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[Foundation-l] 501(c)(3)
by daniwo59＠aol.com 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

For fund-raising purposes, are we a qualified 501(c)(3) organization with a valid IRS tax ID? Danny

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[Foundation-l] Finances
by Anthere 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

Hello dear all, Regardless of the way we decide to spent money, we have some in bank. It comes in. It comes out. So, we need some people to take care of financial issues. Mav has renewed his interest in taking care of this after the elections. Angela and I are favorable to this. I will not speak up for Jimbo... as he is on holidays :-) Mav has been taking care of Wikimedia accounting for several months as far as I can remember. I did not hear there were any problems. He also is interested in working on the budget. However, we wish that you have time to express disagreement if there is need to. So, if one doubts this is a wise decision, please say it so and *provide arguments*. This is not meant to be a top-down decision, it is mostly that Mav said he was interested to do it, had done it well for many months, we trust him, and no one else has ever (afaik) said he would be willing to do it as well. My apologies if someone did and we did not realise :-) Other people might be interested as well to participate in financial issues. In particular, the perspective of a professionnal on legal issues or on accounting would be most welcome. I think we should thrive to have teams as much as possible, and people with various perspectives, as it is more productive and usually more successful. A group of 3-5 people would be neat :-) So, if someone is interested in being part of the financial committee, please speak up :-) Criticism and/or nomination may be public or private. Ant/Flo --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!

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Re: [Foundation-l] WikimediaFoundation web site
by daniwo59＠aol.com 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

Thanks, Anthere I have one comment, however, about Article IV, Section IV. It states that a quorum consists of at least 3 directors. Could this be amended to say, "A quorum consists of at least three members, one of whom is an elected member (either Contributing Active User Representative or Volunteer User Representative)." I believe that this will inspire greater confidence among the users who participated in the election, that their voice cannot be automatically overruled. Danny

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[Foundation-l] WikimediaFoundation web site
by Anthere 05 Jul '04

05 Jul '04

Hello :-) A new wiki website was set this morning : www.wikimedia.org. This website will be the official site of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is meant to contain * Description of what the Wikimedia Foundation is (mission statement, history, board, general organisation, bylaws, other legal considerations etc...) * Information about the Foundation activity (such as board meeting report, agenda, budget, financial statements etc...) * Membership information (and in particular due system) * Donation system * Information on local chapters (the extent of it needs to be decided with the chapters themselves) * General information which will be easily available for press or any organisation or fundraising etc... : such as a condensed dozen pages, recalling history of wikimedia projects, short description and access to all projects, basic information in terms of figures (number of hits per day, number of pages, number of contributors... graphs), links to the most relevant references, global press releases * Relevant links for more information (for contact, mediawiki software etc...) The site has two goals. First "internal" communication from the Foundation toward all editors (or members). Second, "external" communication from the Foundation to any potential donator or organism contacted for grants, or more generally speaking press. And of course, hosting of the dues and donation system. A lot of the information is not really meant to be updated frequently (such as mission statement, bylaws), or will be edited by board members or officers mostly (such as board reports, financial reports). These informations need to be protected and the site will be low editing traffic since a good part of it will be static most of the time. Basically, the rule of thumb is that *any* information included in that website is approved by the board. For these reasons, access will be restricted to a limited number of editors. Currently me only :-) Cough. I'll fix accounts for Angela, Jimbo, Mav and one developer, as soon as I find time. We'll see for details later on. Note : the *current* wikimedia web site is a mix of * html pages which are editable directly on meta, but are in html format on a wiki page. Though the concept is good, these pages are not very easily editable (that is okay for a couple of pages, but not really for dozens). Some of them are currently protected (for example bank statements are protected and already edited by Mav only). * pages which are available only by developers (any update of these pages require help from a developer, not for security reasons I understood, but just because wiki synthax does not always handle html synthax well). This is not very practical, and should be avoided if possible. Hence the suggestion by Jimbo to set up a wiki, which was done this morning. Now, obviously, some of the future pages on the website require input of many contributors. So most of these pages will be available on meta (actually, they will be started on meta), and they will be updated from time to time. I guess we will mostly begin with direct links. Last point : we wish that this website be international because the Foundation is meant to exist for all contributors whatever their language, and because it is meant to become a quick, relevant and accurate resource for anyone looking for information about us. I *do not think* we should aim in covering something like 150 languages or more :-) but if rather quickly we could cover half a dozen langages, it would be great. ant --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!

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[Foundation-l] CFO
by Anthere 05 Jul '04

05 Jul '04

Well, it does not really need flowery comments :-) The board is officially naming Mav as the Chief Financial Officer for the foundation. Welcome Mav :-) ant/flo

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[Foundation-l] Meeting in Paris
by Yann Forget 04 Jul '04

04 Jul '04

Hi all, Here is the program of the meeting in Paris, also available at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Rencontre_Paris_juillet_2004 11 am : Press conference with a few journalistes (4 are already confirmed), with Jimmy Wales, Angela, Anthere, Yann and may be a few more Wikipedians. 12 am : Aperitif and lunch 2:30 pm : Speech by Jean-Baptiste Soufron, on law related questions with Wikipedia in France, and exchange between particpants on the subject. 3:30 pm : Presentation of the Wikimedia Foundation by Anthere 4 pm : Presentation of the French chapter bylaws and the planning of organisation set-up by Yann, and exchange between particpants on the subject, and then vote for the piloting committe. 5 pm : Vote counting and creation of the piloting committe 6 pm : Speech by Jimmy Wales to close the meeting There will be audio streaming (and *maybe* video). Nevertheless video will be available after via bittorrent. All Wikipedians are welcome, but please book yourselves here before: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Rencontre_Paris_juillet_2004/Inscrip… Best wishes, Yann Forget -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

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[Foundation-l] Q3 2004 hardware budget
by Daniel Mayer 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

I've worked out a provisional hardware budget for Q3 2004 based on our past spending patterns. We may need to spend $11000 (assuming we follow last quarter's growth rate) to $73000 (assuming a repeat of the absurd growth rate a quarter before that - probably caused by the installation of the new server farm) on servers by the end of third quarter (which started 1 July). Both of those figures, however, are probably outliers and thus do not represent a trend. 1) Averaging all growth rates since Q3 2002 gives an increase in traffic (hits) per quarter of 90.98%, meaning a Q3 2004 budget of between $26000 to $32000. 2) Removing the last two quarters gives a 68.72% growth rate, meaning a $20000 to $24000 budget. 3) Also removing an earlier outlier (Q1 2003's dismal 1.42% growth) gives an average growth rate of 85.55%, meaning a $24000 to $29000 budget. My spreadsheet is still a bit messy but I think the estimate is sound. Please check: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hardware_costs.pdf http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hardware_costs.sxc I'm still working on getting these data in a more presentable form. The finance department also needs to come together so we can work on an annual budget and 5 year master plan. I could do this myself if our only expenses will be hardware related, but I imagine that we will want to expand the operations of the foundation. Thus we need to form policy on what we want to spend money on. I most certainly cannot do that alone. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) PS - I won't have hard numbers until Jimbo gets back and faxes me the last three months of bank statements, but we should have about $27,800 total ($9,400 in PayPal, $9000 server refund, $9000 award, and $400 misc.). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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[Foundation-l] Angela
by Anthere 29 Jun '04

29 Jun '04

Angela told me today she lost a member of her family. She will be offline for longer than she expected, and may have to cancel coming to Paris. Anthere

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[Foundation-l] Using D'ni in images
by Peter Jaros 26 Jun '04

26 Jun '04

I'd like to put images of D'ni script on a bunch of the Myst-related pages. For example, on [[Gehn]] I'd add an image of "gen" in D'ni script. Is this legal, copyright-wise? Should I credit Cyan Worlds, Inc. (creators of Myst) and/or the person who made the font? If so, how? Peter -- ---<>--- -- A house without walls cannot fall. Help build the world's largest encyclopedia at Wikipedia.org -- ---<>--- --

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[Foundation-l] Re (finances)
by Anthere 25 Jun '04

25 Jun '04

Richard Gallagher wrote: > --- Anthere <anthere9-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w(a)public.gmane.org> wrote: > > >>>What exactly are you suggesting? That Maveric149 >>>should be the treasurer or he should be some sort >> >>of >> >>>financial clerk? >> >>No. The treasurer is a board position. But the board >>is empowered to >>delegate activity to identified persons or to >>committees. >>Mav would be financial officer, and report to the >>Board. > > > That clears it up a bit. Your original message did > not go into much detail as to what exactly the role > was. Personally I didn't see that there would be much > financial work to do. So it did seem to me to be a > bit redunant have both a treasurer and a financial > officer. > > But then again I am not familiar with intimate details > of the foundations financial dealings. Would you be > able to further describe this financial officer role > and how it differs treasurer? If Mav were on the board, I guess there would be perhaps no financial officer for a while. But I suppose he would have got some help from other people anyway. In the current situation, neither Angel or I are expert on financial matters. I would also add that there is a lot to do, and no way we can do everything alone. So, it is probably best that we focus on what we may do best and are most interested in doing, while delegating to other people the other issues. There are plenty of motivated participants ready to give a hand, why would we deny them doing this if they can probably do it better than us ? That does not mean we are not interested, nor completely clueless. I had some training in accounting while a student, in agricultural business. And I practiced a bit. There are few things as neat as classifying a cow, which may be bought as a young (hence an expense), then sold for her tender meat (become a revenu), or switch to become a tool (producing milk), or become a tool which produce a future tool (giving birth to future cows), or end up as bad meat. Every couple of months, cows change categories :-) Good grief, they can even die and disappear from the accounts for free, or be burned because of a bad disease (so, actually cost you money). Does not make it easy to calculate amortization.... Anyway. The treasurer will look more at the big picture, while the financial officer will more focus on giving detailed and clear report, which will allow the board to take informed decisions. It is also the duty of the officer to warn the treasurer when money is running out unexpectedly. This is an example of what the officer will provide (is already...) : http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_bank_account_history_for_2004 The officer should also keep track of all details, so as to be ready in case of an audit. He may also help in setting up a comprehensive budget, according to directions given by the board (or make suggestions, which may be supported by the board, then developped by the officer). It is then the board role to ensure the officer have all the necessary information. Example : I suggested to JeLuF a few days ago to set a page where developer team would try to indicate the needs in terms of hardware : http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_provisional_budget The treasurer might ensure that this page is kept up to date, perhaps ask someone to take the responsability for it to be exact. This information will be precious for the officer to set the budget. Another example is organisation of the due system. The treasurer might organise it, set the policy about it, then have it approved by the community and the board. Once the fee system policy is ready, the officer can organise the budget using the estimation of membership revenu. After the due system has been implemented by a developer team and is in working order, the officer will be responsible of making detailed report month after month about income from fees. Or about the way the fees are used. It may also take care of managing membership :-) The treasurer might decide with the board, that some of the detailed information should be displayed on the wikimediafoundation website, for transparency and information to members. He will then rely on the treasurer to provide relevant gathered data to offer to public scrutiny :-) Of course, the officer might need help and counselling to do all this, hence the financial committee is much needed :-) In short, the treasurer will try to look at the big picture and make sure the officer can get all what is needed. The officer will try to ensure that everything is done properly and legally, and will give feedback on the general situation. The treasurer should check back. Suggestions are always welcome. Budget should be a common effort, with participation of all those involved in *spending* the money, and all those involved in *gathering* it. I mostly think the relationship between the treasurer and the officer will be a symbiotic relationship. Both need and complete the other one. This aside from legal considerations of responsability, where Michael could probably give more details. >>>I believe it is important to get a set accounts >> >>drawn >> >>>including a balance sheet and statement of income >> >>and >> >>>expenditure. Then have them audited by a >> >>chartered >> >>>accountant. Because often when applying for >> >>grants >> >>>they will request an audited set of accounts. >> >>Might you explain what you are thinking of, when you >>mention "a >>chartered accountant" ? > > > A chartered accountant is an accountant who is a > member of institute of accountants for their country. > Seeing as Wikimedia is US based I probably should have > used the US equivalent term which is certified > accountant. The thing is anyone can call themselves > an accountant, while to call yourself a > chartered/certified accountant you have to have passed > some exams and have a certain amount of work > experience. Understood. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? 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