User:Adamw/Own and elect

Own and Elect platform
I'd like to articulate a fringe opinion, that the WMF would be healthier if we could convert it to a membership non-profit, in which all Wikimedians (defined broadly: editors, bot authors, media curators, staff, donors, etc.) collectively own the organization and each person holds one vote in an assembly. Related ideas about directly electing the WMF's Board of Trustees come up regularly on the mailing list, but so far they seem to be sporadic and spontaneous, there has been no sustained attempt at building momentum towards this goal. In an interesting coincidence of WMF's history it actually began as a formal membership organization, eventually converting to eliminate membership out of concerns for the complexity of their bookkeeping.

Much of my understanding has been shaped by my time spent as a staff member, seeing that our attempts at democracy are fleeting and ad-hoc due to the lack of mandate or roots to implement an overall democratic structure.