sannse wrote: I think the discussion mixes two aspects which should be separted for transparancy: 1) the problem that successful developing organisations their elected management usually gets apart from the broad mass of the community. This might either be an informal process or a process due to formal organisational structures like forming a board of a foundation. I suppose this will not yet happen with the current members elected which come from the roots of Wikipedia. But what will be with future generations of board members? Usally special people get attracted by such formal structures and are keen to get elected - as you can see in many parties, foundations etc. worldwide. So its a kind of law that over time the danger grows that bureaucratic structures develop and the gap between management and the community widens more and more. It therefore seems important to establish the most open communication rules and transparancy to prevent such typical developments. I assume, that the discussion about funding travel costs of board members here is just taken as an example as a future take off by elected board members from the basic community is feared. 2) The funding of travel costs itself. May be it could be helpful if all people intending to give donations are given options for which purpose they can donate - just place such options on the donation web pages and explain them. The total amount of donations received is usually much greater if donators can choose personally for what purpose their donation shall be used for. One of the options could then be the funding of travel costs. I think this would be the most open approach towards donators. At the same time budgets and aims for donations must be openly argued for and published. Furthermore internal discussions about justifications why what money for what purpose shall be used can be avoided. If nobody donates for a purpose proposed - just let it be. Presenting the donation community the needs for funding by options is the fairest approach, its their money Wikipedia uses. And letting the donators decide about how their money shall be spent, you can be sure that they are willing to spend much more in total cash. By this Wikipedia will have the greatest benefit possible. Dietrich hase(a)akademie.de

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has pledged money for me to go to Paris. If I've converted the various currencies correctly, it amounts to around £83/ €125/ $151, which is almost the exact cost of a train from Colchester to Waterloo and the Eurostar train from London to Paris. As the meeting is for one day only, I don't intend claiming any money for accommodation. I really appreciate the donations that people have made for this as it means no money needs to come out of existing funds. I expect that meeting Anthere and Jimbo in person to discuss our plans for the forthcoming year will be very beneficial and I'm grateful for the support of others who see it this way. For anyone interested in new pages related to the foundation, please see the new Wikimedia category on Meta at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation. Angela.