I good user. Be good, please.


2016-03-16 16:34 GMT+04:00 Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com>:
Iolanda, I can understand entirely that the group organizing Wikimania would need to set up an association in order for it to conduct business. 

That does not explain why attendees are forced to join the association.  Your comparison with the Hilton is very poor:  I do not have to become  a member of the Hilton in order to stay at the Hilton and pay them money.

The Wikimedia movement has succeeded without ever becoming a membership organization, without requiring registration, without expecting people to pay dues (even if that money is put back into the projects right away). Requiring people to join is almost the antithesis of what being Wikimedian is all about. Requiring membership can be a serious matter for people outside of Italy/Europe, particularly as the type and duration of membership is not properly described.  Some governments and employers require reporting of *all* types of memberships - and those requirements tend to be in countries where such membership could put people at risk, or subject them to questioning.  I am certain you can find a way to do this without requiring that attendees become members.  
 
I have been finding myself very demotivated to come to this Wikimania - which is a pity, as I have been enthusiastic about the last four or five that I've attended, and even now three months from the event and with vacation days booked, I still can't bring myself to register.  The choice of location, the inflexible and low quality of accommodations, the arbitrary decision to severely limit participation by WMF staff in the conference proper (without properly understanding that this is a major cost to the movement since so many developers will have to attend the hackathon beforehand in order for it to be successful),  the decision to put emphasis on posters instead of presentations (despite the fact that well-presented posters usually cost between three and twenty times as much as a single-person presentation).... this does not seem like a Wikimedia event to me at all.  Every time I start to feel even slightly enthusiastic, there's another thing that comes up. 
 
I still can't bring myself to register.
 
Risker/Anne
 



On 16 March 2016 at 04:43, Iolanda Pensa <iolanda@pensa.it> wrote:
There are no other solutions. 

Just to understand the logic behind it:
If you go to the hilton you pay the hilton and you receive a receipt from this company. It is your decision if you are ok in paying that company and to use its service.
In the case of Esino Lario you join an association, since we are not the hilton, we are not a company and we are managing the event with volunteers and a completely different structure to make a 761 village capable of hosting a quite large event without being structured to do so (we are literally creating most of the things from scratches). The aim of the association is to manage events and specifically Wikimania. Once the event is over the association will have 0 budget (used to cover with the income received from the registrations the expenses related to the members-participants); the association and the membership – as the name of the association clearly communicates - is meant for Wikimania 2016. A committee would have been an easier structure (we initially registered it as a committee) but this December 2015, in Italy committee do not exist any longer as registered institutions (but we want an officially registered institution to make everything clear and correct even if of course - as many of you know - it is complex and longer than doing things informally).

It would have been nice to have Wikimedia Italia managing all this, but in 2014 Wikimedia Italia decided that it was too complicated and they did not have enough staff to do it.
So in Esino Lario we applied for fundings through Associazione Amici del Museo delle Grigne Onlus (an association of volunteers without staff)
and we established this new association to make the management and the accountability of Wikimania possible, transparent and correct (also in this case an association of volunteers without staff).

This choice was thought through and please do not hesitate to ask any further question.
thanks
iolanda

Il giorno 15 mar 2016, alle ore 22:29, Lodewijk <lodewijk@effeietsanders.org> ha scritto:

If membership is required to be a participant under this structure, such a solution would require all participants to become a member of Wikimedia Italia. Which is maybe less ideal than becoming member of something that is meant to be temporary. 

Still it is an odd situation to be honest... Iolanda: are there solutions for people who don't want to become a member, or cannot become a member because of their job etc? Perhaps at a higher fee if necessary (not sure if this construction gives tax benefits etc)

Lodewijk

Lodewijk

On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:
Couldn't Wikimedia Italia do this?

Thanks,
Mike

On 15 Mar 2016, at 11:44, Iolanda Pensa <iolanda@pensa.it> wrote:

Here is the explanation of why we created a Committee which is an association managing Wikimania[1].

I’ll add the answers also online:
1. we needed an institution managing the income from the registration and the expenses which involve a very large number of people (priviate, not only companies); the institution we established is a non profit (it doesn’t share the income among anyone), it is managed by volunteers with experience in accounting and it is a specific institution with a separate bank account from Associazione Amici del Museo delle Grigne Onlus (which as an onlus is not the appropriate institution). 
2. we created an association according to the advice of experts in associations and management. since we have a non profit nature, associating the participants for the event is the solution which has been chosen as the only suitable to allow us to collect the payments and to reimburse the flats and to pay the other expenses linked to food, accommodation, transport, insurance and t-shirts and welcome begs. the association (committees in Italy do not exist since December 2015) has the specific objective to promote and organize the event Wikimania (the name of the association is Associazione Comitato Wikimania Esino Lario 2016), which is also the reason we created it.
3. the fee is 1 euro because we need to have a fee and it is of course included in all the registration; fees simply contribute as all the rest of the income to the expenses for the participants.
4. you can see the names of the members of the board in the link and also in our team[2]
5. yesterday the association had a meeting to record all the regulations which coincide with the information you find on the website (different types of registration costs and i am uploading also the regulations related to the support for the most active volunteers)
6. all documents of the association are uploaded online and you can review everything. i’ll be adding the other documents and we are preparing some of the translations.
7. for personal data we apply the Italian legislation. Data are collected to allow us to organize Wikimania and support the participants (registration, accommodation, wifi, police registration for foreigners requested by law); with this objective in mind, only people who need the data to organize Wikimania and support the participants have access to them.

please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any further question
iolanda


Il 13 mar 2016 23:40, "Bohdan Melnychuk" <base-w@yandex.ru> ha scritto:
Hello,

Please take a look at the discussion I initiate here: https://wikimania2016.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Registration#Comitato_Wikimania_Esino_Lario_2016
It is about becoming a member of Comitato Wikimania Esino Lario 2016 as asked in Wikimania registration process.

Yours,
 --Base

_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l

_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l


_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l


_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l


_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l



_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l