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(a)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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