Board activities

As an official non-profit organization, there are certain priorities the board must adopt to get the Wikimedia Foundation off the ground. Please add to and comment on these proposed priorities. This pages does not aim to deal with buying servers; it is a look at the macro.

Create a three-year plan for the Wikimedia Foundation, including anticipated growth, new projects, etc.
Create a budget to reflect the plan for growth.
Create and staff committees
Support local chapters.
Establish a viable communication network between the various components.
Identify major potential sources of income.
Prioritize activities based on the budget.

To do

This is a collection of things the Foundation / Board of Trustees should look at, or assign people to look after this.

Trademark problems

See Wikimedia trademarks

Request for bylaws modifications

Amend quorum definition to require presence of an elected member?

I have one comment about Article IV, Section IV. It states that a quorum consists of at least 3 directors. Could this be amended to say, "A quorum consists of at least three members, one of whom is an elected member (either Contributing Active User Representative or Volunteer User Representative)." I believe that this will inspire greater confidence among the users who participated in the election, that their voice cannot be automatically overruled. Danny.

I feel that such an amendment is unnecessary and a vote of no-confidence for our appointed trustees. Considering the money, resources, and time the three appointed trustees have invested in Wikimedia, they have proven their dedication to the cause beyond any reasonable doubts. Regardless, they can out vote the two elected members easily on any matter 3-2. There are much more important areas Wiki-governance that need to be addressed, such as obtaining grants, controlling costs, and more clearly defining the roles of admins. --H. CHENEY 20:35, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with this proposed amendment, though perhaps for slightly different reasons. I don't think the question is one of being overruled, but one of openness. Since the two elected board members contribute text to the wikis two or three orders of magnitude more prolifically than the others do, it would be good to know that at least one of these members is present at any board meeting (to ensure that the proceedings of the. I agree with Hcheney that there are more important issues to address also. +sj+ 08:56, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What does contributing text to the wikis have to do with a Board member's right to vote on Foundation issues? I have no objection to this proposed change, but I also don't see it as necessary. Angela 22:11, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As long as meeting transcripts or summaries for each meeting are provided, this is unneccessary. This also is not mentioned in the bylaws, however... I would expect the quality of information transmitted to the community about a board meeting to drop dramatically if both community-contributors were absent (if one of them were the X-Secretary, doubly so). +sj+ 22:53, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Removing reference to Disciplinary Board updated 22:26, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC) -+sj+

As there seem to be no plans to create a Disciplinary Board in the near future, the orphaned reference to one in Art V, Sec 2 should be removed or explained. +sj+ 22:27, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. No plan does not mean no potential usefulness in the future. Anthere

Please explain what such a useful D.Board might do? +sj+

I agree with Anthere. Who says there are no plans to create this? It wasn't put in the bylaws for no reason. Angela 12:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I thought you said there were no current plans to create this, on removing it from Organization Chart. Could you explain the reason(s) it was put in the bylaws with so little descriptive detail? Perhaps there was more relevant context that was removed to keep the Bylaws slim... this is the only Wikimedia organ other than the Board explicitly mentioned in the bylaws, and as such deserves some place in any discussion of the Wikimedia organization. +sj+

You're worried about people not knowing about something that does not exist? I don't get it. Angela 14:41, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Something whose future existence has been staked out in an official (if obfuscated) way, but does not yet exist, yes. Not worried; just mildly opposed. +sj+ 22:37, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Board member information

Could we please have a bit of information about our silent Trustees? It would be nice to have at least as much information about them (a few vague lines) as we had about the candidates for election to the Board. +sj+ 22:53, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
(neither have any personal information on wmf.org, and afaik neither has uttered a word ~~on or~~ (happily corrected; see TS's contribs on en: here) about WM or its vision or projects (aside from conversations with Jimbo) in a long time.)

will try. Anthere

Tim Shell has been active on Wikipedia a lot more recently than 2002. Today in fact. See contribs. But I agree some information about them would be useful though. Angela 12:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ahh, good. I feel a bit better knowing that he is still an active contributor; and that he has been on IRC recently. Other brief information about them would indeed be useful.

Registration

Issue of http://wikimedia.com
wikimedia.com is owned by Daniela Rohers: http://www.whois.net/whois.cgi2?d=wikimedia.com
Contact at info@wikimedia.com

The domain wikimedia-foundation.org should be registered.