[Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way
Michael Snow
wikipedia at earthlink.net
Sun Jun 18 06:55:35 UTC 2006
SJ wrote:
> As to anonymity...
>
>> > in, required or otherwise, I think recent history has shown that
>> part of the
>> > lingering appeal to many in the community is that anonymity will be
>> > respected.
>
> I don't know anyone actively interested in being a member of the
> foundation (whatever that means) who wants their identity to be hidden
> *from the foundation*. Hidden from other editors and from the general
> public, perhaps. I can imagine the former being the case in a
> theoretical sense; but I would like to know of a single example so
> that we're not setting up a complete hypothetical as a strawman.
There certainly are people sufficiently active to be considered
potential members who have concluded that they do not want to share
their identity with the Wikimedia Foundation. But I don't think that's
really the issue to be concerned about here. It's the much larger number
who want that identity or other personal information hidden, as
indicated, from other editors or the general public. Let me explain.
The Florida statutes governing nonprofit organizations have detailed
requirements, including many tied to legal membership in the
organization. Given that we have the potential for a very large
membership, this could get quite complex. The idea of using membership
dues as a way to generate funds for Wikimedia was a nice-sounding
notion; in reality, complying with the full requirements of a membership
infrastructure would have substantial technical and administrative
overhead. If the developers are offering to create the code to set this
up and people really want to pay membership dues on the scale necessary,
maybe we should, but already some skepticism is warranted.
One point that has been alluded to is that the Foundation would maintain
records of members' names and addresses. Florida law also provides that
members are entitled to inspect and copy various Foundation records.
This includes, significantly, the record of members itself.
The laws regarding "membership" in this context are based heavily on the
equivalent principles for shareholders in for-profit corporations. In
such corporations, participants may have various business reasons to
solicit each other at their addresses (proxies, buying and selling of
shares, etc.). The corporations also have the resources to dedicate to
the system, as well as the motivation, since they're ultimately
dependent on it for capital.
Many of these principles do not translate easily to the nonprofit
context. The legal membership model probably works well for some common
examples, such as a club organization or the homeowners' association for
a condominium complex. I don't know if it suits our community very well.
Not because it's inconvenient for Jimbo and the professional staff,
though it may be, but because if the community is fully informed about
the legal consequences, I'm not so sure we would choose it.
Let me say it clearly for all of you. If you want to participate in
legal membership in the Foundation, considering just how broadly we
contemplate the concept of membership, you are effectively expressing a
willingness for your name and address to become a public record. Any
member can get a Florida attorney (Jack Thompson comes to mind) to
represent them and ask for the membership records on their behalf. And I
don't expect it will be possible to screen out in advance members you
consider undesirable any more effectively than we can do so for project
editors.
Given how strongly attached some of the community is to privacy and
anonymity, I don't know if that's a choice we want to be forcing on
people. Certainly it's not a model we should adopt without making sure
people have thought carefully about it.
Various possibilities lie ahead. One is that we adopt legal membership
with all its attendant rights and responsibilities. If this is done in
the name of remaining "open", it's just as possible that in doing so
we'd be departing from our openness toward those who value their
privacy. Another possibility in the scenario is that depending on how
membership is determined, including cost, we may find that relatively
few people "join". At which point it becomes obvious that despite this
effort, some people will choose to complain that the community is not
represented in Foundation affairs, and it may seem that the entire
exercise was valueless. It should also be observed that any definition
of Foundation membership which is not coextensive with the community
(and I don't see how gaps can be avoided) has the potential to
factionalize people along the lines created by these fissures. A
community divided over member vs. non-member, rich vs. poor, out vs.
closeted, or other potential distinctions is certainly a possibility.
Or, finally, after considering the benefits and drawbacks of legal
membership, we might choose a path without using it. Certainly the
Wikimedia Foundation needs to incorporate the community into its
functions, but it ought to be possible to do that, formally or
informally, in ways that avoid the drawbacks of the legal regime. We
might even occasionally talk in terms of members, but ultimately should
be careful to disavow the statutory definition if we follow this course.
--Michael Snow
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