[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch chapter - some background and more

Tue Apr 25 12:09:36 UTC 2006

On 4/25/06, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/4/25, Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>:
>
> > Now. I have read in this thread many counter-truths and misleading
> > statements. Let us make one thing very very clear.
> >
> > Chapters, whatever their form, color or shape, are not responsible for
> > the content of Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia projects. Never. Ever.
> > At best, they will increase the pool of editors through promotion for
> > the projects. At worst, they have to relay the problems that they are
> > aware of "may be problematic content" (potential legal issues) to the
> > Wikimedia Foundation. That's it. There's no *editor* Wikimedia France*
> > or *Wikimedia Polska* or *Wikimedia Nederland*. There are editors who
> > pertain only to the projects, there are editors who pertain to both
> > the project and the organisation. End of the story.
>
> I may agree with that, and you, but what about the Vereniging and
> Stichting themselves? One reason this all started up is that the
> Vereniging explicitly states in their statutes that it does not have
> influence on the contents of the wikis. The Stichting as far as
> possible copied the statutes of the Vereniging, but this point was
> apparently on purpose left out.

Apparently I have not been clear enough. This is not about you or me
agreeing on anything. It is a fact. A plain fact.

__Wikimedia chapters are not responsible for the content of the
Wikimedia projects__

And that is the case, whether or not it is in their bylaws. If it is,
fine, if it is not, it does *not* make them responsible. Bylaws,
statutes or whatever those are called of an organisation are a
contract between the founders and potentially future members of an
organisation, following a specific local set of laws.

Bylaws and statutes are *not* a contract with the authors of the
Wikimedia projects, in Dutch or any other language, they are not a
contract with the Wikimedia Foundation. They do not give any right to
the chapter organisation over the content of any project.

The fact that something is *not in the bylaws* does *not* give a
power/responsibility that the organisation *does not* have in the
first place.

I hope this is clearer now.

Delphine

--
~notafish