Subject: Revised Bylaws posted
Newsgroups: gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation
Date: 2006-12-11 17:58:26 GMT (1 year, 30 weeks, 12 hours and 5 minutes ago)
The revised Bylaws of the Wikimedia Foundation can now be found at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws Differences to the previous version: http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws&diff=16676&oldid=14947 These changes were approved at the Board meeting in St. Petersburg. A few notes. 1) Statement of purpose now reflects the current mission statement. It will be updated if needed when the mission statement is finalized. 2) Membership does not legally exist. Membership was previously described in the bylaws but not actually implemented. We've discussed this issue at some length and decided that the risk of membership do not outweigh the potential benefits. The risks include: - Disclosure of identity to others. We do not want to limit participation in WMF activities to those who are willing to disclose their identity to other members. - Hostile takeover. Given the power of members to elect or recall the Board, the risk then arises of large numbers of people being affiliated with some entity (economic, political or religious) to attempt to restructure the organization to their liking. - Unnecessary hierarchy. It is possible that legal membership would negatively impact the social dynamics of the project when members and non-members are treated differently. - Administrative overhead. WMF is simply not presently in an organizational position to effectively manage thousands of membership registration. - Questionable benefits. We can have most of the benefits of a membership system without legally encoding it in our bylaws. It was argued that this kind of organizational representation could find a home in chapter organizations, some of which already have legal members. 3) Terms defined. Both appointed and elected Board members now have clearly defined terms (1 and 2 years, respectively). That is, even Jimmy and Michael are now not "members for life," but will have to be re-appointed in the future (unless they want to stand for election instead). No Board members are named in the bylaws. 4) The notion of community elections is described in the bylaws, as is a commitment that a majority of the Board will come from the community through appointment or election (the scope of "community" is to be defined by the Board). 5) The Executive Secretary and Treasurer do not need to be Board members anymore. The roles of the Board positions were simplified and clarified. 6) Annual financial audits and quarterly reviews. 7) Some further legal adjustments and clarifications to reflect the reality of organizational operations. Again, see the diff above for the full list of changes. Comments & questions welcome. -- Erik Möller, Executive Secretary, Wikimedia Foundation