[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Meeting, 4 July 2004

[Angela_]

Wikimedia Foundation Meeting La Maison des Metallos, Paris, 4 July 2004.

Present: Angela Beesley, Florence Nibart-Devouard and Jimmy Wales.

1) Wikimedia website
2) Developer issues 
3) Grants and Official Positions 
4) Trademark 
5) Board members 
6) AOB

1) Wikimedia website

The aim of the Foundation website is to increase the visibility and
transparency of the Foundation and to provide a central location and
summary of all the information.

It was decided to host the Wikimedia Foundation website on a separate
wiki (see http://wikimedia.org/wiki). This allows other users to add
translations, and to help with the addition of technical details,
including page views. Some pages, such as the mission statement, will
be protected and editable only by the Board. Users can suggest changes
to these on Meta, and the changes will be adopted onto the main site
following Board approval.

A number of translations will be needed for widely spoken languages,
including those which currently have only small Wikipedias, such as
Spanish.

Information for the press will be included in a summarized format.
Efforts will be made to keep this up to date, unlike the current pages
on Wikimedia.

Global policies, such as privacy and terms of use, will be included on
this website. While respecting the "wiki way", these will need to be
approved by the board before they are changed for legal reasons.

The wiki will not be open to anonymous edits and only authorized
accounts will be opened.

2) Developer issues

The creation of a developer committee was proposed, with one or two
developers to be assigned official positions by Board.

Sub-committees should be developed, such as one to discuss ways of
checking performance. It was noted that Looxix had requested shell
access to help with the tracking of performance related issues.

Assignment of shell access was discussed and the issue of whom should
be allowed to hand out such access was raised. It was proposed that
when a developer committee is formed, they work on a policy to cover
such issues.

Plans for downtime are needed. The developers should be aware of who
is responsible for ensuring downtime notices are placed on the site,
and that the relevant people, such as Brion Vibber, are informed of
downtime.

Plans to avoid unnecessary downtime should be made.

When planning the hardware architecture, it was noted that we need to
think longer term about this.

3) Grants and Official Positions

When making grant applications, it is important to present a united
front. We should not be presenting multiple applications from
different users without knowing who is sending what. We must appear to
be collaborating on this, so all applications should be logged at one
central location.

Some grant applications require an authorized signature. It was
proposed that grant applications be double signed by the person making
the application and by one member of the Board. This requirement will
be noted on the Wikimedia Foundation website to prevent non-authorized
applications which are not made in the name of Wikimedia.

The Board does not believe there should be any requirements that
people be qualified in any particular field to hold an official
position. We should not limit these places to professionals.

4) Trademark

There is a requirement for certain standards to be met in the places
our logo is used. We should aim to be NPOV rather than give the
impression that the Foundation is endorsing anything. Particular care
should be taken in printed versions that advertising is appropriately
marked as such, and does not appear to be an endorsement.

A policy for situations in which the logo may be used will be
developed. This will ensure it is only used in a way which is
consistent with the community's values.

The situation regarding the rights to use the logo is not yet clear.
Jimbo is in contact with David Friedland (Nohat) about this. It was
felt important that David would not have veto rights over where the
logo is used.

5) Board members

Tim and Michael will have less active involvement than the other
members of the Board but Jimbo stated that their presence on the Board
would not mean the votes of Angela and Anthere would be automatically
overridden. It was suggested that the Board should be enlarged at some
point, possibly later this year, and that prominent people external to
Wikipedia could be invited to hold positions on the Board.

6) AOB

Jimbo will contact a German lawyer regarding the registration of the
Wikimedia trademark in Germany, which someone else is currently
attempting to register.

Alex Roshuk is completing the forms required to gain 501(c)3 status.

Approval was given for the proposed email from the German Wikipedia to
wissen-de regarding our copyright violation.

Daniel Mayer was appointed to the position of Chief Financial Officer.
He will work closely with Anthere on financial matters. Jimbo will ask
Michael Davis to take on the role of treasurer. Michael will have the
role of overseeing the finances at the end of the year, and
occasionally during the year, but Anthere will be responsible for this
on a more day-to-day basis.

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