[Wikipedia-l] Re: foundation of a German registered association

[Anthere]

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