Hi there,
since Wikimania 2006 is already the talk of the town, I guess we really need to start and go ahead with planning.
Here is the agenda for the next steps.
In the light of what we have learned/experienced at Wikimania 2005, we have set up a pre-requirement page at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2006/Planning . Please only add "real requirements" to that list, and keep all comments to the talk page. Do not get "too" specific either, for details can be better worked out in the long run.
This page will evolve to list the requirements for next year's event. We will "freeze it" ie. make it an official requirement list on September 1st, date at which we are opening the "city contest" to host Wikimania next year.
The city contest will go on for a month and a half, and a shortlist of three cities will be decided upon on October 15th. From then, Shortlisted cities will have to answer the board/organisation committee's specific questions within 2 weeks. Official selection for the "winning" city will happen on November 1st 2005.
Please feel free to forward/translate this mail to other lists so as to ensure broad participation of Wikimedia communities.
And do not hesitate to ask questions.
Best,
Delphine
If I may suggest, I would say one requirement should be that it be held on a different continent each year.
Dear All,
While I agree with the idea that we should send it all over the world year after year, we North Americans are stuck. My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China. So, if the USA is out of the question, why not try our neighbors up north, Canada? Well, if Wikipedians have been convicted of a crime, they can see them being denied entry. Such crimes include DUI's, can restrict this entry. Plus, Mexico and other nations in that region might not have what we need. I know Japan can be a good host, but other than Japan and some of Europe, we pretty much can't really go anywhere else.
Regards,
Zachary Harden (Zscout370)
From: Dori slowpoke@gmail.com Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 2005 Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:57:12 -0500
If I may suggest, I would say one requirement should be that it be held on a different continent each year. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 8/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Dear All,
While I agree with the idea that we should send it all over the world year after year, we North Americans are stuck. My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China. So, if the USA is out of the question, why not try our neighbors up north, Canada? Well, if Wikipedians have been convicted of a crime, they can see them being denied entry. Such crimes include DUI's, can restrict this entry. Plus, Mexico and other nations in that region might not have what we need. I know Japan can be a good host, but other than Japan and some of Europe, we pretty much can't really go anywhere else.
Regards,
Zachary Harden (Zscout370)
For all of the above, and more, see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimania_2006/Planning
Please also take a look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_on_Wikimania_2005 and http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2005_-_lessons_learned and add to them as you like - even if you weren't there..
Cormac
What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global south.
On 8/16/05, Zachary Harden zscout370@hotmail.com wrote:
Dear All,
While I agree with the idea that we should send it all over the world year after year, we North Americans are stuck. My country, the United States, is
very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China. So, if the USA is out
of the question, why not try our neighbors up north, Canada? Well, if Wikipedians have been convicted of a crime, they can see them being denied entry. Such crimes include DUI's, can restrict this entry. Plus, Mexico and
other nations in that region might not have what we need. I know Japan can be a good host, but other than Japan and some of Europe, we pretty much can't really go anywhere else.
Regards,
Zachary Harden (Zscout370)
What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global south.
Well, in my opinion it would be better if Wikimania was organized in a country where a local Wikimedia chapter exists. For now we only have such chapters in Europe, although I hope we'll get more of them in other continents as well.
Delphine Ménard notafishz at gmail.com wrote:
The city contest will go on for a month and a half, and a shortlist of three cities will be decided upon on October 15th. From then, Shortlisted cities will have to answer the board/organisation committee's specific questions within 2 weeks. Official selection for the "winning" city will happen on November 1st 2005.
1. Who decided this 2. Why so long 3. The chances of still being able to book a 500 person capacity venue for August 2006 in Britain in the November before is minimal. I would be somewhat suprised if was different for anywhere else in the world.
Dan
On 8/16/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
- Who decided this
I did. This is based on last year's time frame, which worked pretty well.
- Why so long
Because it does take that long to find the suitable venue and get the required information. You think we should leave less time?
- The chances of still being able to book a 500 person capacity venue
for August 2006 in Britain in the November before is minimal. I would be somewhat suprised if was different for anywhere else in the world.
Not sure I get you right here. Do you mean, November is way too late to book the venue? Or way too early? (sorry, non-English speaker here).
As for your previous question about who the jury is, it will of course include the members of the board and this year's organization team. Debates, like last year, will be public, and every city will be given the opportunity to defend its ground.
Best,
Delphine
On 16/08/05, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
- Why so long
Because it does take that long to find the suitable venue and get the required information. You think we should leave less time?
- The chances of still being able to book a 500 person capacity venue
for August 2006 in Britain in the November before is minimal. I would be somewhat suprised if was different for anywhere else in the world.
Not sure I get you right here. Do you mean, November is way too late to book the venue? Or way too early? (sorry, non-English speaker here).
Too late to book. I've been ringing several possible venues in the UK today and none will still be available by that time - many bookings have already been taken for next summer, in fact. Is this different in other countries?
Dan
On 8/16/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
On 16/08/05, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
Too late to book. I've been ringing several possible venues in the UK today and none will still be available by that time - many bookings have already been taken for next summer, in fact. Is this different in other countries?
It is, and it isn't. For having worked in the event business for the past 7 years, I can say that bookings for conference venues in the summer are pretty much on a first come, first served basis, first come meaning the first who books solid. You might want to ask to be considered as "second option" on many venues that "seem" to be booked for next summer, and find out that you'll get the venue because you're the first who signs a contract.
I am completely ok with shortening the calendar if that secures us the perfect location for next year. I believe that we could have the first shortlist by the end of September rather than October 15th.
What calendar do you propose?
best,
Delphine
On 16/08/05, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
It is, and it isn't. For having worked in the event business for the past 7 years, I can say that bookings for conference venues in the summer are pretty much on a first come, first served basis, first come meaning the first who books solid. You might want to ask to be considered as "second option" on many venues that "seem" to be booked for next summer, and find out that you'll get the venue because you're the first who signs a contract.
That's very interesting. It's also been suggested to me to look into provisionally booking our preferred choice(s) in the UK.
I am completely ok with shortening the calendar if that secures us the perfect location for next year. I believe that we could have the first shortlist by the end of September rather than October 15th.
What calendar do you propose?
A shortlist by the end of September would be very good. A "decision day" of October 15 rather than November 1 would help a lot.
But I also wonder if the deadline for bid submissions could be moved forwards. Those who are interested in proposing serious bids are probably already working on them (as we are in the UK).
For example: Bids submitted by September 14 Shortlist made on September 21 (I can't imagine there will be that many realistic bids, and seven days should be enough to chose, no?) Final decision made on October 5
Dan
Perhaps you could also answer me something else, Delphine: Who is going to organise Wikimania 2006?
Dan
On 8/16/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps you could also answer me something else, Delphine: Who is going to organise Wikimania 2006?
That's a very good question indeed.
Most of the organization team of this year is ready to build up on the experience acquired and sign up for next year again . This said, I believe that the choice in city is crucial to who will get involved and how. There is only so much one can do not being "on the spot", or "not speaking the language" etc. It would also be a shame to start afresh and re-invent the wheel, as we say in French, not taking advantage of lessons learned.
Organising a conference, some of us learned, means deadlines, full dedication and basically is a full-time job in the weeks preceding the conference, we'll need people ready to give at least that to build a winning organisation team.
Best,
Delphine
On 16/08/05, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/16/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps you could also answer me something else, Delphine: Who is going to organise Wikimania 2006?
That's a very good question indeed.
Most of the organization team of this year is ready to build up on the experience acquired and sign up for next year again . This said, I believe that the choice in city is crucial to who will get involved and how. There is only so much one can do not being "on the spot", or "not speaking the language" etc. It would also be a shame to start afresh and re-invent the wheel, as we say in French, not taking advantage of lessons learned.
Organising a conference, some of us learned, means deadlines, full dedication and basically is a full-time job in the weeks preceding the conference, we'll need people ready to give at least that to build a winning organisation team.
Here in the UK we would be prepared to book venues, accommodation and arrange any transport needed - for everything else I would be very happy to see the same people as last time organise it for exactly the reasons you give.
Dan
Pawe³ 'Ausir' Dembowski wrote:
What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global south.
Well, in my opinion it would be better if Wikimania was organized in a country where a local Wikimedia chapter exists. For now we only have such chapters in Europe, although I hope we'll get more of them in other continents as well.
In what way did the German chapter help to organise Wikimania 2005? Wikimania had an international organising team and its own finances. Chapters exist for national pride, grants and dubious tax minimisation schemes which require locking up money in places where it can't be spent on servers. I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.
Australia is a poor choice for other reasons, namely airfares.
-- Tim Starling
Regarding Wikimedia chapters, I wrote:
I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.
I'll just add to that that I did a quick review of the tax situation with charities in Australia. It seems a Wikimedia chapter in Australia may qualify as a charity but would not qualify as a "deductible gift recipient" (DGR). This means that although it would be exempt from paying income tax, donations would not be tax-deductible. So there would be very little financial benefit in creating an Australian chapter.
Approved DGR categories: http://tinyurl.com/9kz9q
-- Tim Starling
On 8/16/05, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Regarding Wikimedia chapters, I wrote:
I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.
I'll just add to that that I did a quick review of the tax situation with charities in Australia. It seems a Wikimedia chapter in Australia may qualify as a charity but would not qualify as a "deductible gift recipient" (DGR). This means that although it would be exempt from paying income tax, donations would not be tax-deductible. So there would be very little financial benefit in creating an Australian chapter.
Financial benefit is not the only thing that makes chapters useful. In Germany the chapter helped a lot in getting more publicity and getting the community together, and in setting up such fruitful partnerships like the one with the Deutsche Bibiliothek (national library) or the one with Directmedia who published the German Wikipedia DVD. I doubt that this would have happened without a German chapter. Of course we need money, but to reach our long term goals we'll need more than that.
-- Arne (akl)
Tim Starling wrote:
Regarding Wikimedia chapters, I wrote:
I have no plans for encouraging the formation of one anywhere near me, unless I see solid evidence that it makes financial sense.
I'll just add to that that I did a quick review of the tax situation with charities in Australia. It seems a Wikimedia chapter in Australia may qualify as a charity but would not qualify as a "deductible gift recipient" (DGR). This means that although it would be exempt from paying income tax, donations would not be tax-deductible. So there would be very little financial benefit in creating an Australian chapter.
Approved DGR categories: http://tinyurl.com/9kz9q
-- Tim Starling
I was curious and had a look there is this "PUBLIC FUND ON THE REGISTER OF CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS" thingie I would think that it might fit the bill. Then again what do I know I live in cloggie land :) Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
I was curious and had a look there is this "PUBLIC FUND ON THE REGISTER OF CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS" thingie I would think that it might fit the bill. Then again what do I know I live in cloggie land :)
I thought that was the closest one too. But I didn't think Wikipedia fit the description:
"its principal purpose is the promotion of literature, music, a performing art, a visual art, a craft, design, film, video, television, radio, community arts, Aboriginal arts or movable cultural heritage"
Do we promote literature? Well, it depends on your definition of literature, but it seems like a long shot. A list of registered organisations is available at:
http://www.dcita.gov.au/arts/arts/?a=24048
Even if we overcame that hurdle, there's a second one which is just as scary, which is that we'd have to be considered to be "in Australia":
: To be in Australia, the applicant (or the relevant part of the : applicant's organisation) must: : : * be established in and operating in Australia, and : * have its purposes and beneficiaries in Australia. : : Purposes or beneficiaries do not have to be in Australia if a fund is: : : * an overseas aid fund, or : * a public fund on the Register of Environmental Organisations. : : For these funds, it is still necessary that the fund itself be : established and operating in Australia.
And an overseas aid fund must be "solely for the relief of people in a country declared by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to be a developing country," so we wouldn't be one of those either.
: If the overseas activities are merely incidental to its Australian : operations, or minor in extent and importance, an institution or : authority can still meet the ‘in Australia’ requirement."
I think that rules out a fund with its primary purpose being to put more servers in Florida.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling (t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050816 23:48]:
Chapters exist for national pride, grants and dubious tax minimisation schemes
The tax minimisation angle is good to encourage donations at all - people will happily throw money at a deductible charity they wouldn't at something that isn't. Also (assuming a recent court case brought by the Inland Revenue doesn't fuck it up), Gift Aid [1] in the UK makes the donation even larger than it would be otherwise.
which require locking up money in places where it can't be spent on servers.
There are other uses for such money, e.g. the possibility of paying a MediaWiki dev or Wikimedia admin. I believe you were desperate for some of these ...
There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole in the budget.
- d.
There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole in the budget.
- d.
Well, there are many people who would donate to a local chapter but not to some distant Foundation in Florida, so I would imagine this would bring more money, not less. And can't the chapters themselves donate to the Foundation if it is short on money?
On 8/16/05, Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:
There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole in the budget.
Well, there are many people who would donate to a local chapter but not to some distant Foundation in Florida, so I would imagine this would bring more money, not less. And can't the chapters themselves donate to the Foundation if it is short on money?
If local chapters "donate to the foundation" as such, it may be conceived by some national legislations as a way for the Foundation to take advantage of tax deductibility in the chapter's country and make the chapter just a "proxy" for the Foundation to receive money from everywhere. In this, it may not be the best way, but we are trying to find out what is the best way to make sure money coming in through local chapter is used "for all the projects, everywhere" (ie. including on servers and bandwidth, wherever they may be).
Different legislations imply different ways of doing it, but in the long run, I am pretty sure this will clear itself and happen in a smooth way.
Best,
Delphine
--- Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com wrote:
In this, it may not be the best way, but we are trying to find out what is the best way to make sure money coming in through local chapter is used "for all the projects, everywhere" (ie. including on servers and bandwidth, wherever they may be).
There is currently a built-in expectation by donors that the money they give will benefit the projects in the realm of buying servers, paying for hosting, and the other things we mention in fund drive letters and our budget.
So far this has not be a serious issue and thus the foundation has not needed to ask the German Chapter, for example, to buy us anything. But this issue will start to affect the budget as donations to more chapters become tax deductible. We need to work out how to make that work for us instead of against us.
Different legislations imply different ways of doing it, but in the long run, I am pretty sure this will clear itself and happen in a smooth way.
The laws of different nations will of course determine how each chapter can help Wikimedia meet its goals. Once we know this for each nation that has a chapter, we will need to tell donors that money given to the chapter in their nation may have limited use outside their nation.
In the worst cases, a chapter may not be able to buy anything for the foundation and only support activities in that chapter's nation. Let's hope that is rare.
Looking at how the Red Cross works would be very interesting in this regard. They are composed of one parent organization based in Switzerland and many national organizations in various countries. All the ones I'm aware of work internationally.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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On 8/16/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Looking at how the Red Cross works would be very interesting in this regard. They are composed of one parent organization based in Switzerland and many national organizations in various countries. All the ones I'm aware of work internationally.
IIRC, The American branch of the Red Cross has specific enabling legislation for it in US federal law and enjoys a federal charter. It holds unique status even amongst the relatively small number of organizations holding federal charters. The rule about tax-exempt money entering or leaving the country is specially waived for the ARC. Obtaining the same status for Wikimedia would require a massive lobbying effort.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
IIRC, The American branch of the Red Cross has specific enabling legislation for it in US federal law and enjoys a federal charter. [...] Obtaining the same status for Wikimedia would require a massive lobbying effort.
The [[International Red Cross]] was established in 1863 followed in 1864 by the first [[Geneva Convention]] that recognized the red cross symbol in warfare. This happened at the same time as warfare got mechanized, in the decades immediately after the innovations of steam railroads ([[Stephenson's Rocket]], 1829), steam propeller ships ([[USS Monitor]], 1862) and machine guns ([[Gatling gun]], 1861).
Supposedly, a "Red W" (Wikinews: neutral reporting) can be adopted as soon as we have a fully developed information war. The current wars (against terrorism, and in Afghanistan and Iraq) are not of this kind, because of the overwhelming information supremacy of the winning (western) side, which makes the information aspect of the current conflicts look more like a minor colonial uprising. For the nearest decade, it seems unlikely that the Arab world, Africa or communist China would be able to catch up with the western information supremacy. It seems more likely that the first real information wars will be fought within the current area of supremacy.
If we just add 150 years, the Gatling Blog will be invented in 2011, the "Red W" could be adopted in 2013, at the height of the U.S. civil information war, followed in 2021 by the Franco-Prussian information war, and World Information War I would be scheduled to take place in 2064-2068.
David Gerard wrote:
There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole in the budget.
Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website, and that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate to a local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation. And as far as I know, that money is still unspent.
Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
There is the problem that people may donate to the local chapter (everything but DB servers) *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida (DB servers). One would want to make sure that a country's donations going to the chapter rather than the WMF would not leave a hole in the budget.
Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website, and that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate to a local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation. And as far as I know, that money is still unspent.
Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
-- Tim Starling
German users will very probably give to the Verein again, and if the french association is ready, french users will very probably give to the Wikimedia France as well.
And as it was hinted by several editors already, we can't just transfert money from one country to another.
This issue is one of the main reason we want to stimulate the group dynamics for people involved in Foundation or in chapters, so as * to have a clear picture of the amount of money collected by each legal entity * to have a clear picture of the budget of each entity, and naturally work toward both local spending (such as promotion in the country) and global spending solutions (such as financial participation to an event such as Wikimania) * to have a good knowledge of legal possibilities for money transfer or spending for each country involved. * to see how money can be gathered collectively and spend for global good (such as through a grant asked by several chapters at the same time)
This is precisely what we have been discussing at Wikimania and the reason for the chapter-l mailing list and a new wiki. Right now, coordination is very weak and communication insufficient. It would be the main role of the chapter coordinator to ensure a better communication occur, and ultimately to work on budget coordination with Mav.
You may see a description of the role here : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter_co-ordinator
Since it has been mentionned recently that description of roles where not sufficient, please do not hesitate to complete or comment on that proposition.
ant
Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
German users will very probably give to the Verein again, and if the french association is ready, french users will very probably give to the Wikimedia France as well.
Wouldn't it be better to give those willing to donate two links - to the Foundation and the Verein, with a description of what each does with the money?
Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida? And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
As people said, for tax reasons (to get deductions), people will always want to donate locally.
I work for a U.S.-based non-profit that has been trying to get money from its German chapter, which is a stand-alone Eingetragener Verein. We have not been able to do that; tax implications according to our German lawyers are too severe, meaning the German tax authorities are threatening to take the non-profit status away.
From the U.S. side, the theory, I'm being told, is to make all non-US chapters "friends-of" organizations. This is not an officially recognized term, much like there is no officially recognized international non-profit. However, it is a practice recognized by the IRS. Key supposedly is to have stable predictable behavior (ie cashflows). Then they won't be on your back.
Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
Dirk
Interested in wikis? Please go to http://www.wikisym.org! Take a Geek's Tour of Silicon Valley! http://www.ageekstour.com Dirk Riehle | +49 172 184 8755 | http://www.riehle.org
Dirk Riehle wrote:
Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
Dirk
This is just a thought out loud, but what possible arrangements could be made for not necessarily returning the money to the US, but using funds from local chapters that may be furthering goals in 3rd countries? i.e. spending money on developers in 3rd world countries, helping develop specific language wikis, seed money for new chapters, etc.? Or is the money "stuck" in Germany proper and can't go anywhere else at all for any reason?
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Dirk Riehle wrote:
Transfering money out of the U.S. has not been a tax problem for us, the IRS so far has played nicely with us. But getting money from Germany to the U.S. has eluded us. If you figure out how to do it without endangering non-profit status in Germany, please let me know!
Dirk
This is just a thought out loud, but what possible arrangements could be made for not necessarily returning the money to the US, but using funds from local chapters that may be furthering goals in 3rd countries? i.e. spending money on developers in 3rd world countries, helping develop specific language wikis, seed money for new chapters, etc.? Or is the money "stuck" in Germany proper and can't go anywhere else at all for any reason?
Good point.
A week ago, at Wikimania, when it was pointed out that the german chapter had money, while the french and the italian did not, I suggested that possibly some of the german money could be used for other chapters, in particular when there is common currency and these countries are in certain common frame (here, european union). I am not sure I got a positive feedback on this (nor a negative actually).
Maybe it would help to clarify in which cases we could actually use the money and in which we can not.
As I understood things, what we can not do is simply transfer from one organisation to another, which is totally fair.
Here are some examples where I would like to know if feasible or not.
* buying hardware and "donating" the hardware to the foundation (this would typically be the case for servers; but is that possible ? why would donating hardware more acceptable than donating money ?)
* buying hardware, putting it in the general pot, but staying the owner (maybe for such things as certain servers, switches, memory stick (:-)))
* paying for some of the costs for some meetings (in Germany is easy enough to imagine, but would it be possible for example for the German verein to fund a Polish meetup ?)
* paying some travel costs which would otherwise be paid by the Foundation (easy enough probably would be to pay for some speakers to come to wikimania in Germany, but would it be possible for a german chapter to pay travel for Jimbo to Germany to meet with german partners, or for the german chapter to pay travel for Angela to go to South Africa to meet with some possible african partners ?)
* Paying for some promotional items (easy enough in german for a conference in Germany, but would it be possible to pay the publishing of an italian-language leaflet for a conference in Belgium for example ?)
* Paying people for certain activities (such as, but non restricted to, development). Could these people be paid if non german ? Could they be paid to work on global issues ? (for example, grant specialist ?)
And there is again the big discussion of whether there would be a way for a local chapter to make a official donation to another chapter or to the Foundation. Which would probably require a legal expert to say.
Other than that, I can also imagine financing specific projects, but these need to be defined (and set up). And *this* is the main issue. We can always say "let us use the german money to develop for example arabic wikipedia". Right, but who set this up ? Where are the volunteers ?
I do not think there is any bad will from anyone to use/spend this money, just need ideas, understand of what is legally authorized and volunteers to do the job.
All these being limited to german discussion as they now have money, but will be applied to all other chapters later on.
Do we have ideas on these first points ?
On 8/17/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
A week ago, at Wikimania, when it was pointed out that the german chapter had money, while the french and the italian did not, I suggested that possibly some of the german money could be used for other chapters, in particular when there is common currency and these countries are in certain common frame (here, european union). I am not sure I got a positive feedback on this (nor a negative actually).
The problem with this, like with almost every idea on how to spend the german money is that we don't really know yet if it's possible :(
Maybe it would help to clarify in which cases we could actually use the money and in which we can not.
This question is not easy to answer. The usual case for a charity organisation in Germany is to spend money for its own undertakings.
From what I know (I'm neither an expert in this field, nor am I the
treasurer) every other spending is more or less difficult. Spending money in Germany (for hardware or almost everything else) would be the easiest way. Likewise easy would it be to buy hardware in Germany and ship it to a data center, let's say in Amsterdam, providing the purpose of this hardware is easy to explain (to the tax office) in the sense that it can be separated from other things (eg. we wanted to buy a big tool server until a nice company came around and donated us one). Unfortunately, adding to the existing server park is much more complicated to explain to the tax office.
To pay for general hardware might be possible but would probably be much more difficult. For example, it *might* be possible to buy general hardware in Germany, send it to Amsterdam and explain how it is used to the tax office. This gets much more complicated if we buy hardware in the US and add it to an existing pool. The idea is that starting a whole new data center, anywhere in the world, as our own undertaking, run by German money, would be easier to endorse as a "Wikimedia Deutschland undertaking".
If Wikimedia Deutschland´s money is to be only a part of an existing pool, then we need a clear idea of what Wikimedia wants to do (not only now, but also in the next year or the year after). Then, and only then, once we have a plan, a budget... we can ask a tax professional to tell us, how this is possible and how - which paperwork (project descriptions, contracts) is needed. To be sure that the tax office will accept this later, we need to ask them beforehand. This will take time, perhaps a few months (until they might respond with more questions ...)
So far we (or at least I) have no idea what the mid-term plans are. Some months ago the Kennisnet cluster seemed to be a comparative easy option. But as I understood Jimbo, this is not an option "now". As I said above this "now" is part of our problem. Given the work and time it needs to find *one* way to spend a lot of our money and given the fact that Wikimedia Deutschland not only now has money but will probably have much more in the next months and years it would be much more effective to work on mid-term plans. I wonder if this is possible.
- paying some travel costs which would otherwise be paid by the
Foundation (easy enough probably would be to pay for some speakers to come to wikimania in Germany, but would it be possible for a german chapter to pay travel for Jimbo to Germany to meet with german partners, or for the german chapter to pay travel for Angela to go to South Africa to meet with some possible african partners ?)
Yes, we can pay for travel costs (in principle). But I'm not sure what the tax office would say if we spent 10k Euro for travel expenses, for people who are not flying from or to Germany or are not somehow connected with Wikimedia Deutschland.
BTW: As far as I know Wikimedia Deutschland did agree on paying 50% of Tim's ticket for his trip to Berlin in December 2004. We never reimbursed the money to the Foundation because we never got a bill :(
- Paying for some promotional items (easy enough in german for a
conference in Germany, but would it be possible to pay the publishing of an italian-language leaflet for a conference in Belgium for example ?)
Yes, we can pay for promotional items (in principle). Unless we don't spend huge amounts on this, nobody will ask us, in which language the stuff is printed and where and to whom it was given.
- Paying people for certain activities (such as, but non restricted to,
development). Could these people be paid if non german ? Could they be paid to work on global issues ? (for example, grant specialist ?)
Yes, paying people to improve free software is totally ok, but again, this has to be well documented (what project is the developer working on?). A grants specialist working abroad would be harder to explain, but one in Germany working on grants in which Wikimedia Deutschland is involved should be no problem.
In all these discussions we also have to keep in mind that the German board is responsible for the money, and this not only in a legal way. This also has moral implications. To give an example: Even if it is legally okay, I would find it very hard to explain to the German donators that *all* of their money has been spent on plane tickets or a single development task or something like that.
I would be very happy if we can work together on other mid- or long-term ideas to spend our money. And while we are doing this we should give some money for some of the things mentioned above.
-- Arne (akl)
On 8/18/05, Arne Klempert klempert@gmail.com wrote:
I would be very happy if we can work together on other mid- or long-term ideas to spend our money. And while we are doing this we should give some money for some of the things mentioned above.
What do you think about giving money to some African(s) for improving some Wikipedia in some African language or to find some Roma (a lot of Romas from Balkans live in Germany) and to start Wikipedia in some of Roma languages? Also, there are no yet any Sorbian Wikipedia and all of Sorbians are German citizens.
Arne Klempert wrote:
Thanks for answering Arne
On 8/17/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
A week ago, at Wikimania, when it was pointed out that the german chapter had money, while the french and the italian did not, I suggested that possibly some of the german money could be used for other chapters, in particular when there is common currency and these countries are in certain common frame (here, european union). I am not sure I got a positive feedback on this (nor a negative actually).
The problem with this, like with almost every idea on how to spend the german money is that we don't really know yet if it's possible :(
Maybe it would help to clarify in which cases we could actually use the money and in which we can not.
This question is not easy to answer. The usual case for a charity organisation in Germany is to spend money for its own undertakings.
From what I know (I'm neither an expert in this field, nor am I the
treasurer) every other spending is more or less difficult. Spending money in Germany (for hardware or almost everything else) would be the easiest way. Likewise easy would it be to buy hardware in Germany and ship it to a data center, let's say in Amsterdam, providing the purpose of this hardware is easy to explain (to the tax office) in the sense that it can be separated from other things (eg. we wanted to buy a big tool server until a nice company came around and donated us one). Unfortunately, adding to the existing server park is much more complicated to explain to the tax office.
To pay for general hardware might be possible but would probably be much more difficult. For example, it *might* be possible to buy general hardware in Germany, send it to Amsterdam and explain how it is used to the tax office. This gets much more complicated if we buy hardware in the US and add it to an existing pool. The idea is that starting a whole new data center, anywhere in the world, as our own undertaking, run by German money, would be easier to endorse as a "Wikimedia Deutschland undertaking".
If Wikimedia Deutschland´s money is to be only a part of an existing pool, then we need a clear idea of what Wikimedia wants to do (not only now, but also in the next year or the year after). Then, and only then, once we have a plan, a budget... we can ask a tax professional to tell us, how this is possible and how - which paperwork (project descriptions, contracts) is needed. To be sure that the tax office will accept this later, we need to ask them beforehand. This will take time, perhaps a few months (until they might respond with more questions ...)
So far we (or at least I) have no idea what the mid-term plans are. Some months ago the Kennisnet cluster seemed to be a comparative easy option. But as I understood Jimbo, this is not an option "now". As I said above this "now" is part of our problem. Given the work and time it needs to find *one* way to spend a lot of our money and given the fact that Wikimedia Deutschland not only now has money but will probably have much more in the next months and years it would be much more effective to work on mid-term plans. I wonder if this is possible.
All right. In short, we should try to do some yearly budgeting for next year. I also wonder if this is possible, but possibly, with a full year past experience, this might be possible.
- paying some travel costs which would otherwise be paid by the
Foundation (easy enough probably would be to pay for some speakers to come to wikimania in Germany, but would it be possible for a german chapter to pay travel for Jimbo to Germany to meet with german partners, or for the german chapter to pay travel for Angela to go to South Africa to meet with some possible african partners ?)
Yes, we can pay for travel costs (in principle). But I'm not sure what the tax office would say if we spent 10k Euro for travel expenses, for people who are not flying from or to Germany or are not somehow connected with Wikimedia Deutschland.
Okay. This is why I suggested Angela. She is not a member of the german association, but definitely flying from Germany.
BTW: As far as I know Wikimedia Deutschland did agree on paying 50% of Tim's ticket for his trip to Berlin in December 2004. We never reimbursed the money to the Foundation because we never got a bill :(
Ouch. Right.
- Paying for some promotional items (easy enough in german for a
conference in Germany, but would it be possible to pay the publishing of an italian-language leaflet for a conference in Belgium for example ?)
Yes, we can pay for promotional items (in principle). Unless we don't spend huge amounts on this, nobody will ask us, in which language the stuff is printed and where and to whom it was given.
We should use this opportunity at next big meetup up in Europe (Fosdem type ?)
- Paying people for certain activities (such as, but non restricted to,
development). Could these people be paid if non german ? Could they be paid to work on global issues ? (for example, grant specialist ?)
Yes, paying people to improve free software is totally ok, but again, this has to be well documented (what project is the developer working on?). A grants specialist working abroad would be harder to explain, but one in Germany working on grants in which Wikimedia Deutschland is involved should be no problem.
For now, I can not think of a wise idea about this, but this is good to keep in mind.
In all these discussions we also have to keep in mind that the German board is responsible for the money, and this not only in a legal way. This also has moral implications. To give an example: Even if it is legally okay, I would find it very hard to explain to the German donators that *all* of their money has been spent on plane tickets or a single development task or something like that.
Agreed
I would be very happy if we can work together on other mid- or long-term ideas to spend our money. And while we are doing this we should give some money for some of the things mentioned above.
-- Arne (akl)
I suppose it would be easier as well to spend it on european-projects or areas. We probably need to make a second type of budget as well, involving the chapters. Could not a global budget, with certain expenses being dedicated to local chapters help getting understanding from the tax office ?
ermmm, and what about spending some of the money to get an expert in international organisations help to figure out how to organise all this ?
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
All right. In short, we should try to do some yearly budgeting for next year. I also wonder if this is possible, but possibly, with a full year past experience, this might be possible.
It should be possible to do so in draft form. You may have noticed that next quarter's draft budget is already done. I should have draft budgets for the first and second quarter of 2006 by the time it is finalized and made official. But I don't think we can have actual yearly budgets until budget growth stabilizes to something approaching linear increases.
I suppose it would be easier as well to spend it on european-projects or areas. We probably need to make a second type of budget as well, involving the chapters. Could not a global budget, with certain expenses being dedicated to local chapters help getting understanding from the tax office ?
We can specify needs and different chapters would be able to assist in whatever ways they legally can. Whatever they help with, will just negate the need to spend in that part of the budget and the surplus can be spent on special projects, go into the reserve, or get rolled into the next quarter's budget.
ASIDE: It seems ironic that a non-profit in the U.S. is freer to act internationally than similar organizations in the supposedly more internationally-minded Europe. :/
ermmm, and what about spending some of the money to get an expert in international organisations help to figure out how to organise all this ?
That will take a couple years - I plan to get an MBA in global management. :)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Tim Starling wrote:
Well, my understanding was that in the last fundraising drive, the fundraising link on the German Wikipedia went to a Verein website, and that they collected some 9,777 euro. So people did indeed donate to a local chapter *rather than* the Wikimedia Foundation.
The fundraising link went to the german fundraising page on the foundation homepage. There were the classical ways of donating by paypal offered as well as the possibility to send the money to the german bank account.
And as far as I know, that money is still unspent.
Mostly yes. See below.
Will the upcoming fundraising drive also direct German users to donate to the Verein, or will it direct donations to Florida?
In my opinion, it should allow people the choice, like last year.
And if donations will be collected by the Verein, do they have a public budget or plan for spending that money?
No, and I don't see it as realistic to have one before the transfer problems are sorted out and the foundation tells us where they need money. We are asking the foundation since quite some time how we can help. The last plan, to buy a big database server as central tool server for all the useful little programs around wikipedia, was spoiled by a generous donation (we got it as a gift).
So for now, the money goes into things that are needed locally, like a legal expertise for the users of the german wikipedia, promotion material for presentations on conferences, financial support to bring speakers to wikimania etc.
greetings, elian
On 8/17/05, Elisabeth Bauer elian@djini.de wrote:
So for now, the money goes into things that are needed locally, like a legal expertise for the users of the german wikipedia, promotion material for presentations on conferences, financial support to bring speakers to wikimania etc.
To avoid misunderstandings: Only a very little part of the money has already been spent, and there are no plans to spend huge amounts for local stuff. Around 30k Euro are waiting to be spent for servers and other international needs. When the Foundation signs the logo agreement with Wikimedia Germany we are able to get another 30k.
-- Arne (akl)
On 8/16/05, Robin Shannon robin.shannon@gmail.com wrote:
What about Australia - home of Tim Starling among many others - or even NZ if for some reason we are wanting to only hold these things in developed countries. But i dont see what is wrong with the idea of Brazil, India, SA, Argentina or somewhere similar. There are a reasonable number of wikimedians in the larger countries in the global south.
Perhaps you should talk to these Wikipedians and encourage them to take part in the city contest instead of talking about them ;) Such theoretical discussions are nice, but what is really needed are people on site who are willing and able to take care of organisation tasks.
-- Arne (akl)
Zachary Harden wrote:
My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from consideration.
For citizens of (much of) the EU, Australia, and Japan (and a few other places like Singapore and Brunei), there is no need for a visa at all. You just show up and come on in, no problem.
For China, the case you mention, according to the travel.state.gov website, the waiting time for an exchange visa (cultural exchange, one of the types of visas which could be used to visit a conference I think), is 1 day. Even an ordinary tourist visa has a wait time of only 17 days.
However my information is quite incomplete, and I am not arguing that the visa issue is a non-issue. I'm just saying that we should not make assumptions.
--Jimbo
On 8/16/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Zachary Harden wrote:
My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
For what it's worth, folks I know in Central and South America have nearly no chance to get here (into the US) on a tourist visa unless: * they have a really really high-paying job in their country of origin, and/or * have a lot of kids in their country of origin, and/or * own a lot of real estate in their country of origin
The US is very picky, and if there's any likelihood that people will not return from a country, they will not issue the visa. From past experience, the same applies to other countries (I know of similar experiences in Russia).
For North America I would instead recommend Canada. It's fairly easily accessible by car or plane from the US and as far as I know has less restrictive visitor policies.
-ilya haykinson
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from consideration.
Exactly. Part of the bid process for each potential host city can and should look into these issues. We should also look at where people are likely to come from and at what total participation would be for any event in any city bid.
No nation should be excluded at this point. Each bid should be looked at in its entirety. Some parts of the bid may be less than ideal (such as access from certain other nations or cost of travel), but other parts of the bid could very well make up for that.
We could also explore ways to help mitigate against worst cases (such as the foundation contacting the host citys government beforehand to see if tourist visas could be more easily granted for the event ; Im sure many governments do that for conferences).
In the future we may also want to have national WikiMeets.
-- mav
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
For citizens of (much of) the EU, Australia, and Japan (and a few other places like Singapore and Brunei), there is no need for a visa at all. You just show up and come on in, no problem.
Well, at least people from Poland and Greece do need visas to get into the US.
On 8/16/05, Paweł 'Ausir' Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:
For citizens of (much of) the EU, Australia, and Japan (and a few other places like Singapore and Brunei), there is no need for a visa at all. You just show up and come on in, no problem.
Well, at least people from Poland and Greece do need visas to get into the US.
The visa issues are numerous: 1- how easy is it to get a visa? 2- who can issue the invitations to allow someone to get a visa? 3- how attractive is the country and how much visa fishing will the conference prompt?
1 is, in my opinion, not a problem, as long as we have a strong 2 to issue the invitations. We just have to think about it in advance and make sure all people ask for their visa in advance. Having the Foundation as a recognized charity in the US for example, does make things easier than they would be in a country where getting a visa is difficult *and* we have no legal representation.
3 is... a bummer. We stopped counting the phony applications we had for Wikimania this year three days after we opened registration. The US in that respect will definitely attract lots of people fishing for invitations. *sigh*
This said, in my opinion, neither of the 3 should play too strong a role in having/or not having Wikimania in the US. We just have to be prepared.
Best,
Delphine
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Jimmy Wales wrote:
Zachary Harden wrote:
My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from consideration.
I agree.
For citizens of (much of) the EU, Australia, and Japan (and a few other places like Singapore and Brunei), there is no need for a visa at all. You just show up and come on in, no problem.
... but are iris-scanned, photographed, and fingerprinted as part of that process (oh, and you have to not check the box marked "I am a member of a Communist organisation" ;-)). For some, this treatment of people willing to come to a country and give her money as if they were criminals is rather rude and a non-minor infringement of civil rights; certainly, personally, I would have... difficulty overcoming this and foregoing my moral objections to being seen to acquiesce to such a scheme.
For China, the case you mention, according to the travel.state.gov website, the waiting time for an exchange visa (cultural exchange, one of the types of visas which could be used to visit a conference I think), is 1 day. Even an ordinary tourist visa has a wait time of only 17 days.
That's not terrible. But what about Iran (which did happen at WM05)? Pakistan? Saudi Arabia? Palestine? Chechnya? Etc. There are quite a few countries that are hard to get visas from to visit the EU and the States, and we should work out the cost vs. the benefit (if, say, it's impossible to get a visa to a conference in the PRC from the ROC, but we have no-one at all expressing interest, well, that's not so much a problem; if, OTOH, there are dozens of active users, this is more serious).
However my information is quite incomplete, and I am not arguing that the visa issue is a non-issue. I'm just saying that we should not make assumptions.
Completely agreed.
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Zachary Harden wrote:
My country, the United States, is very hard to get into and some of our Wikipedians from overseas will have problems getting in, such as those coming from China.
This is widely believed, but is it actually true?
We should get some hard facts before excluding the US completely from consideration.
According to a statement in the English language newspapers in Thailand about a year ago, over 90% of people applying for a visa to the US at the Bangkok embassy get refused. It was published in an article in which they also published a list of requirements and ask people to think before they apply. This was a reaction to a critical article in one of the papers about the hefty fees you have to pay to apply for a US visa and which you do not get back, even when refused.
Waerth/Walter
On 8/15/05, Dori slowpoke@gmail.com wrote:
If I may suggest, I would say one requirement should be that it be held on a different continent each year.
We'd run out of continents quickly, and I'm not just talking about the seventh year. :)
It would be desirable to diversify to other continents if possible, there seems to be no good reason to restrict it so early in the game. There was talk towards the end of WM'05 that perhaps Asia (China/Singapore/Japan) or North America (Canada) would be great candidates. But Dutch and French folks have much more critical mass of organization/staffing, that we should not rule them out entirely.
Much of the problem is that the German folks did such an amazing job,that it's such a hard act to follow with anything but the largest Wikipedia communities.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Dori wrote:
If I may suggest, I would say one requirement should be that it be held on a different continent each year.
We discussed this after Wikimania, and conclusion was that the contest should be open to submissions from all continents. Having it on a different continent is certainly desirable (and the jury will take this into account) but it should be a soft requirement.
greetings, elian
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org