I would like to thank Angela and Florence for serving on the board. Being elected trustees, a sort of hybrid between trustee and politician, they will experience the worst of both worlds. Having been on a governing board of a non-profit myself, I understand that building consensus among the users, contributors, donors, and other trustee will be a very challenging task.
Before I mention "weekly trips to Florida", I would ask that readers take my comments with a grain of salt because I am a notorious tight wad. I am reminded of this daily because my wife does not appreciate my energy conservation during the Florida summers.
If Angela did go to Paris for a "trustee meeting" it would be an invalid trustee meeting unless one of the trustees, or the computer hosting the meeting, were in the State of Florida.
I feel administration costs should be kept to a minimum, hopefully less than 2% of revenue. At the present time the Wikimedia Foundation has a pressing need for new hardware and improved software. I also feel it is very unfair that Bomis is continuing to give the bandwidth to Wikimedia, and I hope that Wikimedia will be able to lift this part of this burden soon.
Though I feel it is important for board members to meet in person, I feel it is much more important for other issues to be addressed and funded.
I hope that the Board of Trustees will stick to the "meat and potatoes" of non-profit governance: auditing financials, appointing the chief administrator (Jimbo), setting very broad goals, promoting the organization, and raising money. In reality, most non-profits boards serve as a vehicle for socializing - which is great fun - but should not be at the expense of the foundation (in fact, I would hope that maybe someday there could be an International Convention of Wikimedians with the proceeds benefiting the foundation). Just about everything that can be discussed in person, can be conveyed by e-mail.
Until the foundation has the financial strength to support growth and operating expenses independently, I feel trustee expenses should be kept to an absolute minimum. Maybe it was a little bit too early in the foundation's history to have elected trustees. However, trustees should be prudently funded in their attempts to secure further donations and grants. In so far as reporters and the such, most reporters will call you or come to you.
I am troubled that this controversy will further encourage the fragmentation of the Wikimedia movement into nationalist or linguistic factions (such as the German society), making it all the harder for the foundation to obtain vital general funds among a sea of grants.
Once again, I would like to thank all of the trustee for their work.
H. Cheney
--- Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
hcheney wrote:
If the Wikimedia Foundation starts giving the
trustees
"perks" I feel that fundraising could be quite a
bit
harder.
Firstly, phone calls made for Foundation business are hardly "perks". Secondly, I don't see this sort of expense coming out of the normal donation funds. People have given those expecting they will be used on hardware and related purchases, so that is exactly what should be done with them.
However, not all of the money in our account is from donors. We already have €10,000 from the Ars Electronica award, and one of the things Anthere and I plan to do over the coming year is to find funds from alternative sources. We can't rely purely on donations from within the website, so there is no need for actual donor money to be spent on board expenses.
I expect the vast majority of our communication to be carried out over IRC. However, there are situations where this is not plausible. As well as the press contacts Anthere mentioned, applying for grants is one example where face to face contact, or at a minimum, phone contact, is far more likely to result in success.
Delirium wrote:
As for internet connections, I assume anyone
involved
in the project already has one …
I agree. I don't see my internet costs as being something the Foundation should be paying for.
Anthere wrote:
In about 2 weeks, there is a meeting in Paris, for
many french speaking
wikipedians. I will meet Jimbo there. Jimbo made
the great suggestion
that Angela meet us there as well. It will allow
her to meet with french
wikipedians AND it will probably be the first and
the last opportunity
for the whole year, for the board to meet face to
face for really low cost.
I have mixed views about this. It is a great opportunity for the three of us to meet, and probably the only opportunity over the following year. However, I am not entirely comfortable about having to take the Foundation's money for it, as Jimbo has suggested I do. On the other hand, I recognise that starting the year with a real life meeting is likely to be very beneficial, so if the community supported the idea that some of the award money (not donor money) could pay for this, then I would be delighted by that. However, I absolutely do not want this to happen if it is going to cause a huge controversy. People have expressed views against board expenses, and so this issue needs to be treated sensitively. I have no intention of upsetting the people who so recently voted me into this position.
Anthere wrote:
Danny added to possible official positions, the possibility of having an ombudsman. I personally think it is premature right now…
I don't think this is premature at all. I think it will ease a lot of the concerns surrounding the idea we're about to jet off to Florida each week. :) Having an outsider monitoring the spending within the project sounds a very beneficial idea to me.
Angela.
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