Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
At 19:08 + 5/12/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: 2008/12/5 Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: At 11:35 + 4/12/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: I am sure there is some guesswork here. And yes, I agree, WMUK must be democratic. I am trying to suggest that making every supporting member become a guarantor member (or become nothing) might not be the best way forward. No-one has disagreed with that. What you're suggesting is *forcing* certain people not to become guarantor members. That is the part that is undemocratic. I like the idea of forcing somebody *not* to do something! You know perfectly well what I mean. Why don't you just explain why you think limiting the numbers of guarantor members is a good thing? I have tried. And at least one counter example has been given and that example showed was that the membership engaged in many different ways. Gordo -- Think Feynman/ http://pobox.com/~gordo/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]/// ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
At 13:35 + 3/12/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: [...] I don't see how you can disenfranchise 90% of the membership just for convenience, it goes completely against the democratic ideals of the chapter. I believe most people would want to be a friend rather than a member, and I mean member in the technical sense of guarantor member. At this point, you're just guessing. The lists of people interested in being guarantor and supporting members were pretty similar in length. [...] I am sure there is some guesswork here. And yes, I agree, WMUK must be democratic. I am trying to suggest that making every supporting member become a guarantor member (or become nothing) might not be the best way forward. Regards, Gordo -- Think Feynman/ http://pobox.com/~gordo/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]/// ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
At 14:45 + 3/12/08, Mickey Conn wrote: I've been involved in a company with around 1,000 members and it found no particular difficulties with managing them. None of them were very interested in an alternative friends affiliation; quite a few took no interest in the AGM, but nobody ever suggested that the vanishingly small responsibilities of being a guarantor member had put them off joining (in part because the meaning of this was clearly explained on the membership form, as I believe it is on ours). Best Wishes Mickey OK, I take this point! So what did they these members do? Just pay their fees? Gordo -- Think Feynman/ http://pobox.com/~gordo/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]/// ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:35 PM, Thomas Dalton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see anything particularly hard to manage with a 1000 members company. Most people won't attend the AGMs and will vote by proxy. If a significant number do attend the AGM then it would need to be run a little more formally, a show of hands isn't likely to work for anything but the most uncontroversial resolutions, but that's not too difficult. I don't see how you can disenfranchise 90% of the membership just for convenience, it goes completely against the democratic ideals of the chapter. Absolutely. Amnesty International (Swiss section) for example switched recently back to a system with AGMs where every single member can, in theory, attend. It's not like more than a tiny fraction of the members would ever consider doing so -- if they are anyway just in to support the association (and not because they want to take a very active part in it), then they won't bother to spend an afternoon at an assembly-meeting. If it gets really really unmaneuvrable and if you once experience an AGM where 750 people want to join, *then* you can start thinking in terms of local branches and delegates (i.e. you have county-level or so branches, which each elect 1-2 delegates who then go to the national AGM which is then no longer a general meeting but a delegates' meeting). But this, really, would be a loss in democracy and as long as the AGMs work smoothly, you've got good and easy procedures on proxy voting etc. I really don't see any reason for such a disenfranchisement either. Michael -- Michael Bimmler [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
At 22:36 + 30/11/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: Not a problem to have 1000s of guarantor members? Is that what you mean? Yes, what we call member is what WMUK v1.0 called guarantor member. So, is there only one class of membership for WMUK 2.0? BTW, I have just seen an example of an organization that has 35,000 members... Ebsfleet United. * http://www.thersa.org/events/our-events/us-now Directed by Ivo Gormley, Us Now follows the story of online networks whose radical self-organising structures challenge existing notions of hierarchy. Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans, all 35,000; and Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager. I plan to attend the screening at the RSA. Gordo -- Think Feynman/ http://pobox.com/~gordo/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]/// ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
Yes, nice to agree. The Governance of WMUK is far from settled AFAIK. A very large group (hundreds or thousands) cannot have a single voice with some hierarchical or other structures. The Governance is pretty much determined by the Companies Act 2006, the Memorandum of Association and the Articles of Association. There are members who elect a board at the AGM and the board runs the charity. The members have certain additional powers which can be exercised in writing, at AGMs or at EGMs. Member is this context means guarantor member. The part that isn't settled yet is membership fees and what forms of membership we'll have (if any) in addition to membership of the company proper, but whatever is decided, they won't get a vote at AGMs. Having 100s or over 1000s of members shouldn't be a problem - most will probably vote by proxy at the AGM. There are public companies with 10s or even 100s of thousands of shareholders that manage just fine, the vast majority just fill out a proxy statement that is sent to them in the post and never go near the actual meeting. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
2008/11/29 Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: At 22:22 + 29/11/08, Thomas Dalton wrote: It is for such concerns that I have suggested a limit on guarantor members, say to 75 or 100 people, all reviewed by the board, and open membership for the Friends of WMUK 2.0 with no review. Why should only the first 100 people get to have any say in the running of the chapter? They will have a say, at the AGM, or an SGM, only. The Board runs the Company. Also, look forwards a decade? Many of the first 100 will have left by then, and it will be important to maintain a stable body. The AGM is a meeting of members of the company, ie. guarantor members. Friends don't get a vote at the AGM. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
The nature of online communities is such that you simply won't have access to the information that would be required to make an informed judgement about an applicant. You can't require details of their Wikimedia activities since they could simply deny being a Wikimedian (and I believe we are agreed that we don't want to restrict membership to Wikimedians only). If you know of a reason why you should reject an application you would be reckless to ignore it, but there can be no reasonable expectation on you to do any research into applicants, since such research is impossible. The risk of lots of people joining to manipulate board elections is very real - if we had the default staggered board resignations it would be much reduced, since there would never be a majority of the board being elected at one time (barring early resignations/deaths/etc.). Unfortunately, I didn't think of that when I was trying to persuade you against having everyone resign at once, perhaps if I had, I would have been successful... Anyway, what's done is done, the best way to mitigate the risk now is to recruit as many good members as possible - the more good members we have the more bad members will need to sneak in in order to gain a majority. Recruitment will need to be one of the top priorities for the board after the AGM (it should be a priority for the current board too, but not a top one - handling setup is top). ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Process for admitting members
Surely the chapter is about the promotion of Wikimedia in the UK, raising awareness of our projects and supporting the wider projects of WMF. I don't see a link between SPs on Wikipedia (and or other projects) whose disruption is essentially behind a computer screen and who wish to engineer splits between editors by subtle and unsubtle tactics that can only work on collective projects. *Sociétés or Limited Companies are bound up in legislation not policies and guidelines. The law, memorandum, constitution and resolutions* define what WMFUK2 is and I doubt that any SP is remotely interested in being involved. As for giving my WMF usernames out, I certainly would be reluctant. I have had three, I have never been banned or blocked and don't think I have had a test-1 even. I have left en-wikipedia twice, once because a wp project leader accused me of fabricating a reference because I had hosted a phd thesis on my own porn site; The second time because I had unfortunately started afresh too soon after my RTL and carried some of the baggage and now much saner and wiser in a state of non-editing. There are no smoke and mirrors, I think that anybody with a an hour on their hands could probably check through the enwiki-l archives and find all of my past personas. michael ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
