The chapter in the UK is incorporated as Wiki UK and operates under the name Wikimedia UK. There are a few reasons for this. One is as already mentioned, if the two organizations were to every have problems, this one would just lose its operating name and would not need to change its legal name. If we use Wikimedia we need documentation from Wikimedia saying we can us the name and this needs to be submitted to the Federal government. One more thing to slow the process of incorporation. The main reason I proposed this however is that in the documents regarding charities states a charity needs to be completely independent and retain complete control over all finances ( with a few exception of which Wikimedia is not one of them ). Being incorporated under a name without ties to another group will decrease the chance of us having problems with applying for charity status.
Regarding your first point, I personally feel that the benefits of name-brand recognition that we would gain from using "Wikimedia" far outweigh the trouble of changing our name in the unlikely event of us getting into a conflict with the WMF. For your second point, getting an official note from the WMF saying that we can use their name should be easy. Can we also get a note saying that they do not exercise any formal control over us? What do other international charities do when incorporating in Canada?
In addition to the name issue, followers of this thread may also want to weigh in on the discussion about whether to pre-emptively allow regional wings in our charter given the attempts at starting Wikimedia Quebec. That discussion is happening on the talk page of the bylaws: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Canada/Proposed_by-laws
—Jeffery Nichols (User:Arctic.gnome)
On 2010-08-05, at 9:23 , James Heilman wrote:
The chapter in the UK is incorporated as Wiki UK and operates under the name Wikimedia UK. There are a few reasons for this. One is as already mentioned, if the two organizations were to every have problems, this one would just lose its operating name and would not need to change its legal name. If we use Wikimedia we need documentation from Wikimedia saying we can us the name and this needs to be submitted to the Federal government. One more thing to slow the process of incorporation. The main reason I proposed this however is that in the documents regarding charities states a charity needs to be completely independent and retain complete control over all finances ( with a few exception of which Wikimedia is not one of them ). Being incorporated under a name without ties to another group will decrease the chance of us having problems with applying for charity status.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc.
Wikimedia-ca mailing list Wikimedia-ca@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-ca
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Jeffery Nichols arctic.gnome@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding your first point, I personally feel that the benefits of name-brand recognition that we would gain from using "Wikimedia" far outweigh the trouble of changing our name in the unlikely event of us getting into a conflict with the WMF.
I don't think James is saying that you shouldn't use "Wikimedia Canada", just that you should register with "Wiki Canada" and then "operate as" Wikimedia Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doing_business_as
James Heilman wrote:
The chapter in the UK is incorporated as Wiki UK and operates under the name Wikimedia UK. There are a few reasons for this. One is as already mentioned, if the two organizations were to every have problems, this one would just lose its operating name and would not need to change its legal name. If we use Wikimedia we need documentation from Wikimedia saying we can us the name and this needs to be submitted to the Federal government. One more thing to slow the process of incorporation. The main reason I proposed this however is that in the documents regarding charities states a charity needs to be completely independent and retain complete control over all finances ( with a few exception of which Wikimedia is not one of them ). Being incorporated under a name without ties to another group will decrease the chance of us having problems with applying for charity status.
Getting the necessary permissions to use the name "Wikimedia" should not be a problem in either case, incorporation or d.b.a."
Complete independence and financial control are not problems. This is one point that Chapcom reviews carefully to ensure that a chapter is not regarded as a subsidiary or affiliate. This did come up most recently in reviewing the application for an Estonian chapter.
Revenue Canada regulations do allow for money to be transferred out of the country if a proportional benefit is received. Given that Canada has the highest per capita usage of Wikipedia in the world that criterion is likely achieved, but we would still have the burden of proof. Better would be for Canadian money to be spent in Canada in a way that provides the Wikimedia movement advantages that it would not otherwise have.
Ray
To reiterate, he was suggesting we register as Wiki Canada, but if permitted operate as Wikimedia Canada. I can't see any disadvantage to this approach. Regardless, we need to form a steering board and make some official decisions to get this done.
On 5 August 2010 16:56, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
James Heilman wrote:
The chapter in the UK is incorporated as Wiki UK and operates under the name Wikimedia UK. There are a few reasons for this. One is as already mentioned, if the two organizations were to every have problems, this one would just lose its operating name and would not need to change its legal name. If we use Wikimedia we need documentation from Wikimedia saying we can us the name and this needs to be submitted to the Federal government. One more thing to slow the process of incorporation. The main reason I proposed this however is that in the documents regarding charities states a charity needs to be completely independent and retain complete control over all finances ( with a few exception of which Wikimedia is not one of them ). Being incorporated under a name without ties to another group will decrease the chance of us having problems with applying for charity status.
Getting the necessary permissions to use the name "Wikimedia" should not be a problem in either case, incorporation or d.b.a."
Complete independence and financial control are not problems. This is one point that Chapcom reviews carefully to ensure that a chapter is not regarded as a subsidiary or affiliate. This did come up most recently in reviewing the application for an Estonian chapter.
Revenue Canada regulations do allow for money to be transferred out of the country if a proportional benefit is received. Given that Canada has the highest per capita usage of Wikipedia in the world that criterion is likely achieved, but we would still have the burden of proof. Better would be for Canadian money to be spent in Canada in a way that provides the Wikimedia movement advantages that it would not otherwise have.
Ray
Wikimedia-ca mailing list Wikimedia-ca@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-ca
One potential liability is exemplified by http://wiki.ca.
That is, there are many commercial and NGO uses of "wiki" in Canada which predate Wiki Canada. There are not for Wikimedia Canada. (Sidenote to Ray: I thought you purchased Wikimedia.Ca back in 2006? currently parked with Dollarhost.com/Trillium Internet Company Inc.)
Amgine
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Alan Walker fastalan@gmail.com wrote:
To reiterate, he was suggesting we register as Wiki Canada, but if permitted operate as Wikimedia Canada. I can't see any disadvantage to this approach. Regardless, we need to form a steering board and make some official decisions to get this done.
On 5 August 2010 16:56, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
James Heilman wrote:
The chapter in the UK is incorporated as Wiki UK and operates under the name Wikimedia UK. There are a few reasons for this. One is as already mentioned, if the two organizations were to every have problems, this one would just lose its operating name and would not need to change its legal name. If we use Wikimedia we need documentation from Wikimedia saying we can us the name and this needs to be submitted to the Federal government. One more thing to slow the process of incorporation. The main reason I proposed this however is that in the documents regarding charities states a charity needs to be completely independent and retain complete control over all finances ( with a few exception of which Wikimedia is not one of them ). Being incorporated under a name without ties to another group will decrease the chance of us having problems with applying for charity status.
Getting the necessary permissions to use the name "Wikimedia" should not be a problem in either case, incorporation or d.b.a."
Complete independence and financial control are not problems. This is one point that Chapcom reviews carefully to ensure that a chapter is not regarded as a subsidiary or affiliate. This did come up most recently in reviewing the application for an Estonian chapter.
Revenue Canada regulations do allow for money to be transferred out of the country if a proportional benefit is received. Given that Canada has the highest per capita usage of Wikipedia in the world that criterion is likely achieved, but we would still have the burden of proof. Better would be for Canadian money to be spent in Canada in a way that provides the Wikimedia movement advantages that it would not otherwise have.
Ray
Wikimedia-ca mailing list Wikimedia-ca@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-ca
-- View Alan Walker's profile on LinkedIn [http://www.linkedin.com/in/walker1]
Wikimedia-ca mailing list Wikimedia-ca@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-ca
Amgine Saewyc wrote:
One potential liability is exemplified by http://wiki.ca.
That is, there are many commercial and NGO uses of "wiki" in Canada which predate Wiki Canada. There are not for Wikimedia Canada. (Sidenote to Ray: I thought you purchased Wikimedia.Ca back in 2006? currently parked with Dollarhost.com/Trillium Internet Company Inc.)
Thanks for the link to Wiki.ca. It's not much of a website, but they do have that domain. I haven't done any name searches recently, but that would need to be done before an application is made for incorporation. The implications of incorporating as Wiki Canada when someone else has the domain wiki.ca are unclear.
I did do a name reservation for Wikimedia during one of the various incarnations of the chapter creation attempts; I think that was at the end of 2006 after the Boston Wikimania.
Yes, I continue to hold the .ca domains for Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Wikiversity, Wikisource and Wikilivres. The last one redirects to Yann Forget's wikilivres.info. The others are all parked and doing nothing.
Ray
wikimedia-ca@lists.wikimedia.org