[Wikipedia-l] Re: foundation of a German registered association

Fri Jan 23 10:50:47 UTC 2004

Anthere wrote:
> But how could non english people have any implication in the current 
> wikimedia foundation ?

1.  Non English people have an equal right to vote for member
representatives to the board as English speaking people

2.  I fully support the creation of subsidiary foundations, to
whatever extent is desirable, with additional representation there for
'locals' to that nation's foundation.  I do not support any move of
that type unless we do it carefully so as to completely eliminate any
possibility of a "split" or "break" 20 years in the future.

----

Consider this possibility, 20 years from now.  The international
Wikimedia Foundation is publishing a nice print version of the
Encyclopedia in French, for sale in France.  This is a profitable
venture, so that it is generating funds for whatever copyediting and
production work that may be necessary to supplement the work of
volunteers, as well as generating funds that permits the free
distribution of the same work to schools in poor districts in France
and in poor countries where French is a dominant language.

But, at that time, 20 years from now, the French foundation board
thinks it would be nice to have a fancy job and an office and to have
that revenue for expenditures on whatever, and so they sue the
international foundation over the publication of the French edition
using the Wikipedia name.

That's just one example, I'm sure you can immediately think of many
more.

There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved
in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm,
for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone.
Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years
into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

--Jimbo