of current community seats, so from this view, it could
> be seen as reduced the power of community, specially when one have no
> near future possibility to settle a chapter in his land (e.g. PRC Main
> Land, excluding HK and Macau). Reflecting more thought from the
> chapters, in respect to their experience, is fine. But reducing the
> representation of the rest of community is not always fine.

Yes, I think this is an important point. There are three things
that matter. Appearances matter. Formal arrangements matter.
Practical functionality matters. Ignoring any one of these
three is not good.

I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
"community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
community seats".

Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
account in a smaller language without chapter.

>
> However, I have another thought it wouldn't make the situation change
> drastically at least at this moment: my gray cell units whispers
> "anyway most of votes come from the project whose volunteers or at
> least some of them have formed a chapter or more?" And I am tempting
> to say "yeah, exactly" .... For 2007: top ten projects of voters were
> en [UK and now Austria], de [DE, CH and now AU], fr [FR, CH], it [IT,
> CH], pl, nl [NL], ja, commons, no [now NO], es [now AR and we know
> already some planning chapters] . Only ja has no chapter even in the
> plan, and we may remove commons for this consideration because of
> their service project characteristic.. In top twenty, we will find
> also he and zh. sv and sr had relatively small numbers of voters (10
> and 8 respectively) but anyway there are many projects which had no
> voter at all).
>
> I won't say the issue of overweight is purely theoretical, since I
> believe the composition of Board should be considered carefully, both
> in a short term and in a long run. But even such consideration is
> genuine theoretical, it should be based on facts we know and have
> faced. I think I don't so much like of this chapter seat and its
> distribution ideas, but currently I won't reject it simply either.

If we ignore (just for discussion, not in the real world, as that
would be bad) for the moment the "formal structure" and the
"outward appearance" of the thing; in practical terms there
might become into force a paradoxical tendency...

Since in practise the disenfranchisement of the chapterless
this new process creates would drastically lower the "opportunity
cost" of creating a completely separate institution to represent
specifically the chapterless, whether official or unofficial,
those of a paranoid tendency in the chapters, might in actual
practise bend over backwards to make sure the *actual* concerns
of the chapterless are given high attention to.

I am not saying this is necessarily a felicitous way of making
sure that that happens, but it is something to consider.

Yours in Wikimedia;

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

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ktc at ktchan

Apr 27, 2008, 10:08 PM

Post #42 of 189 (844 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 07:54 +0300, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:

> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
> community seats".
>
> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
> account in a smaller language without chapter.

No, just no.

This *will* be disenfranchising all the people who contribute, some
quite a lot, for the simple reason that they are not involved with the
chapter in their respective country. I will argue that many contributor
in fact _do not_ contribute in multiple language.

KTC

--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine

Attachments:

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gerard.meijssen at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 10:20 PM

Post #43 of 189 (842 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Hoi,
A chapter is not related to any project. You can contribute either to a
project or to a chapter, the two are not necessarily related. You may either
be represented by a chapter in your country or you are not represented at
all in this way.
Thanks,
GerardM

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro [at] gmail>
wrote:

> Aphaia wrote:
> > First I think it would have been nice this decision making would have
> > had a public comment phase, before the Board simply resolved that as
> > such, while most of its current members come from the community. It is
> > rather, a issue of process of formalization of decision making, not
> > criticism to its outcome. <OT>Adherence of good formalized process is
> > a strong feature of tea ceremony and Japanese way of thought in
> > general.</OT> .
> >
>
> *nod*
>
>
> > The chapter seats may have many implications. It may be seen as an
> > alternative of current community seats, so from this view, it could
> > be seen as reduced the power of community, specially when one have no
> > near future possibility to settle a chapter in his land (e.g. PRC Main
> > Land, excluding HK and Macau). Reflecting more thought from the
> > chapters, in respect to their experience, is fine. But reducing the
> > representation of the rest of community is not always fine.
>
> Yes, I think this is an important point. There are three things
> that matter. Appearances matter. Formal arrangements matter.
> Practical functionality matters. Ignoring any one of these
> three is not good.
>
> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
> community seats".
>
> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
> account in a smaller language without chapter.
>
>
> >
> > However, I have another thought it wouldn't make the situation change
> > drastically at least at this moment: my gray cell units whispers
> > "anyway most of votes come from the project whose volunteers or at
> > least some of them have formed a chapter or more?" And I am tempting
> > to say "yeah, exactly" .... For 2007: top ten projects of voters were
> > en [UK and now Austria], de [DE, CH and now AU], fr [FR, CH], it [IT,
> > CH], pl, nl [NL], ja, commons, no [now NO], es [.now AR and we know
> > already some planning chapters] . Only ja has no chapter even in the
> > plan, and we may remove commons for this consideration because of
> > their service project characteristic.. In top twenty, we will find
> > also he and zh. sv and sr had relatively small numbers of voters (10
> > and 8 respectively) but anyway there are many projects which had no
> > voter at all).
> >
> > I won't say the issue of overweight is purely theoretical, since I
> > believe the composition of Board should be considered carefully, both
> > in a short term and in a long run. But even such consideration is
> > genuine theoretical, it should be based on facts we know and have
> > faced. I think I don't so much like of this chapter seat and its
> > distribution ideas, but currently I won't reject it simply either.
>
> If we ignore (just for discussion, not in the real world, as that
> would be bad) for the moment the "formal structure" and the
> "outward appearance" of the thing; in practical terms there
> might become into force a paradoxical tendency...
>
> Since in practise the disenfranchisement of the chapterless
> this new process creates would drastically lower the "opportunity
> cost" of creating a completely separate institution to represent
> specifically the chapterless, whether official or unofficial,
> those of a paranoid tendency in the chapters, might in actual
> practise bend over backwards to make sure the *actual* concerns
> of the chapterless are given high attention to.
>
> I am not saying this is necessarily a felicitous way of making
> sure that that happens, but it is something to consider.
>
>
> Yours in Wikimedia;
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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wikipedia at verizon

Apr 27, 2008, 10:29 PM

Post #44 of 189 (844 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
> community seats".
>
> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
> account in a smaller language without chapter.
>
I would be cautious about tying projects to chapters, considering that
they do not map to each other at all exactly. So unless I misunderstand
your proposal, I think the consequences for individual participation are
more drastic than you seem to believe. You suggest people might have
accounts on other projects, but it seems like this would
"disenfranchise" everyone who contributes to the Spanish projects, all
because a chapter has been formed in Argentina.

I'd be more inclined to take the idea and turn it completely around. In
the context of chapters selecting board members, I think it's worth
considering having an "at-large chapter" for people to participate in if
they don't have one available in their jurisdiction. Since it already
puts us in a situation where we have to think outside the standard mold
of what is a chapter, because we need to create something for the US
among others, a virtual chapter could be considered. A "chapter" for
board selection purposes need not be a "chapter" in the sense of an
incorporated nonprofit entity with tax deductibility for donations and
the ability to make formal agreements. Maybe this would also help some
of the places where people have expressed concerns about the wisdom of
actually forming associations - I vaguely recall Japan might have that
issue, for example.

--Michael Snow

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cimonavaro at gmail

Apr 27, 2008, 11:15 PM

Post #45 of 189 (844 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Michael Snow wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
>> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
>> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
>> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
>> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
>> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
>> community seats".
>>
>> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
>> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
>> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
>> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
>> account in a smaller language without chapter.
>>
> I would be cautious about tying projects to chapters, considering that
> they do not map to each other at all exactly. So unless I misunderstand
> your proposal, I think the consequences for individual participation are
> more drastic than you seem to believe. You suggest people might have
> accounts on other projects, but it seems like this would
> "disenfranchise" everyone who contributes to the Spanish projects, all
> because a chapter has been formed in Argentina.
>
> I'd be more inclined to take the idea and turn it completely around. In
> the context of chapters selecting board members, I think it's worth
> considering having an "at-large chapter" for people to participate in if
> they don't have one available in their jurisdiction. Since it already
> puts us in a situation where we have to think outside the standard mold
> of what is a chapter, because we need to create something for the US
> among others, a virtual chapter could be considered. A "chapter" for
> board selection purposes need not be a "chapter" in the sense of an
> incorporated nonprofit entity with tax deductibility for donations and
> the ability to make formal agreements. Maybe this would also help some
> of the places where people have expressed concerns about the wisdom of
> actually forming associations - I vaguely recall Japan might have that
> issue, for example.

Well, in the past this approach has met with "mixed" support.

I point you towards:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:European_Wikimedia_chapter

That said...

I do think your refutation of my (not entirely serious)
suggestion is valid. The mapping is indeed untenable in
the sense of such a mechanistic application expressed
in my light-hearted suggestion.

Curiously we are now in the process of brainstorming
after the fact, rather than preliminary to the initial
decision being taken.

Yours in Wikimedia;

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

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putevod at mccme

Apr 28, 2008, 12:28 AM

Post #46 of 189 (842 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

I have already asked this question on meta (and got a response from Ziko,
which I am however not to happy with).

A real life example.

I am a Russian citizen, mostly contributing to ru.wp, and I am an admin on
ru.wp

I reside in the Netherlands and I have smth like 10 edits on nl.wp
(probably there will be more coming, but at the time I have no interest
in nl.wp meta-issues).

I have whatsoever no connection with the (potentially upcoming) ru
chapter, and I would be definitely not able to attend the meetings etc.

What chapter does represent me, even in the long run?

Note that three out of 5 bureaucrats of ru.wp reside abroad (2 in Germany,
1 in Belgium), and two of them have never been (and probably will never
become) Russian citizens or residents.

Cheers
Yaroslav

>> You are absolutely correct Mark.
>> But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily
>> elect
>> chapter members ?
>> I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
>> avoid that trap ;-)
>
> Hopefully so,$B!!(Band Kurt seems to show such a wisdom already (and you
> are also WMFR Board member, right?), so in a short time it would be
> okay (or am I too optimistic?), but for a long run, I'm not sure the
> scheme announced is the best composition and schedule.
>
> Several brainstormig ideas:
> * Why not having the "chapter seats" as of appointed ones and keep the
> community vote seats in the current number or so?
> * Why distribute into 3/2/1/4? Why not 4/2/ ... and have the
> community to elect 2 in one year?
> * Why (always) need 4 appointed? (I think it was already brought
> up...) why not say "up to 4"?
> etc etc.
>
> The chapter seats may have many implications. It may be seen as an
> alternative of current community seats, so from this view, it could
> be seen as reduced the power of community, specially when one have no
> near future possibility to settle a chapter in his land (e.g. PRC Main
> Land, excluding HK and Macau). Reflecting more thought from the
> chapters, in respect to their experience, is fine. But reducing the
> representation of the rest of community is not always fine.
>
> However, I have another thought it wouldn't make the situation change
> drastically at least at this moment: my gray cell units whispers
> "anyway most of votes come from the project whose volunteers or at
> least some of them have formed a chapter or more?" And I am tempting
> to say "yeah, exactly" .... For 2007: top ten projects of voters were
> en [UK and now Austria], de [DE, CH and now AU], fr [FR, CH], it [IT,
> CH], pl, nl [NL], ja, commons, no [now NO], es [now AR and we know
> already some planning chapters] . Only ja has no chapter even in the
> plan, and we may remove commons for this consideration because of
> their service project characteristic.. In top twenty, we will find
> also he and zh. sv and sr had relatively small numbers of voters (10
> and 8 respectively) but anyway there are many projects which had no
> voter at all).
>
> I won't say the issue of overweight is purely theoretical, since I
> believe the composition of Board should be considered carefully, both
> in a short term and in a long run. But even such consideration is
> genuine theoretical, it should be based on facts we know and have
> faced. I think I don't so much like of this chapter seat and its
> distribution ideas, but currently I won't reject it simply either.
>
> Re: community election schedule. As a past election committee member I
> tend to support a election in every two years, because of overhead of
> election process, but on the other hand, I believe the basic idea of
> having an election every year is good to keep the BoT composition to
> reflect the latest community concerns, specially considering the
> possibility the chapter seats will be able to be taken by people not
> coming from the community.
>
> And my first question was: is there any potential problem to have
> other orgs (legally chapters are other orgs based in another country,
> at least at that moment, right?) voices to select WMF BoT and not vice
> versa? I suppose the Board had consulted Mike and he nodded, but I
> would love to get further explanation.
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
> Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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gerard.meijssen at gmail

Apr 28, 2008, 12:44 AM

Post #47 of 189 (844 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Hoi,
Becoming a member of a chapter is a choice. As a chapter is not related to
projects, contributors to the Russian, Javanese, West Frisian, English and
Dutch projects are equally welcome to the Dutch chapter. A chapter is
organised in order to provide representation of our movement in a particular
jurisdiction. I call it movement here because it is NOT representing neither
the WMF nor its projects.

There is nothing wrong in having contributors to projects all over the
world. It is important for chapters to realise that they need to be
welcoming to the people that are not part of what is often considered the
primary project in a country. When you consider Russia, many of its
languages are included in the long list that we support with Wikipedias and
other projects.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/4/28 Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod [at] mccme>:

> I have already asked this question on meta (and got a response from Ziko,
> which I am however not to happy with).
>
> A real life example.
>
> I am a Russian citizen, mostly contributing to ru.wp, and I am an admin on
> ru.wp
>
> I reside in the Netherlands and I have smth like 10 edits on nl.wp
> (probably there will be more coming, but at the time I have no interest
> in nl.wp meta-issues).
>
> I have whatsoever no connection with the (potentially upcoming) ru
> chapter, and I would be definitely not able to attend the meetings etc.
>
> What chapter does represent me, even in the long run?
>
> Note that three out of 5 bureaucrats of ru.wp reside abroad (2 in Germany,
> 1 in Belgium), and two of them have never been (and probably will never
> become) Russian citizens or residents.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> >> You are absolutely correct Mark.
> >> But you may not have understood that chapters will not necessarily
> >> elect
> >> chapter members ?
> >> I even have the weakness to think that they will have the wisdom to
> >> avoid that trap ;-)
> >
> > Hopefully so, and Kurt seems to show such a wisdom already (and you
> > are also WMFR Board member, right?), so in a short time it would be
> > okay (or am I too optimistic?), but for a long run, I'm not sure the
> > scheme announced is the best composition and schedule.
> >
> > Several brainstormig ideas:
> > * Why not having the "chapter seats" as of appointed ones and keep the
> > community vote seats in the current number or so?
> > * Why distribute into 3/2/1/4? Why not 4/2/ ... and have the
> > community to elect 2 in one year?
> > * Why (always) need 4 appointed? (I think it was already brought
> > up...) why not say "up to 4"?
> > etc etc.
> >
> > The chapter seats may have many implications. It may be seen as an
> > alternative of current community seats, so from this view, it could
> > be seen as reduced the power of community, specially when one have no
> > near future possibility to settle a chapter in his land (e.g. PRC Main
> > Land, excluding HK and Macau). Reflecting more thought from the
> > chapters, in respect to their experience, is fine. But reducing the
> > representation of the rest of community is not always fine.
> >
> > However, I have another thought it wouldn't make the situation change
> > drastically at least at this moment: my gray cell units whispers
> > "anyway most of votes come from the project whose volunteers or at
> > least some of them have formed a chapter or more?" And I am tempting
> > to say "yeah, exactly" .... For 2007: top ten projects of voters were
> > en [UK and now Austria], de [DE, CH and now AU], fr [FR, CH], it [IT,
> > CH], pl, nl [NL], ja, commons, no [now NO], es [.now AR and we know
> > already some planning chapters] . Only ja has no chapter even in the
> > plan, and we may remove commons for this consideration because of
> > their service project characteristic.. In top twenty, we will find
> > also he and zh. sv and sr had relatively small numbers of voters (10
> > and 8 respectively) but anyway there are many projects which had no
> > voter at all).
> >
> > I won't say the issue of overweight is purely theoretical, since I
> > believe the composition of Board should be considered carefully, both
> > in a short term and in a long run. But even such consideration is
> > genuine theoretical, it should be based on facts we know and have
> > faced. I think I don't so much like of this chapter seat and its
> > distribution ideas, but currently I won't reject it simply either.
> >
> > Re: community election schedule. As a past election committee member I
> > tend to support a election in every two years, because of overhead of
> > election process, but on the other hand, I believe the basic idea of
> > having an election every year is good to keep the BoT composition to
> > reflect the latest community concerns, specially considering the
> > possibility the chapter seats will be able to be taken by people not
> > coming from the community.
> >
> > And my first question was: is there any potential problem to have
> > other orgs (legally chapters are other orgs based in another country,
> > at least at that moment, right?) voices to select WMF BoT and not vice
> > versa? I suppose the Board had consulted Mike and he nodded, but I
> > would love to get further explanation.
> >
> > --
> > KIZU Naoko
> > http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
> > Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l [at] lists
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Anthere9 at yahoo

Apr 28, 2008, 2:08 AM

Post #48 of 189 (841 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Kwan Ting Chan wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 07:54 +0300, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
>> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
>> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
>> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
>> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
>> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
>> community seats".
>>
>> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
>> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
>> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
>> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
>> account in a smaller language without chapter.
>
> No, just no.
>
> This *will* be disenfranchising all the people who contribute, some
> quite a lot, for the simple reason that they are not involved with the
> chapter in their respective country. I will argue that many contributor
> in fact _do not_ contribute in multiple language.
>
> KTC

I have to agree with KTC.
This issue was actually discussed in length with Sue when she joined the
staff. She believed that we could consider chapters represented all
editors of a given nation, whilst the Foundation would represent all the
un-represented nations. But that would suppose that all editors of a
nation actually feel (or want to be) represented by the local chapter.
This is not the case.

Ant

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innocentkiller at gmail

Apr 28, 2008, 4:22 AM

Post #49 of 189 (838 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

Honestly, a few months participating in the projects hands on
would give the Board and staff a much better idea of who they're
working for. It's not for your large donors. It's not for potential
venture capitalists. It's not for any of the reasons or people
that seem to recently be the focus of the WMF.

In case you all have forgotten, you work for the community. The
community is not the tight-knit group who post on Foundation-l
or contribute to meta. The community also isn't the pre-approved
list of people allowed to post via the approved mediums (read: PR
channels, such as Planet Wikimedia or the WMF Blog). The
community also isn't defined by what the ED's staff or Board says
it is.

The community is the millions of anonymous and pseudo-anonymous
contributors who've put their work into the projects to give a staff a nice
fat paycheck and let the Board pussyfoot their way around proper
governance.

Out of curiosity: If the entire Board and staff were put up to a public vote
across /all/ projects (assuming good representation could be assured),
I wonder how many of them would be with the WMF at the end of the day.

For free content,
Chad

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 5:08 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 [at] yahoo> wrote:
>
> Kwan Ting Chan wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 07:54 +0300, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> >
> >> I have an idle thought. If there are to be seats elected by
> >> a limited circle of projects with chapters, would not the
> >> easiest manner of balancing things be that people from
> >> projects with chapters not be able to vote in the other
> >> elections from the community. In this fashion the so called
> >> "community" seats would be transformed into "chapterless
> >> community seats".
> >>
> >> Note that this proposal has the virtue that this would not
> >> disenfranchise nearly all the _individuals_ who contribute
> >> to projects with chapters, as many of them contribute in
> >> multiple languages, and thus may have an voting-eligble
> >> account in a smaller language without chapter.
> >
> > No, just no.
> >
> > This *will* be disenfranchising all the people who contribute, some
> > quite a lot, for the simple reason that they are not involved with the
> > chapter in their respective country. I will argue that many contributor
> > in fact _do not_ contribute in multiple language.
> >
> > KTC
>
>
> I have to agree with KTC.
> This issue was actually discussed in length with Sue when she joined the
> staff. She believed that we could consider chapters represented all
> editors of a given nation, whilst the Foundation would represent all the
> un-represented nations. But that would suppose that all editors of a
> nation actually feel (or want to be) represented by the local chapter.
> This is not the case.
>
> Ant
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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polimerek at gmail

Apr 28, 2008, 4:23 AM

Post #50 of 189 (836 views)
Permalink

Re: Board-announcement: Board Restructuring [In reply to]

2008/4/28 Dan Rosenthal <swatjester [at] gmail>:
> I share your concerns. For instance WMF AU and WMF UK are going to be
> more likely to want to pick someone from the en.wp community, but are
> not likely to be familiar with potential candidates from say, ru.wp. A
> theoretical WMF Japan, however, would likely be wanting to pick
> someone from the jp.wp and have absolutely no familiarity with anyone
> from the en.wp, de.wp or other communities.
>
> The end result is either that the chapters pick from their own, or
> they take outside direction as to who to pick (which then defeats the
> purpose of it being a community seat).
>

I am wondering if it would be possible to make a voting similar to the
"normal" community seats' election but the voters would be formal
members of chapters only. Candidates would be nominated by Boards of
chapters. The problem is what to do with non-member chapters (are
there any?)

--
Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz
http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek
http://www.poli.toya.net.pl
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html

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