Talk:Wikimedia Project Governing Committees

Wikipedia is now a real organisation!

A comittee to discuss the formation of comitees! Truly, WP has now come of age.

Do we want it to function as a representative democracy? I think this is a step backwards. No-one should be empowered to create policies that significant numbers of contributers object to. MrJones 07:52, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Open structure of each Governing Committee

The members of each Wikimedia project (each language Wikipedia, Wikisource, etc., meta.wikipedia.org, etc.) may elect from amongst themselves, in any fashion they decide, a committee to consist of contributors (that do not have to be formal members of the WIkimedia Foundation Inc.) from that Wikimedia project. Such committee shall be empowered to create policies that are not inconsistent with Wikimedia's corporate goals and vision that shall be applicable to that particular Wikimedia project.

ultimately, we could probably also decide that a Governing Committee is made of absolutely all contributors, no ?

Recommendation to Board regarding member disputes

Such committee will also review any decisions of membership arbitration activities of that particular project before such decisions are sent to the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia for confirmation in accordance with the Bylaws. The commitee will forward its recommendation to the Board to overturn or sustain the decision of any such arbitration or member review committee that is created under the authority of the Board of Trustees, unless the dispute be about content of a particular article or page on their wiki in which case the members of that commitee are delegated the authority to confirm or overturn such decision under authority of the Board of Trustees.

As long as we do not spent hours trying to explain in english the beginning and the end of each case...that is fine with me

Is the goal to take the teeth out of the arbitration and member review committees? It seems like much work for a governing committee to also be responsible for member review and arbitration. Could you compare the projected composition of a G. Committee with that of an Arb. Committee ? +sj+

Limited Power of Board to Overturn Governing Committee Decisions

The only time the Board of Trustees may overturn any decision of the independent Project Governing Committee of any Wikimedia project is if such decision is contrary to the general principles as laid out on the Wikipedia MetaWiki for the benefit of all Wikimedia projects or if it otherwise contravenes the Bylaws or Corporate Charter of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. πατατα

nod. Let's work on the Corporate Charter !

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Role of the Chair

The Chair of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. shall be ex-officio a member of all these Governing Committees and he may be asked for an Advisory Opinion of the Chair before the Commitee makes any decision either by its members or by any contributor to that Wikimedia project. Such opinion shall be advisory and shall not be binding upon the Committee unless the Board of Trustee has determined that any potential decision of that Governing Committee is contrary to the general good of Wikimedia Foundation Inc..

slight change in the way the board is elected then. Why not. That's sound fine. Though, I think what will happen is that first the decision is taken, and second the board (chair) told about, then the chair can declare the already taken decision is bad.

I like that proposal, Alex.

Anthere 16:34, 25 Jan 2004 (PST)~

how could the Board decide that any potential decision of a g.c. would be contrary to the good of Wikimedia? can the Board decide that at any time it pleases? what does this mean? since the board can, regardless of A. Opinions of the C., always contravene committee decisions which are contrary to the good of Wikimedia, why include this clause? +sj+ 16:53, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Governing committees considered harmful

I strongly oppose the creation of "governing" committees in the different projects. I think we rather need reliable contact persons (or groups) in each Wikimedia project who act as messengers between the foundation and the project. These people could be volunteers or elected. Establishing governing committees would be a top-down decision and seriously infer with the projects own ways of decision making and establishing rules (which is actually mostly done by the whole community and not a committee). If a projects wants to set up a committee, fine, if people think they can handle better without, it should be fine, too. Don't interfere with the projects. --Elian 17:41, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sound like more bureaucratic regulation that will only cause harm. Every language should try to organize themselves (if there are no real problems like violating the NPOV etc). BTW: It's not fair to discuss such issues only in English. If you want to tell some languages community what to do you should at least try to speak their language. -- Nichtich 20:28, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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This should be placed back in perspective. It was proposed along with the Arbitration Committee on en, which happened early 2004. Until them, Jimbo was alone deciding for en, of all banning and unbanning. Banning on most other wikipedias was done by participants themselves, often with very little rules. Then Jimbo created the AC to replace him in banning decisions, while he kept a veto voice upon decisions made. This proposal was essentially an extension of the AC proposal, suggesting that other wikipedias could rely on a similar organisation, with a committee dedicated for banning decision, and overview by Jimbo (or by extension the future board). Obviously, each wikipedia decides itself how to ban someone and these committees are not gonna happen. But as a reminder, there is a legal provision in the bylaws that authorize that the board exclude a participant if this one is threatening the project. Which is natural I think, since wmf owns the servers and could be hold responsible of some issues. Also, Jimbo is hoping that no project will one day, for whatever reason, not respect some of the most basic guidelines he originally draw, such as openness. Which is the reason of the "overview". Jimbo own idea is certainly not to interfere with the way the projects are running, only to insure they stay cohesive and coherent with the global scheme. Anthere 04:46, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)