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Wikipedia is readable and editable by anyone with a computer and an Internet connnection but it is not a publically owned or operated organization. Discussions of both policy and content at Wikipedia are open to discussion and debate on mailing lists, wiki pages, and web forums. The forums are largely unmoderated in that contributions are not screened before they are published, except in the case of prohibited contributors. Users who have not contributed to articles are allowed to engage in on-line policy discussions at the discretion of administrators.
More problematic are decisions on whether to allow critics of the Wikipedia projects should be allowed to participate in discussions or be excluded. Administrators can Policies allow administrators to exclude users from on-line policy debates or votes for "behavioural reasons" and . Administrators maintain that they do not exclude members from discussion for reasons related to a critical policy argument.
One criticism of Wikipedia's are that "power users" who spend several hours a day making edits or who use software to quickly review a large number of pages may dominate discussions and that people who are qualified or interested in administrative functions may hold different interests from the people who are the best contributors.
Wikipedia's volunteer administration executes policy with technical interventions, and with brief votes open to all users, a volunteer mediation process and an volunteer arbitration committee process based on public airing of evidence about various grievances.
While Wikipedia offers venues for conflict resolution, participation in those venues can be intimidating. A process for criticizing administrators emerged in early 2004, but Wales later wrote that anyone he has investigated who was critical of his administrators "turned out to be a complete and total ass." [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=3147842&oldid=3147585]] But he maintains polite and thoughtful users, even those prohibited from on-line discussions, are welcome to join mailing lists to comment on policy.
Wales operated the project with volunteer assistance for several years on Bomis equipment, and for a year paid an employee to get the project going. In late 2003, the entire project was transferred from Bomis to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded by Wales.
The foundations foundation's three original trustees were joint owners of [http://bomis.com Bomis.com]. [http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf] In May 2004, Jimmy Wales, chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation board of directors, announced that he is resigning as CEO of Bomis to more fully reflect that he spends most of his time working for the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wales announced in May, 2004 that he envisions himself as eventually being paid to run Wikimedia Foundation. [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-May/012309.html]
Elections for the contributor positions for the Wikimedia Foundation board are scheduled for June 2004. [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_for_the_Board_of_Trustees_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation]
As Wikimedia emerged as a non-profit company with Bomis partners in control, Wales announced Wikipedia's first formal plea for independent financial support in December 2003 with a target set at $20,000. In April Wales told ''Salon'' that the appeal had received $50,000 in donations. [http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/04/27/wikipedia/index_np.html]
==Bomis.com==