Wikipedia talk:Education Board/Wiki Education Foundation Members

Membership
I've undone the tagging of this page as historical; jbmurray did it based on this discussion, but we're still considering this approach to membership, though because of the issues discussed at the meta link the members would not be members in the legal sense of a membership organization. That distinction should be made on this page, but we should wait till the byelaws are passed (which is likely to be soon).

One reason for continuing with the idea of these groups is that it may serve as a natural way to organize interests, particularly for those such as educators who do not spend enough time on Wikipedia to join WikiProjects. Another reason is that if we're going to have educators nominating and voting for board members, there needs to be some way to decide which educators can vote -- membership in groups such as this might be the way to do that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:14, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I do think you should clarify on this page, all the more so as the proposal draws on the fact that people have signed up here. You could just substitute "members" with "participants" or "people working with" the program.  But not to do so is misleading. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:48, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Misleading in what way, Jon? I'm a "member" of a WikiProject Mountains, it carries no legal weight, it just means I am an interested party who has signed on to a list with other interested people.  The Interior  (Talk) 14:28, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, and that's fine, because "member" is the term consistently used. Here, however, you've run into issues.  But it's misleading if you're asking people to sign up on one Wiki, where you tell them they can become "members" but then on another Wiki you're telling them they can't (but you're still using their names from the first one).  You need clarity one place or another.  And it'll no doubt be fine with most people: "Yeah, when I said I wanted to be a 'member,' I guess I just meant I was an interested party."  But once it's come to light that they can't (legally) be termed "members" (or, more strictly, that you are no longer planning to make this the kind of organization that has members), it's misleading to continue to tell them that they can. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:54, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * At the time this was written I (and probably the others) didn't know that there was a legal meaning for "member". I think it would be OK to leave it as member, so long as it was clarified, but I'm fine with changing it to participant. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)