Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body to do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after having fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities, access to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the Grant Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this we want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity - a report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As far as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of paperwork that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with no paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my involvement in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body to do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after having fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities, access to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the Grant Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this we want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity - a report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli < valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and the development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years. In 2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far this year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the approval process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from our perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the start, and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters), changes over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small” affiliates cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if any, as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small” affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As far as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of paperwork that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with no paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my involvement in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body to do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after having fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities, access to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the Grant Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this we want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity - a report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli < valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and the development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years. In 2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far this year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the approval process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from our perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the start, and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters), changes over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small” affiliates cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if any, as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small” affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I think the issue is with the word "liability". That has a legal meaning to me that perhaps it wouldn't to others.
It's a bit of a misunderstanding that user groups "are not required to become legal entities". We would be a legal entity whether or not we registered; we'd simply be an unincorporated association if we didn't register. That is indeed much simpler, but it comes with its own set of risks. I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion of the legal issues here, but let's just say that it's not a zero-cost and zero-risk approach.
That's a good point that there's a disjuncture between the kind of activities that a group does and the affiliations model. For example, a chapter could be quite small and a user group can be quite large, and there is some flex in the issues that each will experience.
I'm happy to talk off-list about the legal issues if you wish. My head is pretty packed with it, since I've been dealing with a lot of it over the past few months as we're trying to scale up our activities and we're looking at hosting the Wikimedia Conference next year. As you say, other groups with different kinds of activities and ambitions might choose to take a different and less careful approach. For example, a college Wikipedia club with limited growth ambitions may have a lot less to think about than we do.
I feel like I'm getting muddled in my explanation so I'll stop here and just say that I'm happy to continue this conversation off list. Hopefully we can get back to the discussion about affiliate user groups and mentoring in general.
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:27 PM, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
far
as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
paperwork
that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
no
paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
involvement
in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
to
do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
having
fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
access
to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
Grant
Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
we
want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity -
a
report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli
<
valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
the
development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
In
2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
this
year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
approval
process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
our
perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
start,
and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters),
changes
over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small”
affiliates
cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if
any,
as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small”
affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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*headdesk* Wikiconference USA, not Wikimedia Conference. Apologies to our friends in WMDE.
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:38 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I think the issue is with the word "liability". That has a legal meaning to me that perhaps it wouldn't to others.
It's a bit of a misunderstanding that user groups "are not required to become legal entities". We would be a legal entity whether or not we registered; we'd simply be an unincorporated association if we didn't register. That is indeed much simpler, but it comes with its own set of risks. I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion of the legal issues here, but let's just say that it's not a zero-cost and zero-risk approach.
That's a good point that there's a disjuncture between the kind of activities that a group does and the affiliations model. For example, a chapter could be quite small and a user group can be quite large, and there is some flex in the issues that each will experience.
I'm happy to talk off-list about the legal issues if you wish. My head is pretty packed with it, since I've been dealing with a lot of it over the past few months as we're trying to scale up our activities and we're looking at hosting the Wikimedia Conference next year. As you say, other groups with different kinds of activities and ambitions might choose to take a different and less careful approach. For example, a college Wikipedia club with limited growth ambitions may have a lot less to think about than we do.
I feel like I'm getting muddled in my explanation so I'll stop here and just say that I'm happy to continue this conversation off list. Hopefully we can get back to the discussion about affiliate user groups and mentoring in general.
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:27 PM, Gregory Varnum <gregory.varnum@gmail.com
wrote:
It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
far
as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
paperwork
that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
no
paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
involvement
in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
to
do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
having
fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
access
to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
Grant
Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
we
want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity
- a
report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario
Valdelli <
valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
the
development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of
years. In
2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
this
year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
approval
process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
our
perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
start,
and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters),
changes
over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small”
affiliates
cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all.
The
current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if
any,
as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small”
affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by
further
dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
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Every country is different, in Australia you cant have a bank account for a User group without being registered, you cant work with GLAM without having public liability insurance for which the UG needs to be registered to obtain. If you operate unregistered all members are personally legally liable for the activities of any person who operates under the name. Even grants from the WMF could be taxable as income if your not part of a registered organisation
I think care should be used when chosing terms to describe affiliates and their requirements especially terms like liability which have legal implications,
Does the WMF/Affliiates committee check if due diligence is done on the local legal aspects for UGs before recognising them?
On 19 October 2015 at 13:27, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
far
as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
paperwork
that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
no
paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
involvement
in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
to
do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
having
fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
access
to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
Grant
Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
we
want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity -
a
report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli
<
valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
the
development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
In
2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
this
year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
approval
process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
our
perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
start,
and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters),
changes
over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small”
affiliates
cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if
any,
as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small”
affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
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All affiliates are required to follow local laws, and that is checked when we are asked or it is needed.
Our affiliates are increasingly diverse, so much of this really applies more to chapters and thematic organizations than all user groups. A majority of user groups are not legal entities.
Manuel was speaking to the user group requirements set out in the affiliation models, which as he said, are meant to be easier and less time consuming than the requirements for chapters and thematic organizations. That is separate from the requirements involved with doing some types of activities. The programmatic need for one user group may far easier to manage than the programmatic needs of another user group, and the model is designed to allow for that diversity.
-greg
On Oct 19, 2015, at 1:45 AM, Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Every country is different, in Australia you cant have a bank account for a User group without being registered, you cant work with GLAM without having public liability insurance for which the UG needs to be registered to obtain. If you operate unregistered all members are personally legally liable for the activities of any person who operates under the name. Even grants from the WMF could be taxable as income if your not part of a registered organisation
I think care should be used when chosing terms to describe affiliates and their requirements especially terms like liability which have legal implications,
Does the WMF/Affliiates committee check if due diligence is done on the local legal aspects for UGs before recognising them?
On 19 October 2015 at 13:27, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
far
as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
paperwork
that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
no
paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
involvement
in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
to
do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
having
fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
access
to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
Grant
Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
we
want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity -
a
report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli
<
valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
the
development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
In
2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
this
year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
approval
process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
our
perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
start,
and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters),
changes
over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small”
affiliates
cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if
any,
as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small”
affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
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-- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
If it's OK, I'd like to return to the subject of mentoring. I'm wondering if Affcom might be able to facilitate a kind of matchmaking process where some of the more established affiliates mentor some of the newer affiliates. We have some very informal ways that this happens now, and I'm wondering if a more proactive approach by Affcom in encouraging this kind of mentoring would be helpful. Thoughts?
Pine
Hoi, Ask yourself, you want more mentoring and in front of you are 50 user groups; you do not understand their language, you do not know their culture. They do the necessary self administration, the minimal requirements to inform about whatever it is they do so well.
They do describe that they are happy with their progress and tell you so in your language. What more is it that you can provide without taking away from the work that they do so well? Thanks, GerardM
On 19 October 2015 at 08:56, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
If it's OK, I'd like to return to the subject of mentoring. I'm wondering if Affcom might be able to facilitate a kind of matchmaking process where some of the more established affiliates mentor some of the newer affiliates. We have some very informal ways that this happens now, and I'm wondering if a more proactive approach by Affcom in encouraging this kind of mentoring would be helpful. Thoughts?
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
being able to seek assistance and advice from Affcom for specific needs is good concept because no matter how large the organisation mentoring in an invaluable service we can all use. The issue will be in ensuring the mentors have the skills, the knowledge and importantly the time(at the right time) to be able to make positive impact.
One of the most common issues are that new groups tend spend a lot of effort recreating the wheel because there is no central place find all of the available materials, and share lessons learnt we could really do with a WikiShed, or WikiLibrary where we can find the necessary tools whether its for joining a WLE, WikiTakes, a WikiTown or just organising a group meetup for the first time having the knowledge, the tools and how events relate to each of the projects would be an invaluable service add to that a list of mentors who have been successful with that event, including the languages they speak, the time zone they are in would bring success to all groups
On 19 October 2015 at 19:05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Ask yourself, you want more mentoring and in front of you are 50 user groups; you do not understand their language, you do not know their culture. They do the necessary self administration, the minimal requirements to inform about whatever it is they do so well.
They do describe that they are happy with their progress and tell you so in your language. What more is it that you can provide without taking away from the work that they do so well? Thanks, GerardM
On 19 October 2015 at 08:56, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
If it's OK, I'd like to return to the subject of mentoring. I'm wondering if Affcom might be able to facilitate a kind of matchmaking process where some of the more established affiliates mentor some of the newer affiliates. We have some very informal ways that this happens now, and
I'm
wondering if a more proactive approach by Affcom in encouraging this kind of mentoring would be helpful. Thoughts?
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, The difference is in being able to get support when you need it and a model where support is pushed on you.
Yes, support may be helpful but when it is given for all the wrong reasons, it is counter productive. Thanks, GerardM
On 19 October 2015 at 13:41, Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
being able to seek assistance and advice from Affcom for specific needs is good concept because no matter how large the organisation mentoring in an invaluable service we can all use. The issue will be in ensuring the mentors have the skills, the knowledge and importantly the time(at the right time) to be able to make positive impact.
One of the most common issues are that new groups tend spend a lot of effort recreating the wheel because there is no central place find all of the available materials, and share lessons learnt we could really do with a WikiShed, or WikiLibrary where we can find the necessary tools whether its for joining a WLE, WikiTakes, a WikiTown or just organising a group meetup for the first time having the knowledge, the tools and how events relate to each of the projects would be an invaluable service add to that a list of mentors who have been successful with that event, including the languages they speak, the time zone they are in would bring success to all groups
On 19 October 2015 at 19:05, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Ask yourself, you want more mentoring and in front of you are 50 user groups; you do not understand their language, you do not know their culture. They do the necessary self administration, the minimal requirements to inform about whatever it is they do so well.
They do describe that they are happy with their progress and tell you so
in
your language. What more is it that you can provide without taking away from the work that they do so well? Thanks, GerardM
On 19 October 2015 at 08:56, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
If it's OK, I'd like to return to the subject of mentoring. I'm
wondering
if Affcom might be able to facilitate a kind of matchmaking process
where
some of the more established affiliates mentor some of the newer affiliates. We have some very informal ways that this happens now, and
I'm
wondering if a more proactive approach by Affcom in encouraging this
kind
of mentoring would be helpful. Thoughts?
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- GN. President Wikimedia Australia WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi,
My suggestion is to take care with using the term "limited liability", because it sounds like this might mean a different thing in my jurisdiction and in my jurisdiction. As has been pointed out, volunteers in a user group may be exposing themselves to significant risk of something goes badly wrong. I trust that AffCom advises potential new user groups to seek independent legal and financial advice prior to setting themselves up or holding events so that volunteers understand the legal risks that they may be exposing themselves to.
Cheers, Craig
On 19 October 2015 at 15:27, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
It is limited liability on both parts, meaning that user groups are not required to become legal entities, or maintain the higher reporting and capacity requirements that chapters and thematic organizations are required to maintain.
The considerations that you are mentioning are tied to your activities and not your status as a user group. It is a misleading and discouraging to others to imply that running a user group in the United States requires all of that liability and workload. User groups are not required to become legal entities (which Cascadia has opted to do), and can be as simple as a student club at a university. In other words, not all user groups are alike. The level of liability is tied to the activities the group engages in, not the affiliations model.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee
On Oct 19, 2015, at 12:56 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Manuel,
Can you clarify what you mean by "limited liability" for user groups? I think you mean limited responsibilities as far as WMF is concerned. As
far
as the United States authorities are concerned, we have plenty of
paperwork
that we're expected to deal with, particularly if we're handling funds and/or hosting public events. Most of the paperwork is the same whether there are 5 people or 500 people involved, so it's a pretty complex operation, particularly if volunteers are dealing with all of this with
no
paid help. I had some experience with business law prior to my
involvement
in Cascadia Wikimedians, and even with that background I'm finding that there is a lot to learn and a lot of paperwork to deal with in order to keep our user group on solid legal ground.
Pine
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Schneider, Manuel < manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
Hi Ilario,
it is the will of the board to make it easy to start a recognised body
to
do work and it is totally acceptable if these bodies also die after
having
fulfilled their purpose - or grow and develop into other affiliation models. So the criterium for us is easy entry.
Anyway the user groups have limited liability and responsibilities,
access
to ressources is controlled on a case by case basis eg. through the
Grant
Avisory Committee and every year user groups must be renewed, for this
we
want so see a simple report. So every ug with the minimum of activity -
a
report written, having responded to our follow-up e-mail - is renewed.
/Manuel
-- sent from mobile phoneAm 18.10.2015 4:46 nachm. schrieb Ilario Valdelli
<
valdelli@gmail.com>:
I personally think that the main concern, in this proliferation of groups, is an lack of the implementation of a "good governance".
A user group is like a body, it can born, can develop and can die.
At the moment there is an unclear guideline about the monitoring and
the
development of these groups: they can only born.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
Basically the affiliation committee creates these entities, but don't monitor them and don't evaluate to retire (or the best would be to freeze) some old entities when they become essentially inactive or
silent.
In this case the balance would be compensated and the proliferation of these groups would have a sense.
Kind regards
On 18.10.2015 16:48, Gregory Varnum wrote:
The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has been preparing for the
increased momentum since the user group model was implemented, and it follows a pattern that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of years.
In
2013, we approved 10 user groups, last year we approved 19, and so far
this
year we have approved around 20. That number will likely increase next year. This growing momentum is why we have continued to tweak the
approval
process to be faster and able to handle the growing momentum. So, from
our
perspective, this is something we have been preparing for from the
start,
and not a surprise.
Personally, I think further complicating affiliate classifications is
a bad idea. “Small” and “larger” are very culturally relative, varies across the models (there are user groups “larger” than chapters),
changes
over time, and implies that “large” affiliates do work “small”
affiliates
cannot, when we continue to see that is in fact not the case at all. The current criteria for WMCON is active and inactive, which seems far more appropriate. Additionally, dividing them will not save much money, if
any,
as there would still presumably be a gathering for the “small”
affiliates.
I agree with Leigh and others that affiliates should receive more
support, but I do not think those efforts will be served well by further dividing them.
-greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee
-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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