Florence Devouard wrote:
Let me thank you for the words of appreciation of the Foundation :-)
I fully understand your need of an organization to help "make contacts", maybe because I saw several french wikipedians negociate pretty well to get press access to political meetings during our elections in France. It was done through the french chapter, and I am pretty sure it largely helped them to refer to the association and to be able to show a nice business card referring to the association, with an appropriate email address.
Being able to officially use the logo on business cards and being able to claim some level of officialness would greatly help us. The @wikinewsie.org e-mail address has already greatly improved responses. Even silly things like wearing a Wikinews polo shirt have improved response. These are all however effective solely because they convey a false sense of officialness, except in the places lucky enough to have chapters where even then they must make a very clear separation between the press activities and the association.
Regarding your suggestion, I tend to share the same level of thinking than Schiste. Wondering how it would work on an international scale. Wondering how chapters could help here. Wondering who would govern that Foundation. How would needs of non english wikinews be taken into account. Etc...
There is no reason why this foundation could not support non-english Wikinews. We actually already have several people with accreditation from non-english Wikinews editions. This puts the English language Wikinews in an awkward spot of denying many request for credentials because the people are to represent the English language Wikinews. At the moment if you do not speak and write English you can not get accreditation. This is a problem a foundation could resolve. There is no reason this foundation like the Wikimedia could not be multilingual.
Governance of a foundation would probably be in the style of an elected board elected either from/by the members of the Wikinews communities or by the community selected accredited reporters. For practical reasons it would probably be set up as a South Carolina based nonprofit(though if we can get someone else to establish it in a better location all the better :) ). South Carolina has a low fee for nonprofits, the legal benefits of being in the United States and is very convenient for me being where I currently live :) . The foundation location is only of concern for setup and basic legal requirements. All of the day to day actions of this foundation would be handled online or for stuff like verifying accreditation via mail and phone.
-Craig Spurrier [[n:Craig Spurrier]]