As you all may or may not be aware, WMUK are going to be having elections to form an interim board, to run WMUK and be responsible for the running of the until the time that the company is formed. Until now, the elections have mostly been arranged by those participating in them, and i feel that this is not particularly a good thing and I wanted to improve the legitimacy of these elections. Following separate discussions with Cary Bass and Tom Dalton the idea that I would like to propose is to have what is effectively an election committee designed to oversee the running of the WMUK elections. The proposed make up of this board is as follows, two representatives from the UK, one person from ChapCom and one from the foundation board, however any of those numbers and where the members are sourced from can change if a consensus for it exists. The role of this committee would be to oversee the elections, ranging from deciding the timetable of events, overseeing the voting stages including the methods and medium the voting will take place in and finally the verifying and announcement of the results. I hope that this would allow the UK board an amount of legitimacy in the running of WMUK in the eyes of the UK community and also the foundation. If the UK community has no issues I would like to offer my services to organise this. Comments would be grateful. User:Seddon @ en-wiki ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Win £3000 to spend on whatever you want at Uni! Click here to WIN! <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/111354032/direct/01/> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l

Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 01:50:40 +0100> From: thomas.holden(a)gmail.com&gt; To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK election commitee> > Seems a little excessive. This election was never expected to be perfect.> > 2008/9/5 joseph seddon <life_is_bitter_sweet@hotmail.co.uk>:> > As you all may or may not be aware, WMUK are going to be having elections to> > form> > an interim board, to run WMUK and be responsible for the running of the> > until the> > time that the company is formed. Until now, the elections have mostly been> > arranged> > by those participating in them, and i feel that this is not particularly a> > good thing> > and I wanted to improve the legitimacy of these elections. Following> > separate> > discussions with Cary Bass and Tom Dalton the idea that I would like to> > propose is to> > have what is effectively an election committee designed to oversee the> > running of> > the WMUK elections. The proposed make up of this board is as follows, two> > representatives from the UK, one person from ChapCom and one from the> > foundation> > board, however any of those numbers and where the members are sourced from> > can change if a consensus for it exists.> >> >> > The role of this committee would be to oversee the elections, ranging from> > deciding> > the timetable of events, overseeing the voting stages including the methods> > and> > medium the voting will take place in and finally the verifying and> > announcement of> > the results. I hope that this would allow the UK board an amount of> > legitimacy in the> > running of WMUK in the eyes of the UK community and also the foundation.> >> > If the UK community has no issues I would like to offer my services to> > organise this.> > Comments would be grateful.> >> > User:Seddon @ en-wiki> > ________________________________> > Try Facebook in Windows Live Messenger! Try it Now!> > _______________________________________________> > Wikimedia UK mailing list> > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org&gt; > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK> > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l> >> >> > _______________________________________________> Wikimedia UK mailing list> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org&gt; http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l

Seems a little excessive. This election was never expected to be perfect.

What method of voting are we going to use, how are we going to collect the results. It has been discussed on IRC to hold a secret ballot to avoid vote stacking

My fear isn't vote stacking, it's that the candidates make up a significant portion of the electorate which makes it infeasible for them all to abstain and I would rather not end up sitting on a board with someone that knows I voted against them (and I doubt I'm alone in that), it could be awkward.

i'd rather see it be over quickly and the new board move on to doing real work.

On Thu, September 4, 2008 22:45, Thomas Dalton wrote: With comments like that I don't need enemies! However, the real reason I have proposed to not try and keep WER Ltd going (as, indeed, I have already pointed out previously) is that its history over the past 2½ years would almost certainly prove a millstone around the necks of anyone trying to start a new organisation. This has nothing to do with whatever I may or may not think of the people who have so far suggested they want to be involved (my thoughts on which will not be made public)

I think Alison has explained what she meant by that comment: the intention of her Foundation-l comment was that she held concerns a new WER board being "under the cloud of the previous (less successful) board," as opposed to her not trusting the new board and therefore not supporting their replacing her.

At least, that's what I hope it meant. Alternative interpretations are a little more concerning: one would hope that the current board would hold enough trust in the wider WMUK community for them to support members from that community replacing them at the next election.

Alison: would you care to comment as to which interpretation you intended to be drawn from your Foundation-l comment?

Back to the topic - while I'd have to be reluctant to support having a full elecomm micromanaging every aspect of the election, some discussion of how to go about it and some oversight may be worthwhile. Given our size, there is no need to go overboard with it, and doing so may be counterproductive.

We're looking for a board of 5 (any more makes getting everyone in the same place at the same time very challenging) and have 10 candidates. Finding people to be on the board is easy, you just never asked.

Take a look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0 you should find some answers to your questions there. I'm happy to answer any questions you still have afterwards.

It's a chapter of the foundation, it will do the same sorts of things as others chapters do. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Summaries for some ideas about what that includes. I really don't get why everyone is making such a big deal about having a list of objectives when we all know what chapters do, this isn't a new concept. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l

At 22:41 +0100 6/9/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: Indeed. ***** Wikimedia Deutschland, founded in June 2004, was the first Wikimedia chapter. It has more than 400 members, an office with 1.5 full time employees, and an annual budget of ~300k EUR. *****

It failed long before it actually got to the point of doing anything. I don't know if they had plans for what to do once they were set up, but they never needed them.

To date, no funds have been raised in the UK, with or without the income tax recovered. Hence, fund raising over the past two years was all USA based.

Your start up got as far as incorporation, which carries a fee of £30 if memory serves. That's a trivial amount of income for over 2 years. Any other income you got you wasted, so I would keep quiet about that if I were you.

Way to take the high ground and be mature, Alison. Do we really have to degenerate into jabs and other childish comments?

On Sun, September 7, 2008 01:27, Thomas Dalton wrote: You muddled up an expenditure with an income there. I'd keep quiet about that if I were you (which I am grateful I am not)

Nobody here knows me and therefore I won't be missed if I just slip away, but before I do I will make one last plea. Can everyone please be civil and constructive. If that is not possible then the is *zero* chance of building the kind of community I (and I assume many others) would like to be a part of. Ross

I'm sorry to see you leave, Ross, if that is indeed what you are doing.

I know what Ross means. I've been lurking around here a little while longer and have been moderately active on the list and the London meetups and must say that it got slightly chaotic. There was and is, if not even more than before, a lot of momentum, but also a lot of emotion. Especially comments like "I don't trust Alison and vice-versa" is uncalled for on a public, archived mailinglist.

Eh most of us are fairly civil and constructive. Hopefully once we get the show on the road we will have more outlets for that constructiveness.

I'm amazed that even my plea for civility has degenerated into an argument.

Too pessimistic an attitude. We should be looking at how to improve as an organisation, and identifying areas that we need to work on. I care not who implements the ideas of the wider UK wikimedia community; only that things go uphill from here.

2008/9/8 Martin Peeks &lt;martinp23(a)googlemail.com&gt; ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l

Now, I have some questions about this new organisation. Not much information seems to have been forthcoming thus far on the ML (or has been hidden in bickering!), so first I'd ask that the interim board provide (say) weekly reports to us on progress, whether or not there is anything to report, during this initial phase of high momentum. Questions: - Where are we now? - Who is involved at the moment and in what capacity? - What are their plans for the chapter, both short-term and long-term?

Apologies if these have been answered already, but as I say, things have been rather drowned out thus far.. Martin.

<snip>

Weekly reports don't seem to me like a successfull strategy for two reasons: 1) If there isn't anything to report in a given week, people are going to be dismayed 2) People will scrape and scrounge to report *anything*, even if it's not really news, just so they don't look like they're not doing anything 3) It doesn't get the larger community involved in the process at all. I've seen weekly meetings used to far greater effect. Wikimedia Canada was having weekly IRC meetings until they set up milestones and elected a steering committee. Now the steering committee meets regularly through some conference call software (dont remember the name of it) and they hold public IRC meetings regularly but at longer intervals. Having a meeting instead of just a report gives you the ability to divvy up necessary tasks to willing volunteers who otherwise wouldn't know that such a task even existed. IRC is a great and easily accessible venue for this. I don't know if #Wikimedia-uk exists yet or not of freenode, but it would be trivial to have it set up if not.

On Sat, September 6, 2008 23:20, Thomas Dalton wrote: Would you please stop disparaging all the hard work done by various people in setting up and running the original WMUK! WMUK did a lot of things, and very successfully too as even a little research would show. I realise you would like to think we were all useless, but we weren't.

Oh, and in response to On Sat, September 6, 2008 22:46, Gordon Joly wrote: again, I do wish people wouldn't keep trying to state things as facts which they do not know about. WMUK *did* receive funds, and these were used in part-payment of the start-up and operating debts. Alison

Either the above linked document has less detail than exists in the minds of the people on this list, or the cart is, at present, before the horse. Ross

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 5:03 PM, Ross Gardler &lt;ross.gardler(a)oucs.ox.ac.uk&gt; wrote: a) I'm no expert in UK legal matters, but typically a board is a required component of a corporation (even non-profit ones). Prior to incorporation, such a board would serve as a sort of "steering committee" and will help to guide and direct the organization of the group.

b) The board at this stage will typically be in charge of overseeing the creation of bylaws, articles of incorporation, applications for corporate status, etc. They will also help to organize and oversee drives for formal membership. Also, the board will arrange and oversee any general meetings that the group decides to hold. There are probably a few other tasks that I'm missing that the board will want to play a part in.

c) Depends on how much the group wants to do, and how soon they want it to be done by. For many chapters, board members don't do a lot of work: they participate in discussions (IRC, mailing list, etc), and are typically required to attend any formal meetings. Beyond that, they must be willing to wade through the bog of government bureaucracy to help form the chapter. This requires a certain willingness to learn legal issues, if not a prior familiarity of them.

My impression is that what is currently being discussed is a committee that will work towards incorporation. At the point of corporation, there would be a board appointed.

2008/9/6 Sam Korn &lt;smoddy(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: You're close. What we're electing now is the initial board. They will do all the paperwork of getting incorporated and will be the initial board of the company (you have to submit the details of the initial board along with the rest of the documents when applying for corporate status). They will then get charitable status, set up a bank account, sort out the agreement with WMF and process membership applications. Once they've done that (hopefully by the end of the year or the very beginning of next year, but that's only if nothing goes wrong) they will organise an AGM (Annual General Meeting, a yearly meeting that almost all companies have which all members/shareholders are invited to and are allowed to vote at). At that AGM, all the initial board will resign and a new board will be elected by the membership (the members of the initial board can stand for re-election if they want to). That new board will then have a functioning framework which they can use to start actually doing the activities of the chapter.