Re: Time to set up Wikimedia ProjectCommittees

I am suddenly having doubts.
What I wrote below is my vision of Wikipedia (the big project)
I have little vision of the other projects, perhaps could other people 
express their sentiments on those ?
No one made any comments ?
Does that mean everyone agree, or no one read ? :-)

I am serious there. Perhaps am I wrong on one of these points. I tried 
to state the core principles of the Wikipedias. Perhaps I made a mistake 
? Perhaps for example, are we planning to make people pay for it in a 
while ?

Is there a ***charter*** somewhere ?

Mav, was there not a beginning of a draft of a charter somewhere ? Did 
not we have a discussion about that ?

I found http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_charter, with a very 
wise comment from Little Dan at the top

We need this. That is the charter that will set the ciment between the 
various languages.

We need a charter.

Don't you think ?


Anthere a écrit:
> 
> 
> Elisabeth Bauer a écrit:
> 
>> The wikimedia foundation is for keeping the servers running, 
>> collecting funds and defending the projects against legal threats, but 
>> not for enforcing rules (or a however defined code of ethics) upon all 
>> projects.
>>
>> greetings,
>> elian
> 
> 
> Hummm....plus perhaps, what Jimbo has been defining from the very 
> beginning of the project : a certain number of *core* issues which make 
> all of us part of ONE big project, not a collection of loose ones.
> 
> To my opinion, as respect wikipedia itself (it might be slightly 
> different for other projects)
> * it is a generalist encyclopedia, meant to gather free knowledge (-> gfdl)
> * it will make that information freely available to anyone (readers do 
> not pay to read wikipedia)
> * in as many languages as possible
> * with free participation (everyone is welcome, regardless of his 
> nationality, sex, color, age, education, and no one has to pay to 
> participate)
> * with participants bound to be respectful of copyright issues, of 
> neutrality requirement, and of other participants (three types of 
> violation which are likely to grant banning)
> 
> And...I think that is just about it.
> 
> That is what Jimbo (and other core contributors) has been repeating over 
>  and over in the past three years. And I think that should be what the 
> board job should also be about (on top on promotion, representation, and 
> technical issues).
> 
> A guarantee that these core issues are always respected, no matter what. 
>  That no wikipedia will ever change the copyright, will ever ban people 
> for their political opinion, will ever refuse participations from people 
> with less than a phD...whatever
> 
> For this reason, articles such as Section 4.4., which states that
> 
>     the Board of Trustees shall be empowered to order suspension of 
> membership or the suspension of particular or specific user privileges 
> at its sole discretion of any member upon receipt of a verified 
> complaint of misconduct;
> 
> is not clear enough.
> 
> I think again at what I have been expecting (and what I still expect) 
> from Jimbo as help.
> 
> I will only give one example : it is up to each local wikipedia to 
> ensure that no disruptive individual mess things up. So, it is to each 
> local wikipedia to decide who should be banned; Not to any board, whose 
> members will not know the specificities of the local wikipedia, nor the 
> bottom line of the issues at stack.
> However, if anyone does believe the banning was wrong, not in line with 
> wikipedia core principles (such as banning someone for holding an 
> undesirable political opinion), the issue should be brought in front of 
> the board, and the board study the case, and eventually have the person 
> unbanned.
> 
> Or declare that a wikipedia is not part of the wikipedia project if it 
> is no more following the gfdl requirement.
> 
> That means in effect, that only few, but major decisions, should be 
> taken by the board itself, as regards policies. Minor policies are not 
> part of those. Perhaps, that should be explained more clearly in the 
> current document.