Wikiversity talk:Governance

A proposed governing structure for Wikiversity
1. No technical change, however:

2. Rules are established for membership in a Wikiversity Council. The intention is for the entire community of interest in Wikiversity to be represented on the Council; however, members of the council will be self-defined as Active or Inactive. Active members will have the right to be notified of any Council business, according to Council rules. Membership is by registration as members. Active status may be subject to periodic confirmation.

3. The Council will be an advisory body, designed to study issues and develop, collect, and express community consensus -- or the lack of the same, on any issue of sufficient interest to warrant Council deliberation, according to Council rules.

4. The Council will develop its own rules, as is normal for any committee, and may designate committees to study particular issues, for report back to the Council.

5. The difference between the Council and existing on-wiki processes, such as Community Review, is that the Council may create, as needed, committees and its own processes, subject to its own approved rules of procedure and rules for participation. It may elect Council officers, to facilitate efficient and fair discussion.

6. The Council is designed to facilitate consensus, but may make any decision about its own process by majority rule, following its own procedures. Some aspects of Council function might take place off-wiki; however, Council deliberation, as such, should be open and a matter of public record, whether on or off-wiki.

7. It is possible for there to be more than one Council, under some circumstances. "Competing Councils" will then represent factions, and their existence makes possible factional negotiations. However, more likely, there will be only one "top-level" coordinating body, which serves to present full reports to the full community (i.e., all those interested in Wikiversity). What this boils down to is that it is possible that there be more than one advisory body, but there is pressure, for reasons of efficiency, for people to cooperate in the maintenance of one such structure.

8. A structure will be set up for registered Wikiversity editors to express confidence in individual members of the Council, one of the file structures set up for w:WP:PRX may be used, say [w:User:Abd/ProxyTest], see a Proxy Table at w:Wikipedia_talk:Delegable_proxy/Table, creating a "standing election" of what could serve as an Executive Committee for the Council, using Asset Voting (the Wikipedia article on Asset Voting was deleted, but there is a redirect, so see Asset voting, and in history, there is reference to the Lewis Carroll invention, or in deletion discussion for Asset voting. Carroll did invent the basic concept of Asset Voting in the 1880s, and it was elaborated by Mike Ossipoff in the 1990s and Warren Smith in about 2002. Asset Voting can be used to *quickly* elect an assembly that fully represents (substantially, even to true total representation, given TANSTAAFL) an electorate, something which is not possible with any other election method.

9. This structure can be used to estimate the degree to which a Council vote on an issue represents the consent of the community as a whole, or the extent to which the community as a whole has been represented in Council deliberations.

I notice that there was some discussion with Jimbo Wales of some of these concepts, in a discussion initiated by our own WAS 4.250:. --Abd 18:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)