An idea among those who were suggested for the french wikipedia.

If there is in France an special event, in which it is really interesting for someone to go to represent Wikipedia, there may be some costs associated. For example, for many events, there is an entrance fee. We might also consider paying for the train ticket of the attender, or his hotel night. We might also want him to get there by car, with the trunk filled up with Wikipedia tee-shirts for sale (the representant would have had to buy them to the shop beforehand).

I understood that there are parallels with Jimbo, who pays the trip and hotel night of Jason when a trip to visit the servers is necessary.

It would be really non efficient to change these euros into dollars, to switch them back into euros afterwards. And it would really be losing time to have an american understand what to do, to hire a hotel room in a specific european city.

I also think that domain prices would likely be in euros, not dollars.

For entirely similar reasons, I kept a bank account in the USA, as it is wiser to pay an american firm directly in dollars from an american bank, than in euros from my local bank.

Sascha Noyes a écrit:

On Wednesday 21 January 2004 09:04 pm, Kurt Jansson wrote:

...

The German Wikipedia community is working on setting up an "eingetragener Verein" (I found these translations on dict.leo.org: "incorporated society", "membership corporation", "registered association", don't know which one fits best). Presumably the foundation meeting will take place in february, we will apply for tax exempt status soon afterwards.

Our goals are

1. to be able to collect donations (tax-free)
2. to communicate with organisations from outside the project in a more

professional, official way (e.g. with universities or foundations)

There has also been a bit of talk about using the association as an democratic institution for decision making, but nothing has been decided yet. I'd say we should only use the association for this in case of emergency or when all other attempts fail.

For more information you can feed Babelfish with these URLs: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein/Satzung

I shall volunteer to translate the pertinent parts from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verein if there is interest among the current decision makers (ie. Jimbo)

...

Jimbo, is this okay for you? Do you have any wishes or worries? The association will support all Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia. We will support the whole international project, and transfer part of the donations to the foundation if this is legaly possible, but focus on the German-speaking projects. Of course we're not planning a fork, and of course there is no cabal, at least not a German one.

If donations for wikipedias (no matter what language) do not go exclusively towards paying for 'central' things like hardware, bandwidth (in the future), wikipedia 1.0, getting some DB expert to optimise mediawiki, etc., then what does the money get spent on? Publicity? (I still maintain that word-of-mouth is superior to every other form of publicity). Conventions (synonym: "Meetings" - as "conventions" is ambiguous)? Juristiction-specific legal representation and advice?

In other words: What is the motivation for not giving all the money to wikimedia? (obviously minus upkeep expenses). I'm not trying to be antagonistic, just inquisitive.

I've read de:Wikipedia:Verein but have not found a reason (under "Gründe") why not de-facto all of the money should go to wikimedia. The main reasons (given on de:Wikipedia:Verein) for the establishment of the Verein is effective communication with the German-speaking populace, the ability to solicit tax-deductable donations, and officially representing the interests of wikimedia in Germany. (about the last point, it is written on de:Wikipedia:Verein that a direct intervention by the wikimedia foundation is not possible because of the language barriers and the unsettled ("unsettled" in the sense that no proper conclusion has been reached) legal situation / legal position. (Please do inform me if the translation is not 100% accurate)

Best, Sascha Noyes

On Thursday, January 22, 2004 12:40 PM Peter Gervai grin@tolna.net wrote:

...

The German Wikipedia community is working on setting up an "eingetragener Verein" (I found these translations on dict.leo.org:

[...]

...

Jimbo, is this okay for you? Do you have any wishes or worries? The association will support all Wikimedia projects, not just Wikipedia. We will support the whole international project, and transfer part of the donations to the foundation if this is legaly possible, but focus on the German-speaking projects. Of course we're not planning a fork, and of course there is no cabal, at least not a German one.

How this association going to be related to wikimedia foundation and its projects? Is wikimedia going to be sued based on german laws from then on? Is your association going to be sued based on the content of any wikimedia project, or the content of the german wikipedia?

Wikimedia Germany calls itself a "sister organization" of Wikimedia Foundation. IMHO that doesn't mean a legal relation, so WM Germany is not responsible for things done by the WM Foundation and vice versa.

It's quite the same wording as in the by-laws of FSF Europe referring to the Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsfeurope.org/about/legal/constitution.en.html

According to this there is also no legal relation between WM Germany and the projects of the Foundation (including the German-speaking Wikipedia).

Arne [[de:Benutzer:Akl]]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 11:06:21AM -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:

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"PG" == Peter Gervai grin@tolna.net writes:

and take responsibility. It's pretty wishy-washy to try to have it both ways.

You didn't get the point. It's not about their willingness. It is about the differences of legal anvironment between US and DE. Maybe it's legal to talk about nazism in the US and maybe you get to jail for it in germany. Maybe a definite percent of Wikipedia articles legal in the US and illegal in DE. Do you want to get US WIKIMEDIA sued because they are present in german law environment? Do you want de-us.wikipedia.org and de-de.wikipedia.org for separating articles which are not legal in germany? Having a censored mirror maybe? (Bad words changed to stars? THere are funny ideas in the politics field.)

IANAL, but should be taken consideration. I'm not against it. I'm not for it. Just giving input, that's all I do.

[[user:grin]]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 05:03:57PM -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:

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"PG" == Peter Gervai grin@tolna.net writes:

PG> You didn't get the point.

No, I didn't. That was the upshot of my message.

PG> It's not about their willingness. It is about the differences
PG> of legal anvironment between US and DE. Maybe it's legal to
PG> talk about nazism in the US and maybe you get to jail for it
PG> in germany. Maybe a definite percent of Wikipedia articles
PG> legal in the US and illegal in DE. Do you want to get US
PG> WIKIMEDIA sued because they are present in german law
PG> environment? Do you want de-us.wikipedia.org and
PG> de-de.wikipedia.org for separating articles which are not
PG> legal in germany? Having a censored mirror maybe? (Bad words
PG> changed to stars? THere are funny ideas in the politics
PG> field.)

I'm confused about this example. How would having a German foundation fix this situation? Would they take on the publisher role that Wikimedia has now? Would this just be nominal, or would the German foundation actually operate the de.w.o site?

Exactly my point, and the reason of my original question.

But if Jimbo gots any response from a german lawyer then they can reveal the answers. I do not know what is the exact purpose of the foundation. Gathering money for wikimedia? Gathering for themselves operating mirrors? Or something else? I'm sure the german editors already know the answer to these question.... I hope. :)

Peter

But if Jimbo gots any response from a german lawyer then they can reveal the answers. I do not know what is the exact purpose of the foundation. Gathering money for wikimedia? Gathering for themselves operating mirrors? Or something else? I'm sure the german editors already know the answer to these question.... I hope. :)

Gathering money is the first step. Since we do not know exacly, how much money this will be, we can not exactly plan, what to do with this money. There are two ways of gathering the money:

1. Members have to pay for the membership (actually the plan ist 12-24 Euro per year) 2. (Try to) get (tax-free) donations.

Some money is needed for the organisation itself. For example each year we have to held a meeting, and every member has to be informed. We actually dont know if it is allowed to use e-mail for that (what we would prefer), but if not we have to use snail-mail, and for that reason we would need at least 1€ per member each year.

As you see on that example, german laws are very complicated. It already took much time to find out what to do, just to found the "e.V." (and there are still some points which are not clear). As more as we plan for the future, the time needed to find out "how to do what" increases exponantially. Thus most people prefer to make one step after another, look what happens in detail and react in the best way.

For example, we do not know how many members the "e.V." will have. I think it will be at least 20, but it could be 100 or 1000. We do not know that. And there is now (easy) way to find out this exacly. But as you can imagine it is a difference if we get 240 € each year from 20 members or 12.000 € from 1000 members. Furthermore we do not know how much we get by donations. The only way to find out is just founding the "e.V." and see what happens.

One idea is to use the money for prefinancing merchandising. I think that way we could offer t-shirts and such things much cheaper. Thus we could increase the income of the "e.V." and promote wikipedia/wikimedia much more.

Another ideas is to finance courses, meetings and so on, to teach editors/hackers.

Also sending money to the Wikimedia foundation is an option (but we do not know yet if this is allowed). But even if this is no option, there are other options to support the wikimedia foundation. May we could print t-shirts here and send 500 (?) pieces to the foundation which sales them in America?

But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in detail, since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.

--Ivo Köthnig

Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 17:11 schrieb Jimmy Wales:

Ivo Köthnig wrote:

...

Gathering money is the first step. Since we do not know exacly, how much money this will be, we can not exactly plan, what to do with this money.

Gathering money is not the first step, then. It would be irresponsible for us to gather money without a plan for what to do with the money.

No, the problem is that we have many ideas what to do, but there is no money to realize that. Of course you have these plans before collecting money, but we dont go to the details until we have it. That was, what I meant with first step is collecting money (in bottom of the mail are some more detailed examples).

And of course the very first step is to found that "e.V." to make it easier to collect the money and spread the risks over more than one or two persons.

And as Kurt sayed thats not the only reason. For example, we want an official organisation which can speak for the project. At the moment we always have to say: "Oh, this is Kurt, he has written some articles, like 10000 others." (Note: Yes, it are so many registered users in the german wikipedia now.) It sounds much better if you say: "This is Kurt (or whoever). He is the president of the German Wikimedia Foundation..."

For the englisch wikipedia that never was a big problem since there was always Jimbo, who has started the project, which sounds good enough...

Or let there be some problems with copyright and someone in germany get sued? An offical german organisation could help much faster in that case.

Next point is, if someone violates our copylefts in germany (what allready happens). Here is nobody, who is able to create pressure to such a person. You can not write: "Hey, I am Ivo Köthnig, I have written some articles in the wikipedia. Please stop violating the GFDL."

That also are some examples which show, that it is not so bad to collect some money unspecific.

...

Some money is needed for the organisation itself. For example each year we have to held a meeting, and every member has to be informed. We actually dont know if it is allowed to use e-mail for that (what we would prefer), but if not we have to use snail-mail, and for that reason we would need at least 1? per member each year.

I will gladly provide funds for anything of that nature. I would prefer that we keep all overhead for the use of donor funds to an absolute minimum for as long as possible.

I too ...

...

But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in detail, since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.

I think you have it exactly backwards. Collecting money with no specific plan for what is to be done with it is not a good idea at all.

That strongly depends on what dimension of money you think. If we talk about ordering new servers which costs between 10 or 20 TUSD, thats right. Than you should make a detailed plan of what you exacly want. At least to know how much this will cost in the end. (but even than you dont think about if you plug the usb-mouse in the left or the right port before you have got the money).

If we talk about making stickers or button to dispense them (may for free to promote wikipedia), you would not start to ask people to donate that 100 € you need for this. You would look in the cash box and decide wether you have left only 50 € to make 100 Buttons or if you have the 100 € to make 200 Buttons. And the best case would always be to have enough money to fullfill those small ideas.

There is nothing to prevent Europeans from being members of the international Wikimedia Foundation, either. There is nothing to prevent the international Wikimedia Foundation from engaging in any or all of the kinds of activities that you mentioned, either, either in Europe or in America.

Of course there is a problem for many people being a member of the international Wikimedia Foundation, since not everybody speaks english.

Also it makes no sence for me donating money for the Wikimedia Foundation, try to realize some projects in Europe or Germany and ask the foundation for money which is than send back (keep in mind what you sayed about the overhead).

--Ivo Köthnig

I hereby appoint Kurt to be Vice President, Germany, of the international Wikimedia Foundation. It's as easy as that, you know.

No, I dont know! May thats one of the problems. You do not exacly know how the "e.V." would work. And we (or I) do not know how the international Wikimedia Foundation works. May that should be explained in more detail and translated to the importand languages...

There is nothing to limit participation in the existing foundation, for anyone on earth.

Without having problems with the language!

...

Or let there be some problems with copyright and someone in germany get sued? An offical german organisation could help much faster in that case.

Yes, I can see that might be possible, but it is for this reason that I think it wise if we consult with a German attorney.

That needs money again. And until know there is no wikipedist in germany who does not says... "but I am not a lawyer". :-( May your idea with the mainpage will work...

--Ivo Köthnig

Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

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I hereby appoint Kurt to be Vice President, Germany, of the international Wikimedia Foundation.

Sorry Jimmy, but that's exactly the top-down strategy that should be reconsidered soon.

How is it top-down? If you all want to get together and elect someone, or if consensus on de.wikipedia.org is that some particular person should be the official spokesperson, then that can be done without any need for a new organization formed against my wishes or international oversight of any kind.

My point is that the argument "we need to have a spokesperson in Germany with an official title" is *not* in any way an argument for a separate organization. If someone needs a title, we can make arrangements for that already. It's a complete nonissue.

--Jimbo

Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

...

Yes, I can see that might be possible, but it is for this reason that I think it wise if we consult with a German attorney.

Just got the information here on the german list that it might be *illegal* for german attorneys to work pro bono (the money they might charge and must charge is stricltly reglemented here, and they must not not do stick out their head too much with anything that could be interpreted as "advertising themselves"). So probably it will get hard to find one. We have two attornies or at least law-professional among the german contributors (I guess), but one prefers to stay anonym and the other already didn't want to be admin because of the possible legal implications...

The consultation can be completely informal and not official advise, of course. Surely German lawyers aren't forbidden from chatting with me about such things.

Was my message posted on the website so that lots of people will have the opportunity to respond?

--Jimbo

One idea is to use the money for prefinancing merchandising. I think that way we could offer t-shirts and such things much cheaper. Thus we could increase the income of the "e.V." and promote wikipedia/wikimedia much more.

Another ideas is to finance courses, meetings and so on, to teach editors/hackers.

Also sending money to the Wikimedia foundation is an option (but we do not know yet if this is allowed). But even if this is no option, there are other options to support the wikimedia foundation. May we could print t-shirts here and send 500 (?) pieces to the foundation which sales them in America?

But as you can imagine it makes no sence to think about all that in detail, since we do not know, if we collect enough money to finance that.

--Ivo Köthnig

It reminds me of the fate of so many foundations, such as one I supported many years ago, against cancer. These foundations fest on donations. Most of the money collected is not used toward the presumed goal of the foundation, it is used for maintenance, for promotion, to look for more donations, to finance meetings, to pay for members travel costs.

It is true that anything that can enhance the cancerous growth of Wikipedia might be good, but what is that goal ? the real goal ?

Is it just to favor the growth of Wikimedia foundation ? Or is it to actually "bring" knowledge to those who don't have access to it ?

dunno, I may have missed something at some point :-(

Peter Gervai wrote:

Evan Prodromou wrote:

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>"PG" == Peter Gervai grin@tolna.net writes: >

and take responsibility. It's pretty wishy-washy to try to have it both ways.

You didn't get the point. It's not about their willingness. It is about the differences of legal anvironment between US and DE. Maybe it's legal to talk about nazism in the US and maybe you get to jail for it in germany. Maybe a definite percent of Wikipedia articles legal in the US and illegal in DE. Do you want to get US WIKIMEDIA sued because they are present in german law environment? Do you want de-us.wikipedia.org and de-de.wikipedia.org for separating articles which are not legal in germany? Having a censored mirror maybe? (Bad words changed to stars? THere are funny ideas in the politics field.)

I doubt that "talking" about Nazism would be illegal. It's "promoting" it that would be illegal. One also has to consider that there are other German speaking countries, like Switzerland. If this is a serious problem, rather than an imaginary one based on sombody's misunderstanding, one could create an intermediate boilerplate page containing something like the following:

Reading the page [[Nazism]] may be illegal in Germany. If you live outside of Germany or otherwise feel that this does not apply to you, please click [[here]] to continue. Otherwise use the back button in your tool bar.

Ec

Ivo Köthnig wrote:

...

I doubt that "talking" about Nazism would be illegal. It's "promoting" it that would be illegal. One also has to consider that there are other German speaking countries, like Switzerland. If this is a serious problem, rather than an imaginary one based on sombody's misunderstanding, one could create an intermediate boilerplate page containing something like the following:

Of course it is not illegal to talk about Nazism. Even "promoting" them is not illegal in most cases. But for example its illegal to lie about the holocaust or use some of (the old) symbols (for example the Hakenkreuz) for "promoting" Nazism. That means for example it is illegal to stick these symbols on you clothes.

Since Wikipedia has one rule, called NPOV, there never will be a problem with that, cause it is allowed to write "who lies about the holocaust" (we ourself would never lie about, just talking about these lies). It even is allowed to have pictures with the "Hakenkreuz" since it is allowed to show them for example in an educational context.

Your response is reassuring, but it also seems to negate the need for two separate German language databases. It shows that the intent of the person using this material is very important. There are people who will continue to submit bad material, but as long as we make appropriate edits when we find it we should be safe.

I would expect that this law would also extend to certain neo-Nazis who use other symbols that are different form though still modelled on the "Hakenkreuz" (swastika in English).

Ec

...

I would expect that this law would also extend to certain neo-Nazis who use other symbols that are different form though still modelled on the "Hakenkreuz" (swastika in English).

Your are right. That should concern some forbidden neo-Nazis-partys like FAP and there symbols. But I do not know exacly which symbols are allowed and which are forbidden.

That means, it depends what you want to say by showing them, if this is allowed or not.

--Ivo Köthnig

Kurt Jansson wrote:

Jimbo, what are the operating costs of de.w.o? And what are the costs for the whole project?

I don't know the answer to either of these questions, because I don't break it out that way.

It does occur to me that a German foundation ought to either be a simple subsidiary of the international foundation, or else it ought to not use the name Wikimedia at all. I am deeply concerned about the possibility of future conflict between different organizations, and think that we ought to arrange things so that this is essentially impossible because the two are united in terms of control.

--Jimbo

My concern is that unless there's some form of legal control by the Wikimedia Foundation over such international subsidiaries, there could be some divisiveness and heartbreak in the future. What can we do now to prevent such things in the future?

It would seem best to me if it is possible for the U.S. foundation to legally open an "office" in the legal sense in Europe, either for the entire EU or on a per-country basis.

If you want to open a foundation subsidiary that's not that easy: If there is a subsidiary of the Foundation in Europe (let's say in Germany), german law will apply. In that case some articles on the english WP would have be taken down, since they are likely to be illlegal by german law. Since taking down articles for that reason is very unlikely to happen, no one here in Europe can take responsibility for the Foundation directly without a more direct control over the content. So having a foundation subsidiary here will - set aside the technical (formal) difficulties - not work, since no one wants to do that job.

However, we need some sort of organization here in Germany. Otherwise, the major contributors who stick their head out to much (namlely the admins, even more namely Kurt) are endangered to be held liable (for copyright violations or whatever reason) in case someone tries to milk some money out of us (Remember the SCO/Linux-Case. We are far more endangered to have sleeping, undiscovered copyright violations than Linux ever was). We need some sort of organization to draw attraction of that particular sort to the organization and away from the admins.

Furthermore, we need it - as Kurt already mentioned - for collecting tax exempt donations and for better "marketing". The german Wikipedia is the second biggest Wiki in the world now - we are featured by one of the three big german news magazines next month, we need a more or less official representation of the german language Wikipedians in general and the german ones in particular. We need someone who can sign letters and speak officially for the community, not just a "press contact".

So that "Verein" must and will be founded. It's just the question if we name it Wikimedia or not. We would like to, because we feel ourselfes connected to the foundation, even if it should be - for the reason given above - no formal connection. Yet - as Kurt also already mentioned - one could think about a global organization putting those local organizations under a common roof with an international board. But let's take one step after the other. So let's try us first with "Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. ", and do our best to link that association with the foundation the best way possible.

Uli

I'm afraid that I don't really understand what you're saying. You seem to be saying two exactly opposite things. On the one hand, you say that we can't have a Foundation in Europe because if we do, it would be legally liable (for takedown notices and the like). On the other hand, you say that we need to have a Foundation in Europe so that it can take on that sort of legal liabilities.

I can tell you that I will not support any Foundation using the Wikimedia name that is formed without the ability to prevent it from doing bad things -- trust in the individuals involved is not enough, because over the passage of time, things may change, and I see grave dangers for us all in that regard.

I think that the solution is quite simple -- for the Wikimedia Foundation to form and control the German subsidiary. This subsidiary will give the ability for Germans to give tax deductible donations, will serve as a legal point of contact for any Germany-specific concerns, etc.

There are already talks in progress for us to do exactly that with a French foundation, and I will gladly pursue that in Germany as well, if that would be useful.

But I will not support a foundation using the Wikimedia name that might *or might not* send money to the international organization, and that might serve as a way for some people (not you, I am speaking 30 years in the future) to split the project or use it to make a lucrative income for themselves without regard to the overall goals of the international community.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

But I will not support a foundation using the Wikimedia name that might *or might not* send money to the international organization, and that might serve as a way for some people (not you, I am speaking 30 years in the future) to split the project or use it to make a lucrative income for themselves without regard to the overall goals of the international community.

Trademark diluation might be relevant here as well: if the Wikimedia Foundation owns the Wikimedia and Wikipedia trademarks in the US and EU (as I assume it will in the future), then we can't really allow another organization that is legally unrelated to the Foundation to call itself by those trademarks. I think?

-Mark

Anthere wrote:

...

But how could non english people have any implication in the current

wikimedia foundation ?

Is this a good time for suggesting that Wikimedia uses Esperanto as its means of communication?!

Anyway, I know basically nothing about law but how about something like 'The German Friends of Wikimedia' (in German obviously)? There's an organisation called 'The American Friends of Cambridge University' (or something like that) which uses the name of Cambridge University but is not a part of it as such (they donate money for scholarships and things like that). Would/could this be an acceptable solution?

Andrew (Ams80)

Anthere wrote:

But how could non english people have any implication in the current wikimedia foundation ?

1. Non English people have an equal right to vote for member representatives to the board as English speaking people

2. I fully support the creation of subsidiary foundations, to whatever extent is desirable, with additional representation there for 'locals' to that nation's foundation. I do not support any move of that type unless we do it carefully so as to completely eliminate any possibility of a "split" or "break" 20 years in the future.

----

Consider this possibility, 20 years from now. The international Wikimedia Foundation is publishing a nice print version of the Encyclopedia in French, for sale in France. This is a profitable venture, so that it is generating funds for whatever copyediting and production work that may be necessary to supplement the work of volunteers, as well as generating funds that permits the free distribution of the same work to schools in poor districts in France and in poor countries where French is a dominant language.

But, at that time, 20 years from now, the French foundation board thinks it would be nice to have a fancy job and an office and to have that revenue for expenditures on whatever, and so they sue the international foundation over the publication of the French edition using the Wikipedia name.

That's just one example, I'm sure you can immediately think of many more.

There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm, for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone. Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

--Jimbo

Ivo Köthnig wrote:

But what makes you sure that, the situation is not exactly reverse? In that case it may would be very good to have an independent french organisation, which fight for the original goals?

It is best if we set things up all around, so that corruption of our goals is practically impossible, and that organizational conflict due to poor organizational design is practically eliminated.

It is possible for poor choices to lead us into conflict, while good choices will lead us into harmony.

--Jimbo

Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

Jimmy, you will never be able to fully avoid this - all Wikipedia texts are GNU FDL.

But GNU FDL is a good thing, and people taking the texts to do whatever they want is a good thing. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a scenario in which there's a break within the organization, and that is something we can and should try to prevent with solid international co-operation and planning.

Worst case scenario: There might be quarrels in the future between the contributors from different countries, the majority of contributors of one country decides to set up it's own server. If they want to do so, this just will happen, and the foundation will not be asked. The only thing you are and should be able to avoid in such a situation is that such a spit-off-Wikipedia/media uses the name Wikipedia/Wikimedia.

But it is important for us to all work together _today_ to ensure that such splits don't happen in the future. Quarrels between contributors from different countries don't need to lead to that kind of organizational split, if we put into place procedures that push us all to work together as part of an international team.

I see the likelihood of a real break being much greater if we do not retain organizational simplicity and unity.

Again, we are not wanting, planning, or considering such a split. That is exactly WHY we want to use the name Wikimedia. If we don't use it, THEN the first step towards such a split would be done, because then you have two organizations with different names doing the same thing (supporting projects like Wikipedia) - that's already a symbolic split, even if one is sending money to the other.

I agree completely that it is much more desirable for there to be legal arrangements made so that we can use the Wikimedia name universally for the single international project. I do not support the idea of creating a separate organization of any kind, with or without the name Wikimedia. If a separate legal entity is useful, and surely it is, then yes I support that fully.

Actually, this is far more dangerous for the future than what we are trying to bring into life right now: An organization named Wikimedia also, having "supporting free content in general and the US Wikimedia Foundation in particular" as goal in it's bylaws, being run by Wikipedians, but legally independent from the foundation for a number of good reasons.

I oppose the legal independence and see no reason for it. But I need to talk to a German lawyer so that we can iron these issues out more clearly.

To further reduce the possibility of that situation, probably a paper can be signed by the country organizations stating that they are aware that they might use the Wikimedia name only as long as "approved" by the Wikimedia foundation. Then, in the worst case of a split-off, you have good changes to make the split-off organization change it's name. As stated above, there is no way to hinder such a split-off in general.

I think that's an excellent suggestion and likely the best way to proceed.

I doubt there is any legal way to have a foundation subsidiary here in Germany that is under german law (important for tax exemption and so on), open for german members but still completely controlled by the foundation. The highest board of every german e.V (and also of a german foundation) are democratic institutions, so everything is controlled by the members. If you want to open the organization for other members than the foundation (and you need at least 7 members for an e.V), you *must* give up control. I think that will hold true for every EU country, not just for Germany.

I have no opinion nor preference as to the exact details. If the organization has to be in a certain way, then it has to be in a certain way. But even in that case, it is crucial that legal controls be in place to ensure that such an organization does not someday become separated from the international movement.

We want to have an open community which acts bottom-up and not top-down. If that's not what you want, please say it, because then we know we must go ahead, choose another name and take the first step towards that split we all don't want.

I am 100% in favor of an open community w hich acts bottom-up and not top-down. But that community is, and must remain, truely international in character. The legal choices that we make can destroy that if we aren't careful.

What I ask you to do is to *not* go ahead, not so quickly, as there is no particular reason to hurry. We can spend several months exploring options and talking to a lawyer. Possibly my visit to Germany this summer would be a good target date for the launching of such a foundation, and I could be there to give my enthusiastic support.

But going out, this week, or this month, to form an organization in haste, without us all fully discussing and working out the details so as to achieve our mutual goals, seems unwise to me.

Let's target early June (when I will be in Berlin and Munich) for the date of a formal launch, and spend time between now and then carefully working on a plan.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm, for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone. Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

You are absolutely right. But I find it quite funny that in all your future scenarios the American foundation are always the good guys, while you fear the international ones might only want to make money out of the project. I can imagine other scenarios, for example a take-over of the American foundation with the help of many faked accounts is much more easy than in the German "e.V." where only "real" people are allowed to vote.

I can understand your concerns, but please try to imagine that many people on the international Wikipedias have exactly the same kind of concerns about the American foundation.

We need a system of Checks and Balances: The foundation should be able to control the national organisations, and in return they should be able to control the foundation. Elian proposed that a contract should be formulated with obligations for both sides, but I think this is a long process and the signing of course can only take place after the association is founded.

I'll now take a look at isoc.de, thanks for the hint, Lars.

(BTW, I missed the public discussion of the foundation's bylaws. Where did it take place?)

Kurt

Kurt Jansson wrote:

You are absolutely right. But I find it quite funny that in all your future scenarios the American foundation are always the good guys, while you fear the international ones might only want to make money out of the project.

That is not my intention at all, and I apologize if it seemed that way. That isn't what I mean at all.

I can imagine other scenarios, for example a take-over of the American foundation with the help of many faked accounts is much more easy than in the German "e.V." where only "real" people are allowed to vote.

Only real people are allowed to vote for member representatives here, too. That is no difference.

I can understand your concerns, but please try to imagine that many people on the international Wikipedias have exactly the same kind of concerns about the American foundation.

Of course, we should all be concerned about such things. And this is why I advise that we be very cautious and careful about our institutional arrangements. There's no reason why we can't preserve our ideals, while at the same time preventing inter-organizational conflict.

--Jimbo

Peter Gervai wrote:

...

There is no reason to think that the current group of people involved in Wikipedia would do any of that, but we must plan for the longterm, for what might happen 50 or 100 years from now, after we are all gone. Institutional decisions made today have ramifications many many years into the future, especially if we are not cautious.

Think ICANN.

(The board members have to sue one another to get the balance sheets. Pretty stinky. It used to be a useful, honest gang. Way back in the smelly tarpits of history.)

Precisely! We must take care to avoid such a thing.

--Jimbo

Jimmy Wales wrote:

I think that the solution is quite simple -- for the Wikimedia Foundation to form and control the German subsidiary. This subsidiary will give the ability for Germans to give tax deductible donations, will serve as a legal point of contact for any Germany-specific concerns, etc.

And on the other hand, German tax laws might require (I don't know) that the German organization be totally independent under its own bylaws in order to be registered ("incorporate") and qualify for tax exemption. I think I warned against this sort of conflict a year ago. I strongly recommend that you all look at how the German chapter of ISOC (which is an "e.V.", see www.isoc.de) has solved this. I assume they have a working model already, that could be copied. In fact, the ISOC chapter model could be copied for more countries than Germany, if Wikipedians want to form local chapters in their area.

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Lars Aronsson wrote:

...

I think that the solution is quite simple -- for the Wikimedia Foundation to form and control the German subsidiary. This subsidiary will give the ability for Germans to give tax deductible donations, will serve as a legal point of contact for any Germany-specific concerns, etc.

And on the other hand, German tax laws might require (I don't know) that the German organization be totally independent under its own bylaws in order to be registered ("incorporate") and qualify for tax exemption. I think I warned against this sort of conflict a year ago. I strongly recommend that you all look at how the German chapter of ISOC (which is an "e.V.", see www.isoc.de) has solved this. I assume they have a working model already, that could be copied. In fact, the ISOC chapter model could be copied for more countries than Germany, if Wikipedians want to form local chapters in their area.

In Norway, to get tax breaks, etc. the organiation has to be democratically organized. Which I guess wouldn't work for Wikimedia yet.

-- Daniel

But I will not support a foundation using the Wikimedia name that might *or might not* send money to the international organization, and that might serve as a way for some people (not you, I am speaking 30 years in the future) to split the project or use it to make a lucrative income for themselves without regard to the overall goals of the international community.

The last point should never happen, since it is not allowed to use the money in another manner as discribed in the statute of the "e.V.". If we change the statute (which is not that easy itself, since most members have to vote for the changes), we risk to lose the ability to collect money tax-free, in particular if we change it to make a lucrative income for ourselves.

I don't know if there is a way to make a contract, that the "e.V." is allowed to use the name "Wikimedia" as long as you allow this. (may someone should research this)

May that would be a solution for you, Jimbo?

Ivo Köthnig

Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 14:18 schrieb Jimmy Wales:

Ivo Köthnig wrote:

...

The last point should never happen, since it is not allowed to use the money in another manner as discribed in the statute of the "e.V.". If we change the statute (which is not that easy itself, since most members have to vote for the changes), we risk to lose the ability to collect money tax-free, in particular if we change it to make a lucrative income for ourselves.

I don't know if there is a way to make a contract, that the "e.V." is allowed to use the name "Wikimedia" as long as you allow this. (may someone should research this) May that would be a solution for you, Jimbo?

Yes, something along those lines is exactly what I have in mind.

I do not wish to stand in the way of progress. I only want to caution that we move slowly, carefully, and *together*.

Thats what I prefer too, maybe without "slowly". :-)

I am not a lawyer, but I have following idea in mind.

1. We (the german wikipedists) found the "e.V." with the name "Wikimedia" inside. 2. You (or the foundation) tell us (the founded e.V.) official, that you have the rights on the name "Wikimedia", but you allow us to use it, if we make a contract about that topic. 3. Both sign that contract.

The contract should fixate our goals as clearly as possible and usefull. That means, it should not contain something like "The e.V. can use this name as long as it has the same goals like the Wikimedia Foundation". It should explicite tell which goals that are.

Thus we get following situation: If the "e.V." changes it goals, you can say, that we are not allowed anymore to use the name "Wikimedia". If the Wikimedia foundation (for some reason) changes its goals, this does not effect us. You can not say we should change our name, since we does not violate the contract. Thus there would be an organisation with the name Wikimedia following the original goals, even if the Wikimedia foundation does not. Thus it saves the project in two ways.

--Ivo Köthnig

Magnus Manske wrote:

I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should be no problem, right?

Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to *represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.

--Jimbo

Am Freitag, 23. Januar 2004 22:08 schrieb Jimmy Wales:

Magnus Manske wrote:

...

I think Jimbo would be OK if we don't try to *represent* wikimedia foundation, but rather *support* it. "Friends of wikipedia e.V." should be no problem, right?

Yes, certainly, but I also have no problem with an organization to *represent* Wikimedia Foundation, but just so long as there is clarity and caution as to the risks of future conflicts.

The actual plan is to call it

"Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens",

that nearly means

"Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".

"Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for some reasons not wished by the majority.

--Ivo Köthnig>

Maybe the "fraction" calling for action now could found a wikimedia support group, not legally representing wikimedia. When we, after careful planning and coordination with Jimbo, get a German "subdivision" of the wikimedia foundation, we can either keep the support group, or merge it with the "official" group.

That would serve everyone, but create some organisatorical overhead.

That would serve no-one, and just create organisatorical overhead.

Uli

Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:

...

"Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens",

that nearly means

"Wikimedia Germany - society for promotion of free knowledge".

"Friends of wikipedia e.V." and several other variants was discussed but for some reasons not wished by the majority.

The majority didn't speak up that far, approx. 10-12 writers did participate in the discussion thus far.

2. Wait on actually forming anything at least until we get a German

lawyer to talk to me about all the ramifications. If you simply MUST form something now, please make it very clear that it can only be a "friends of Wikipedia" unless it is blessed by the board of the existing foundation.

Yes, that's also my proposal. Such a association/name would be good enough for talking to the press and even for collecting money. But honestly, since the said domain wikipedia.de is back again, there is no need to hurry up and founding something.