Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Err... the members of each Wikipedia and all the
projects already
have the freedom to develop each project independently of any
hierachical control by the Board of Trustees. Wikimedia exists
primarily to provide material support (ie, servers and hosting) and
maintain 'brand awareness' (the trademark, domain names), doesn't it?
Could these points be stated explicitly in the bylaws, please? I got
another impression by reading the bylaws.
My understanding is that the bylaws are almost entirely legal
statements, not really meaning to document "everyday practice". In
theory, the board of directors controls everything. Why? Well, because
the Wikimedia Foundation owns the servers, and the board of directors
controls the Wikimedia Foundation, at least legally. But in practice,
they don't *run* Wikipedia.
I consider it highly unlikely that the board will be involved in the
day-to-day running of any of the Wikipedias, which ought to continue to
operate as they see fit. Meaning the English Wikipedia decides its own
matters, the German Wikipedia decides its own matters, and so on. Each
Wikipedia can formulate its own process (the English Wikipedia has
recently instituted a mediation committee and an arbitration committee
to resolve disputes), but these aren't *legal* processes (since that'd
be a real pain to set up), they're just the internal organization of
each Wikipedia. The legal setup is that the Board of Directors runs the
non-profit organization, but in a presumably hands-off manner.
-Mark