[Foundation-l] [Wikinews-l] Proposal for the creation of a Wikinews foundation

[Craig Spurrier]

Ilya Haykinson wrote:
> organizational structures that support our projects' interaction with
> other online and offline communities is critical to our long term
> abilities to sustain the projects.  But as Erik, Delphine, and others
> point out there are some core questions that need to be answered:
>
> - what does this organization do?  is it just accreditation or is it
> more general support of Wikinews activities?
> - what is the nature of this organization's relationship with WMF?
> what is the governance structure of this organization?
> - where does the funding come from?  who gets to set the budget?
> - how does this organization interact with local chapters and other
> WMF initiatives?
>
> I believe that answering these questions for Wikinews will help create
> a solution for other projects' needs as well, both for very specific
> ideas like supporting accreditation as well as more general ideas like
> interest groups.
>
> In the case of the problem Craig describes the issue of recognition
> needs to be addresses by a believably-named organization that has
> Wikinews in its name and is international in scope to reduce
> duplication of effort (and deal with the fact that we need recognition
> in many more geographical areas than those with established chapters).
>
> I suggest the following as a set of answers to the questions from
> above that satisfies this goal:
>
> 1) Create a non-profit organization with an international scope whose
> goals are to provide material support for Wikinews community members
> for the purpose of content creation, issue press cards to any
> community member accredited by one of the projects, and represent the
> projects as a central point of contact in interactions with other
> news-making or news-reporting organizations.
>   
Sounds about right :)
> 2) name the organization something that sounds like a news credential
> granting organization: Wikinewswire, or Wikinews Press, or something
> along these lines.  The problem with the "foundation" or "union"
> approach is that traditional foundations and unions are
> internally-focused and are not known to issue press cards in the "real
> world".
>
>   
I rather like Wikinewswire. Foundation while not a traditional press 
card issuing name does at least call up the right sort of thoughts 
including at least some respect for the group. Name is important, but as 
long as it is one that conveys a sense of officialness and respect 
anything will work.
> 3) set the organization up as a standalone non-profit organization
> with its own governance structure, but create a strong set of
> requirements that the organization must adhere to if it wishes to
> retain a license to use a WMF-trademarked name.  The requirements may
> be that the organization cannot pretend or be the publisher of core
> Wikinews material; must not encourage the creation of non-open
> content; must not represent itself as the WMF; must report on its
> activities to the WMF twice a year, etc.
>   
I would fully expect a trademark license to include all of those 
conditions. The ability for the WMF to revoke the license with misuse is 
the best protection the foundation can have, since it allows the WMF to 
ensure we remain true to the mission without opneing them to legal 
responsibility for us.
> 4) have the organization be responsible for its own funding, but have
> the WMF provide the license for its trademarked names for free, and
> encourage the WMF to provide small funding opportunities to these
> kinds of interest groups.
>   
We should be responsible for its own funding. Depending of course on 
what we seek to accomplish we could easily get by on a relatively low 
membership fee (waived for those who need it to be ?). 
> 5) by becoming a partner to the WMF with regards to a given project,
> this new organization also becomes a de-facto partner to the chapters.
>  The organization may approach the chapters for help with
> bureaucracies in certain locales; the chapters on the other hand may
> use the organization to serve as the point of contact for all
> Wikinews-related inquiries.
> By creating this sort of a structure the WMF retains some oversight
>   
> over project-specific organizations, and reserves the right to help
> these kinds of organizations with funding etc, but at the same time
> allows them to live and die on their own.  If the organization becomes
> a strong enabler of content creation, the WMF may even choose to
> internalize some of this organization's functions down the line.
>   
Working closely with the chapters and the foundation would be a 
requirement for this to be functionally, but formal connections should 
be minimal. Oversight is best kept to that which is controlled by the 
threat of trademark license revocation. To keep the WM foundation from 
becoming legally responsible for the Wikinews foundation, it must remain 
legally separate.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]