Whose Money Is It Anyway? Options

[dogbiscuit]

From the minutes:

Second tranche of WMF grant (AT)
AT would like the authority to pay a second tranche to the WMF. CK expressed the view that the sooner we give the WMF the grant, the better: however, MP expressed an opposing viewpoint, that we wait until certain key agreements are signed before finalising the payment.
JD wants to know if they have formally applied for a grant from us: AT said that we do have an official letter from the WMF asking for a grant. The third tranche will wait until the accounts are finalised.
DECISION: To pay the remaining £200k grant to the WMF and follow up with Barry Newstead re: the fundraising agreement. AT also has authority to transfer a third tranche once the accounts are finalised, as long as that amount is less than £45k.
ACTION: RB and AT to pay the second tranche and contact Barry Newstead.

So having been gifted a large chunk of money by virtue of a website diversion to their own fundraising page, Wikimedia UK contemplate playing hardball over lack of finalising agreements.

Intriguing that Wikimedia UK think in terms of it being their money to grant to the WMF. I wonder what WMF think about such debates.

I also wonder about this grant application business, seems like glorified money laundering to me. I wonder what HM Customs and Revenue think about these schemes. Just to be clear, WMF do fund-raising on their website. They divert UK clicks to a UK based company who nominally are in receipt of the moneys and are able to get tax back based on the UK based company being a charity but in practice have to hand the money back to the WMF. So the UK based company has not actually sought the donations, it has not provided any significant labour or effort to garner these donations. It has simply processed them, with a bit of paperwork to claim the tax back on behalf of a US company. Probably worth a chat with a friendly tax accountant or two that I know.

Thinks, it should also be fun to nitpick and worry through all the minutes so they get so paranoid that they hold everything in secret. Then they might learn why information does not like being free after all.

[HRIP7]

From the minutes:

Second tranche of WMF grant (AT)
AT would like the authority to pay a second tranche to the WMF. CK expressed the view that the sooner we give the WMF the grant, the better: however, MP expressed an opposing viewpoint, that we wait until certain key agreements are signed before finalising the payment.
JD wants to know if they have formally applied for a grant from us: AT said that we do have an official letter from the WMF asking for a grant. The third tranche will wait until the accounts are finalised.
DECISION: To pay the remaining £200k grant to the WMF and follow up with Barry Newstead re: the fundraising agreement. AT also has authority to transfer a third tranche once the accounts are finalised, as long as that amount is less than £45k.
ACTION: RB and AT to pay the second tranche and contact Barry Newstead.

So having been gifted a large chunk of money by virtue of a website diversion to their own fundraising page, Wikimedia UK contemplate playing hardball over lack of finalising agreements.

Intriguing that Wikimedia UK think in terms of it being their money to grant to the WMF. I wonder what WMF think about such debates.

I also wonder about this grant application business, seems like glorified money laundering to me. I wonder what HM Customs and Revenue think about these schemes. Just to be clear, WMF do fund-raising on their website. They divert UK clicks to a UK based company who nominally are in receipt of the moneys and are able to get tax back based on the UK based company being a charity but in practice have to hand the money back to the WMF. So the UK based company has not actually sought the donations, it has not provided any significant labour or effort to garner these donations. It has simply processed them, with a bit of paperwork to claim the tax back on behalf of a US company. Probably worth a chat with a friendly tax accountant or two that I know.

Thinks, it should also be fun to nitpick and worry through all the minutes so they get so paranoid that they hold everything in secret. Then they might learn why information does not like being free after all.

On a somewhat related topic, there was this from John Vandenberg earlier today:

Erik, you should be ashamed of that memo, published with so many errors (data and logic) and the spin is so transparent that it makes the errors seem intentional.

The memo referred to is the Fundraising and Funds Dissemination WMF staff memo. So what exactly is going on there?

[dogbiscuit]

Erik, you should be ashamed of that memo, published with so many errors (data and logic) and the spin is so transparent that it makes the errors seem intentional.

The memo referred to is the Fundraising and Funds Dissemination WMF staff memo. So what exactly is going on there?

My reading of that is that the WMF don't see that there is great benefit from fund-raising through Wikimedia UK. It is interesting because if you switch off the WMF page switcheroo, you switch off Wikimedia UK funds and they rapidly burn their funds on all their employees which they simply could not fund if they had to fund-raise for themselves without the Wikipedia site.

Who is the driver for chapters anyway? All that effort to set up Wikimedia UK and Erik is basically saying that they are a waste of time (financially at least). I guess the other side is that he is suggesting that they could centrally fund-raise and give grants out in the other direction, but I don't see that they'd be interested in funding the large back office that Wikimedia UK have built up on the pretence that they are a multi-million pound charity.

There is an interesting footnote that they think that they have compliance issues in the UK with Wikimedia UK funding WMF, and there is less of an issue the other way round. (Isn't this where I came in?)

[jayvdb]

Erik, you should be ashamed of that memo, published with so many errors (data and logic) and the spin is so transparent that it makes the errors seem intentional.

The memo referred to is the Fundraising and Funds Dissemination WMF staff memo. So what exactly is going on there?

My reading of that is that the WMF don't see that there is great benefit from fund-raising through Wikimedia UK. It is interesting because if you switch off the WMF page switcheroo, you switch off Wikimedia UK funds and they rapidly burn their funds on all their employees which they simply could not fund if they had to fund-raise for themselves without the Wikipedia site.

Not really; all it would mean is that the chapters would be funded by grants from the WMF, using the new chapters grant agreements, or something similar.

The WMF would rather that UK money flows to WMF, and then part of it goes back to the UK.

The chapters would rather that the money goes to an organisation in the same country as the donor, as that gives the donor the greatest ability to ensure their donor information and donation is used appropriately, according to local laws.

The chapters would rather that we have strong member based organisations in each country, so there isn't a single point of decision making and/or failure, and it also means that problems can be addressed by voting out the board members, or by complaints to the local authorities.

For those of you complaining about the chapters, please consider the amount of transparency in the chapter minutes compared with the WMF minutes.

http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Meeting:C...282011-10-16%29 - ~2 hrs

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2011-08-28 - ~2 hrs

And the chapters usually report all expenditure publicly, with suitable granularity to allow the public scrutiny.

http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Meeting:2...inancial_Report
http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Meeting:C...#Finance_Report
etc

[Peter Damian]

But as annual donations have increased tenfold over the past five years, now having hit $20m and rising, it seems like a few people can see a gravy train forming in front of their eyes – microgrants, grants, paid chapter jobs, paid Foundation jobs, £30,000 GLAM/Wikipedian-in-residence jobs – basically all ways to monetise Wikimedia involvement.

To be fair, it seems as though the £30,000 is from the British Library, although your general point is absolutely right: involvement in Wikipedia = money. Also, the BL grant has essentially been arranged by a Wikipedian who is working within the Library, and apparently has to authority to organise this (via friendship with Van Haeften, it seems).

For those of you complaining about the chapters, please consider the amount of transparency in the chapter minutes compared with the WMF minutes.

That may be true of WMAU, but I don’t see that with WMUK. Their ‘harassment’ discussion was held in camera, and their mailing list is now private (see https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l).

The chapters would rather that the money goes to an organisation in the same country as the donor, as that gives the donor the greatest ability to ensure their donor information and donation is used appropriately, according to local laws.

Quite the reverse. Philippe’s research showed, and common sense suggests, that people donate to Wikipedia to support Wikipedia, not these dubious self-elected characters working in the ‘Chapters’.

The chapters would rather that we have strong member based organisations in each country, so there isn't a single point of decision making and/or failure, and it also means that problems can be addressed by voting out the board members, or by complaints to the local authorities.

The process of election for board members has many obstacles attached, notably objections about ‘harassment’. Complaints to local authorities may work, of course.

[jayvdb]

The chapters would rather that the money goes to an organisation in the same country as the donor, as that gives the donor the greatest ability to ensure their donor information and donation is used appropriately, according to local laws.

Quite the reverse. Philippe’s research showed, and common sense suggests, that people donate to Wikipedia to support Wikipedia, not these dubious self-elected characters working in the ‘Chapters’.

The chapters would rather that we have strong member based organisations in each country, so there isn't a single point of decision making and/or failure, and it also means that problems can be addressed by voting out the board members, or by complaints to the local authorities.

The process of election for board members has many obstacles attached, notably objections about ‘harassment’. Complaints to local authorities may work, of course.

Why do you say self-elected? I assume you are referring to WMUK. Did they report on how many votes were cast in the trustee election?

For the last WMAU committee election, WMAU had 47 members. 19 members were involved in nominating people to be on the next board, with a total of 70 nominations. (i.e. each of those 19 members nominated people for 3.6 of the 6 available seats.) 18 members then voted in the election. I don't consider that to be a great turn out, but it isnt 'self-selecting'. p.s. I don't think WMAU has ever refused membership to anyone (yet), and the existing board has no influence over who can nominated or elected to be on the board.

[dogbiscuit]

The chapters would rather that the money goes to an organisation in the same country as the donor, as that gives the donor the greatest ability to ensure their donor information and donation is used appropriately, according to local laws.

Quite the reverse. Philippe’s research showed, and common sense suggests, that people donate to Wikipedia to support Wikipedia, not these dubious self-elected characters working in the ‘Chapters’.

The chapters would rather that we have strong member based organisations in each country, so there isn't a single point of decision making and/or failure, and it also means that problems can be addressed by voting out the board members, or by complaints to the local authorities.

The process of election for board members has many obstacles attached, notably objections about ‘harassment’. Complaints to local authorities may work, of course.

Why do you say self-elected? I assume you are referring to WMUK. Did they report on how many votes were cast in the trustee election?

For the last WMAU committee election, WMAU had 47 members. 19 members were involved in nominating people to be on the next board, with a total of 70 nominations. (i.e. each of those 19 members nominated people for 3.6 of the 6 available seats.) 18 members then voted in the election. I don't consider that to be a great turn out, but it isnt 'self-selecting'. p.s. I don't think WMAU has ever refused membership to anyone (yet), and the existing board has no influence over who can nominated or elected to be on the board.

I think that the process of how the Wikimedia UK was set up was to a certain extent self-selecting, so I'd agree with Peter. A small number of people wanted to sort it out - the previous clique which included David Gerard had failed to make a go of it. Only a handful of people ever involved themselves. At the AGM 30 people were involved electing 8 out of 9 candidates, so it was self-selecting for all practical purposes. 30 people hardly represents either the editorship of Wikipedia (many thousands presumably), or the UK users of Wikipedia (many millions). Edit: Perhaps the true electorate should be the donators - how many of the 30 were donators to Wikimedia UK and how many were friends or relations of the candidate committee members?

One of the issues is that in the UK, the editors are geographically diverse, but as is often the case, Wikimedia UK is London based. The physical location and the lack of interest in bureaucracy and the fact that on a day to day basis nobody would interact with Wikimedia UK so they are a hidden organisation in practice even though they are not hiding means that they simply are not practically accountable as there is no meaningful electorate.

That doesn't mean that there are not well-meaning individuals trying to run Wikimedia UK, but it does mean that there is no real accountability. Then when you consider that Peter has attempted to hold them to account and the instant reaction is to bar him from their meetings, they have fallen at the first hurdle.

[jayvdb]

I think that the process of how the Wikimedia UK was set up was to a certain extent self-selecting, so I'd agree with Peter. A small number of people wanted to sort it out - the previous clique which included David Gerard had failed to make a go of it. Only a handful of people ever involved themselves. At the AGM 30 people were involved electing 8 out of 9 candidates, so it was self-selecting for all practical purposes. 30 people hardly represents either the editorship of Wikipedia (many thousands presumably), or the UK users of Wikipedia (many millions). Edit: Perhaps the true electorate should be the donators - how many of the 30 were donators to Wikimedia UK and how many were friends or relations of the candidate committee members?

The number of candidates may not be the only measure. Was there a nomination round?

One of the issues is that in the UK, the editors are geographically diverse, but as is often the case, Wikimedia UK is London based...

Was there IRC or teleconference participation in the AGM? Did they accept proxy votes?

That doesn't mean that there are not well-meaning individuals trying to run Wikimedia UK, but it does mean that there is no real accountability. Then when you consider that Peter has attempted to hold them to account and the instant reaction is to bar him from their meetings, they have fallen at the first hurdle.

What questions has Peter asked?

Did he become a member first?

According to the meta page, they have ~220 members
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters

As a member organisation, it usually takes ~5% of the membership to force a general meeting and a motion, which means getting about 10 members to agree. Surely if there is a problem, 10 members will agree and start issuing demands of the board.

[SB_Johnny]

What questions has Peter asked?

See this very long thread for a good bit of it.

I was actually going to ask you if you felt that the WMUK's shenanigans were going to have a negative affect on the ozzie chapter. I'm vaguely familiar with your work down there because Wikiversity is mostly populated by your members lately, and it seems to be a far more positive and ethical organization compared to what we hear about the UK org.

[jayvdb]

What questions has Peter asked?

See this very long thread for a good bit of it.

I was actually going to ask you if you felt that the WMUK's shenanigans were going to have a negative affect on the ozzie chapter. I'm vaguely familiar with your work down there because Wikiversity is mostly populated by your members lately, and it seems to be a far more positive and ethical organization compared to what we hear about the UK org.

Ugh. I got as far as reading this and
a) MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#logicmuseum.com.
b) puked at

Examiner: So where is the Wikimedia UK money going?
Buckner: That's what I would like to know. The problem is that Wikipedia got completely taken over by a small group of people who are fanatical about 'open production' of knowledge. That's a way of working based on 'open source' software, where it is open to anyone to contribute. Most of the money you contribute to Wikipedia is going towards a sort of marketing campaign or movement to promote 'open production'. Think of Scientology, but with an Encyclopedia instead of E-meters.

Save me from reading the rest...
Did WMUK provide the requested documents, or has a FOI request been lodged?
I'd really like to know whether any of you have joined and asked for these documents as a paid up member; you'll have a lot more rights as a member of the organisation.

I think that Wikimedia chapters can/should be eligible to be charitable as I believe the Wikimedia projects are a public service which is very beneficial to the public (it has problems, of course..), and the chapters can and should be providing organisational support to prevent failures of WP processes affecting living people.(better support for volunteers who can find & fix these problem; better communication processes for WP subjects to use to seek resolution; etc) The German and UK chapters have been providing training for OTRS volunteers. I haven't yet seen a good reason to believe that Wiki UK shouldn't have been approved as a charity (provided they were honest to the authorities; see question above about the FOI request..).

Here in Australia we could immediately become a charity if we only supported Wikisource ;-) We're unlikely to easily obtain tax-deductible status otherwise, as the regulators of the current system will be evaluating the impact of the organisation rather than the impact of the Wikimedia projects .. i.e. we need to show a direct relation between chapter activities and improvements to Wikimedia content / system.

To answer your question, if the UK chapter is delisted as a charity, it would hurt the WMAU chances of being declared charitable, even if we were a very different organisation undertaking different types of activities..

[SB_Johnny]

Here in Australia we could immediately become a charity if we only supported Wikisource ;-) We're unlikely to easily obtain tax-deductible status otherwise, as the regulators of the current system will be evaluating the impact of the organisation rather than the impact of the Wikimedia projects .. i.e. we need to show a direct relation between chapter activities and improvements to Wikimedia content / system.

That actually makes a lot more sense than whatever their purpose is supposed to be in the UK. I know there have been some Australian conferences and get-togethers announced on WV related to "open source learning" and such that sounded interesting and productive, though tbh I don't recall if they actually had anything to do with WMAU. Organizing for transcription or even updates of older (and now open source) texts is an entirely different thing from getting together at the pub to talk about the popculturepedia.

To answer your question, if the UK chapter is delisted as a charity, it would hurt the WMAU chances of being declared charitable, even if we were a very different organisation undertaking different types of activities..

That's my guess too, and it could certainly be a problem for any of the US chapters if they tried to incorporate (though the non-profit laws are a bit looser here than they seem to be in the UK).

[jayvdb]

Here in Australia we could immediately become a charity if we only supported Wikisource ;-) We're unlikely to easily obtain tax-deductible status otherwise, as the regulators of the current system will be evaluating the impact of the organisation rather than the impact of the Wikimedia projects .. i.e. we need to show a direct relation between chapter activities and improvements to Wikimedia content / system.

That actually makes a lot more sense than whatever their purpose is supposed to be in the UK. I know there have been some Australian conferences and get-togethers announced on WV related to "open source learning" and such that sounded interesting and productive, though tbh I don't recall if they actually had anything to do with WMAU. Organizing for transcription or even updates of older (and now open source) texts is an entirely different thing from getting together at the pub to talk about the popculturepedia.

WMAU has supported the last two RecentChangesCamps with travel grants.
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_...anberra/RCC2011
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/University_...anberra/RCC2012
The 2011 RCC had a strong education theme, with lots of academics. Unfortunately the 2012 RCC was less productive as it had more Wikipedians than academics and professionals from other sectors. We'll need to be more careful about how WMAU awards travel grants to the next RCC, so we dont create an imbalance like that again.

[Kelly Martin]

Unfortunately the 2012 RCC was less productive as it had more Wikipedians than academics and professionals from other sectors. We'll need to be more careful about how WMAU awards travel grants to the next RCC, so we dont create an imbalance like that again.

It amuses me that having too many Wikipedians at a Wikipedia-related conference is counterproductive. Says a lot about Wikipedians, I think.

[jayvdb]

Unfortunately the 2012 RCC was less productive as it had more Wikipedians than academics and professionals from other sectors. We'll need to be more careful about how WMAU awards travel grants to the next RCC, so we dont create an imbalance like that again.

It amuses me that having too many Wikipedians at a Wikipedia-related conference is counterproductive. Says a lot about Wikipedians, I think.

Well, umm, not disagreeing with you, but RecentChangesCamp is intended to be a much broader unconference. We achieved a really good mix in 2011, but the recent 2012 conference was too Wikipedia centric for my liking, and I suspect it will have put off a few attendees that were expecting a repeat of the 2011 unconference. The recent RCC was good, including a few really interesting sessions that had no relation to Wikipedia, and most of the non Wikipedians attending have since joined WMAU, and I know of one new project (unrelated to Wikimedia) that has been initiated. However many of the sessions ended up focused on English Wikipedia, as English Wikipedians tend to think only of English Wikipedia unless they are moderated to stay on topic, and moderation at an unconference is a bit antithetical. So in future the WMAU committee will need to be more careful about ensuring that our support doesnt skew the RCC attendence in a way that means the unconference doesnt stay true to the RCC concept.