I agree with the sentiments in here. I'm also not sure that using WMF's mission statement as the objects is even a particularly good idea.

We have a particular responsibility to UK wikimedians, and a particular responsibility to fulfil those goals within the UK. I would suggest broadly sticking to Alison's original objectives.

(Link for convenience: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives )

Tom

-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Cates Sent: 03 October 2008 12:07 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Objectives Discussion Thread

By all means try but if I were the charity commission (and I am not, but we have had a lot of problems with seemingly minor changes to our byelaws) I would raise the question "what happens when the Wikimedia Foundation changes its vision and mission". By referring this objective to something whose change does not require charity commission consent, you are effectively allowing changes to the byelaws without their permission, which they would not accept. Explicitly restating the current vision helps, of course, but they may insist that you tie down the phrase "the vision and mission of the Wikimedia Foundation" to a particular version in time, for example by saying:

through helping to creating a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge by empowering and engaging people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate educational content under a free license or in the public domain (which is the current vision and mission of the Wikimedia Foundation).

It is not inconceivable that the Wikimedia Foundation could change its mission to something which would be allowable as charitable in the US but no in the UK (for example, as far as I know Greenpeace failed to get charitable status in the UK but succeeded in the US). But if you wish to avoid this I would fix the wording now explicitly on this point.

Andrew

2008/10/3 Andrew Turvey raturvey@yahoo.co.uk:

I've added my suggestion to the meta page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives:

"The charity's objects are the promotion of education for all through assisting the vision and mission of the Wikimedia Foundation: Creating a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge by empowering and engaging people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate educational content under a free license or in the public domain"

Might need a bit of work in terms of getting it to flow.

It's very easy for us to explain how this is exclusively charitable and

for

the public benefit ("promotion of education" and "for all") and hence keep the Charity Commission happy. It's expressed in a way that keeps our autonomy so we are not controlled by a foreign organisation not registered with the UK Charity Commission.

By explicitly referring to the vision of the WMF, we comply with ChapCom's http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requirements_for_future_chapters which

state

"The mission of the organisation must be in line with the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation"

This leaves everything flexible, so projects that WMUK may come up with

in,

say, 10 years time, would not require us to rewrite the M&As.

The details of what we're actually planning to do - wikimania, schools

etc.

shoudl also be discussed and agreed (I suggest at the AGM in January) but

I

suggest we leave the Mem&Arts objectives broad.

Andrew

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NB: We wrote the WMUK v1 objectives to be clearly charitable but allow us considerable leeway within that.

That's definitely the route I would recommend. Obviously, we have no choice but the make them charitable, but there is no reason to restrict ourselves more than is necessary. I would suggest a combination of specific objects (possibly referencing the Wikimedia projects, although maybe not the foundation itself, certainly not anything that would give the foundation power to change our objects - I very much doubt that would be legal) and more general ones. The specific objects outline what we actually intend to do while the more general ones make sure we can do other things as well if we want to in the future.

10. undertaking any enterprise or business and generally do all such

other things as may be conducive to promoting the objects of the charity.

For the record, I strongly object to that object. It's not an object, it's a power and it's already in the default powers (in a much more concise wording). It's 4(1)(m):

"to do all such other lawful things as are necessary for the achievement of the Objects."

On Sat, October 11, 2008 00:19, Mickey Conn wrote:

It does seem unnecessary to me. Can anyone explain what it adds to the default powers? If nothing, than let's remove it.

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:32 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:

...

...

10. undertaking any enterprise or business and generally do all such

other things as may be conducive to promoting the objects of the charity.

For the record, I strongly object to that object. It's not an object, it's a power and it's already in the default powers (in a much more concise wording). It's 4(1)(m):

"to do all such other lawful things as are necessary for the achievement of the Objects."

Companies 101: It's a legal nicety to prevent problems later. Whilst a Company may have the 'power' to anything it is limited to only doing things that its 'Objects' permit it to do, thus even though the power to do something to the overall benefit of the Company may seem reasonable if it wasn't actually defined under the 'objects' as something that /could/ be done then a shareholder (in this instance a Guarantor member) could, legally, go to law to prevent it happening.

Companies are only allowed to do the things that their Objects permit (ie require) them to do. This is why the final Object for just about every company is of the "do anything else appropriate" form as it covers all the possible bases and stops others preventing it from doing useful stuff. If it isn't an explicit object it effectively doesn't exist.

Alison

I'm going to try to give a quick reply to the below in my flu-addled state. Been kind of busy this week up till now.

0=e) I'm not entirely comfortable with the introductory speal ("the charity's objects are blah dee blah dee blah"). Firstly shouldn't it be object singular? Secondly, can we cut the heritage gumph. There's only any point having this sentence at all if it coincides with WMF's objectives. We have heritage covered in what comes later (and heritage resources are by definition also educational resources), it's not like we're going to be buying up stately homes and preserving them. Plus wtf does "advancement of heritage for all" mean anyway? That we're all going to be plastered in Laura Ashley wallpaper? (OK I'm being facetious, but whatever happens that needs rewriting.) I'm also not sure about "by means which may include all or any of the following ". Perhaps "by means including but not limited to" would be better, but even this is potentially limiting as the WMF mission statement is. If we just treated everything equally in one long list of objects (including both the WMF mission statement and the currently numbered items) then we'd have maximal scope. 4=a) No no no no no. We want to survive in the world possible world in which the WMF somehow becomes evil. Or at least if something like what happened in Spain were to happen here. (I can't remember the details now.) Thus mentioning the WMF = dumb (and is in any case unnecessary). b) I'm pretty sure we decided in the meeting that we didn't need to mention wikis, hence: "freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable". 10=c) I think I'm tentatively with TD on this one now. I suggest though that we leave it in for now but mark it as "subject to legal advice" (suggestion: put those bits as italic on the page for now). And then when my friend checks the MoA/AoA for us (potentially in parallel with the submission to ChapCom?) we'll get a definite answer one way or another.

Tom

-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mickey Conn Sent: 08 October 2008 01:25 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Objectives Discussion Thread

At the board meeting of 7th October, we put together a form of words for the Objectives http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives, but have not agreed a final version.

The new text states: ---- The charity's objects are the promotion of education and advancement of heritage for all by empowering and engaging people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate educational content and heritage resources under a free license or in the public domain by means which may include all or any of the following:

1. promoting freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable; 2. acting as a voice and representative for the community of UK residents and citizens who use and edit such repositories; 3. preserving world heritage, and particularly that of the UK, through such repositories; 4. supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation; 5. enabling, assisting, promoting and promulgating wider participation in the creation, dissemination and expansion of information and educational resources covering the world's knowledge and languages to all persons, everywhere; 6. furthering the development of electronic, printed, and other resources required to support such participation; 7. producing, publishing and developing, or cause to be produced, published and developed, information resources, whether in printed, electronic, or other forms; 8. making use of or encouraging the use of information resources for the advancement of education; 9. encouraging the adoption of practices and policies to widen education, participation and dissemination of information worldwide; and 10. undertaking any enterprise or business and generally do all such other things as may be conducive to promoting the objects of the charity. ----

The main questions raised at the board meeting were:

a) whether the text should specifically mention the Wikimedia Foundation; b) whether the text should specifically mention wikis; c) whether point #10 is clear, necessary and in line with charitable status; d) whether the organisation should be a "voice and representative for the community of UK residents and citizens", or for everyone with a connection to the UK; e) whether this list format is the best manner in which to describe our objectives.

This is the starting point; the board now need the views of the community. So please comment and make proposals, on this list, and on meta, within the next few days.

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I like mentioning heritage, but it does raise the question of why we don't also mention the advancement of culture.

What kind of activities do you see the chapter doing to advance culture?

2008/10/12 Mickey Conn mickey.conn@gmail.com:

Primarily, promoting the use of, and contribution to, wikis in minority languages.

That's education - getting knowledge to speakers of those languages. And possibly heritage - rescuing source documents written in those languages. I don't see how what we'll do involves culture, we're not writing literature in minority languages.

e), we currently have twin goals: the advancement of heritage and promotion of education for all. If we drop one, it's singular; as it is, I think it reads better to regard them as plural. The Charity Commission guidance on permissible purposes is at [http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/spr/ca2006prov.asp#0]; the key line here is "the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science". I like mentioning heritage, but it does raise the question of why we don't also mention the advancement of culture.

Well, we're aiding the advancement of all four of those by supporting the free distribution of knowledge. From the point of view of science, distributing knowledge is of fundamental importance to the advancement of science - up there with doing experimental tests (if you do a test but don't spread the resulting knowledge around to everyone, then it's useless). Heritage is obvious in the digital preservation of documents and information, as well as photographic/ audio/video records. Arts is more tricky, but I would have thought that communication is also as fundamentally important there as it is in science. Finally, one could argue that Wikimedia is turning into a culture in its own right - it's certainly playing a role in the cultural changes coming about as a result of the internet.

I don't want to argue that our goals consist of all of the buzz- words; perhaps something more simple like stating that the fundamental objective is "The charity's objective is the collection and distribution of all forms of knowledge to all under a free license or in the public domain, by means ...[etc]"?

Mike