Policies/en/Steering-Committee-Charter
This is a draft charter page, under construction. Status: proposal, to be adopted. It is offered as a first base position (initial hypothesis), proposed as a base for discussion, to be reviewed and validated before adoption. See the detailed disclaimer.
💡 In simple words: This committee helps steer the WikiDeal ship at the very beginning. But the main goal is to give the steering wheel to the users as soon as possible, just like Wikipedia does!
🎯 In 20 seconds (scientific summary): The core mission of the Steering Committee is to guide the emergence of the WikiDeal project and to progressively transfer the power to select committee and foundation board members to the user community. Following the model of the Wikimedia Foundation—where board members are elected by the community of deserving users who earned voting rights through the quality and quantity of their contributions—WikiDeal is designed to be governed by its active participants.
Steering Committee charter
The Steering Committee is the founding governance body of WikiDeal. It is currently in the process of being constituted: this is the very beginning of the project, and nothing is fixed at this stage. For the time being, this responsibility rests with the Council of the Ynternet.org Foundation.
Purpose
The fundamental mission of the Steering Committee is to guide the emergence of the WikiDeal project and to progressively transfer decision-making power to the users.
At the beginning, the governance is managed by the Ynternet.org Foundation board and the initial Steering Committee. However, one of their primary joint missions is to transfer the responsibility of selecting who participates in governance (both the Steering Committee and the Foundation Board) directly to the community of WikiDeal users.
This strictly follows the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees model, where board members are elected by the community of deserving users who have earned voting rights through the quality and quantity of their contributions. The Steering Committee ensures that WikiDeal structurally prepares for this transition to a user-elected governance model. Over time, the Committee is also intended to hand over its operational responsibilities to thematic committees (Technology, Market, Governance and the other committees listed in the policies index), as those committees come into existence.
Appointment
The Steering Committee is appointed by the Council of the Ynternet.org Foundation.
Composition
The Steering Committee is composed of:
- members of the Council of the Ynternet.org Foundation;
- members of the Scientific Council of the Ynternet.org Foundation;
- experts invited by Ynternet.org Council, recognized for their previous added value in equivalent projects on digital commons.
An organic constitution process
The constitution of the Steering Committee is intended as an organic process:
- Members are invited to give their opinion and advice.
- They are invited only once enough Donations have been received for funds to be genuinely distributed.
- At the beginning there would be one, two or three people; progressively, more members would join.
- Progressively, the Steering Committee would pass the baton to the thematic boards (technology, market, policy and the others), as they come into existence.
Current situation
The Steering Committee is currently being constituted. Because this is the very beginning of the project, nothing is settled yet. For now, this role is in the hands of the Council of the Ynternet.org Foundation:
- The members of the Council are registered in the Swiss commercial register.
- The Council meets periodically, according to the progress of the various projects of the Foundation. WikiDeal is the main project, but not the only one: other projects can be seen on the Ynternet.org Foundation website.
- The operational director of the Foundation is Athanasios Priftis. See his TEDxGeneva talk: "Ever tried to open a government?" (TEDxGeneva 2014).
Meetings and decisions
To be defined: frequency of meetings, quorum, how decisions are made and recorded.
Review and amendment
To be defined: how this charter is reviewed, amended and approved.