[Foundation-l] The foundations of the Wikimedia Foundation (was: Wikimedia Council)

Sat Jan 5 00:36:17 UTC 2008

effe iets anders wrote:
> Florence, thanks for your considerations.
> 
> If I read correctly, you compare a wikicouncil in the WMF structure
> (so not the meta-arbcom type, as that is imho in the community
> structure) with a parliament. I tend to disagree with this comparison,
> and I'll try to explain why.
> 
> In a democratic state, a parliament (or actually the people) is the
> Final Authority. The Parliament hires and fires government, which in
> their turn hires and fires the rest of the system. But at the end,
> they have to listen to the Parliament. The Parliament has a few very
> powerful tools, and can send the Government home. The Parliament makes
> laws, and can set rules. The Parliament is also the only institution
> that can change the relationships between the different bodies. The
> body which can change these relationships and tools, is to me the
> Final Authority.
> 
> In the Wikimedia Foundation (excluding the community (I take here only
> the officially existing bodies), the Board of Trustees is the Final
> Authority.  The Board writes bylaws, and hires and fires staff. The
> Board appoints the committees, and the Board can appoint members of
> the Advosiry Council. I think we agree that the Board of Trustees
> should remain the Final Authority, also if a Wikicouncil would come in
> the game. That makes it for me that I do not really like the
> comparison with the parliament.
> 
> I think that it is also better to let the Board of Trustees,
> preferably with both volunteers and professionals in it imho, stay the
> Final Authority. The idea is that the Trustees are to be "trusted". We
> put wise people together, and build in certain control mechanisms such
> as a majority (or pseudo-majority, with a trusted professional making
> the majority) of members elected by the community.
> 
> If we would want to give the community full authority directly over
> the Final Authority, I think we chose the wrong model with a
> Foundation, and we should switch to a membership organization. Then
> the members (the Wikicouncil?) would be the Final Authority.

I can immediately say that I should not have used the term parliament, 
because it clearly represent different things for people :-)

In my country, which is a democratic state amha, the Parliament 
absolutely NOT hires and fires government. God forbid !
The Government is headed by the president. The president is elected by 
the citizen, by direct voting system. Once the president is elected, he 
select his government. And the president can also fire and replace the 
entire government. That's his job. The Parliament has nothing to say here.

The Parliament is also elected by citizens, by direct voting.

It may happen that the majority of the Parliament is on the right side. 
Whilst the President is on the left side.

I have no idea really what is the final authority in my country. 
Certainly NOT the Parliament. I would say the Cour Constitionnelle. 
Perhaps. In the USA, the Suprem Court ?

Whatever.
I think you are hitting this point because you do not give enough 
granularity to the various roles we are considering. Right now, I do not 
consider the board a final authority in everything. Sure enough, it has 
probably the final authority in deciding whether to vote the budget of 
the organization or not. But the WMF board has no final authority to 
approve the budget of Wikimedia Deutschland. And the WMF board has no 
final authority to decide whether an article should be in that version 
or in another, unless it is threatened legally (host provider 
responsibility). It has no special authority to decide whether a bugger 
should be banned or not. It has no final authority to decide a person 
should be made sysop or not. It has no final authority when the 
community decides to have a wikimeet or to hold a wiki contest for the 
best article.

For your proposition below, I'll give it a couple of days of thinking.

Ant

> However, I would like to propose something else. I am not sure if it
> is a known system in companies abroad, but in the Netherlands the
> larger companies (>50 employees) are obliged to have a
> "ondernemingsraad". This is a council of employees that has four
> rights:
> * The right to discuss with the employer about decisions. The employer
> is obliged to cooperate with this with a certain group of defined
> decisions.
> * The right to be asked for advice. The employer is obliged to ask the
> advice of this council for certain decisions. He is not obliged to
> follow this advice. However, he will have to consider it seriously,
> and has to motivate if he does not follow it.
> * The right to be asked for approval. In decisions which have a direct
> impact on the employees, the employer is obliged to ask approval of
> the council. He can only ignore this through legal procedures.
> * The right of initiative. The Council can make proposals for the
> employer, which will have to consider these seriously.
> (derived from: nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/ondernemingsraad , GFDL, see the
> url for the authors and license information)
> 
> Of course this would in our case not be with staff members to choose
> this council of "emplyees", but the council would be elected and made
> up by the "employees" of the Wikimedia Projects, the volunteers. And
> of course the four rights would have to be tweaked a bit as well, but
> the general outline might be clear. I would call this council
> something like a Volunteer Council. It would not have a direct
> authority perhaps, but through the board, which could agree to
> generally follow advices on certain matters pro forma, so that de
> facto, the Volunteer Council would have authority. This volunteer
> coulcil would, in my vision, have more or less the following rights
> (to be specified):
> * The right to be informed on decisions that immediately have an
> impact on the community. If needed confidentially and to discuss Board
> decisions (and Executive Staff decisions?) if they have a relation to
> the projects (not relating to personnel matters etc, would have to be
> worked out more precisely)
> * The right of initialive proposals related to a set of topics. (needs
> to be worked out further)
> * The right to be asked for advice in matters that have a direct
> impact on the community and projects, such as advertisements and
> licenses.
> * The right to be asked for approval to a more specific set of topics.
> I would like to limit this right, as imho, the advice should already
> be taken seriously. It would for instance include Organizational
> Reorganization (as in: bodies seize to exist, the tools of bodies are
> changed radically, the number of community rep's changes in the board
> of trustees etc), very big expenses such as the buying of an office
> building or in the most extreme case the fusion of the Foundation with
> another organization. However, I would also like to add the
> possibility here, as we want to avoid court at *all* cost here, that
> the Board of Trustees can overrule a non-approval with a 75% majority
> or so. Note that this explicitely is not to be merged with the right
> of initiative. The Volunteer Council could not make a binding proposal
> in this category. (although it should be taken seriously etc)
> 
> I think that this would make the Wikimedia Foundation into a very
> balanced organization. I could imagine similar rights for the Advosiry
> Board by the way. (although maybe on other subjects) That way there is
> a good balance between volunteers and outsiders/professionals.
> 
> Please bear in mind that in no way this proposal is complete yet. It
> depends on a lot of factors, and quite important "details"  have to be
> discussed yet. Such as the area's on which the Volunteer Council (I
> prefer this name over the very vague Wikicouncil) has authority, and
> more importantly, on which not. (Just like it has been determined in
> the staff/board/ed relationship)
> 
> OK, I give a great hug and a virtual stroopwafel and package of vla to
> every one that has read up to this very end, because again this email
> is too long. Sorry for it.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Lodewijk
> 
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