[Wikipedia-l] foundation of a German registered association

[Sascha Noyes]

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
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