body:
Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Ant : I very strongly agree. Which is why I would be deeply unhappy that we
> call our local chapter "francophone". This is an attempt of fairness that
> is uncalled for. I know that some people support this, because they want to
> make it clear that the french chapter will not help France only. I think
> this is perfectly obvious that we should try to be more global in our
> participation.

I see a contradiction here. It's especially *because* this chapter is not for
France only that it should be called "francophone", and not Wikimedia France.
There are already people from Belgium and Switzerland who want to work within
this chapter. And they rightfully object that this chapter is called
Wikimedia France. Which doesn't mean that, at a later date, people from
Switzerland or Belgium, could not create a local chapter in those places.
Then these local chapters will have to decide how they want to be assigned to
the foundation.

> However, calling us francophone is bad. The next chapter in a french
> speaking country will likely be called by the country name, and I sure hope
> that it will not be submitted to the french chapter. We all wish here for
> equality, and I really see not why France will be once again, declared the
> official center of Francophonie. Wikimedia France has the merit of being
> descriptive.
>
> It seems to me that any other name is bringing confusion.

I think we have the same objectives. But Wikimedia France is not an adequate
name, because, for the forseable future, this chapter will not be acting only
in France.

Best wishes,
Yann

-------------------------

Sorry, but to my opinion, the contradiction is precisely on your side.
I know that I am a minority on this issue, but I would like to say that I think this name is probably one of the reason why we are *right now* confused on the role of the association.

When I say it should be called Wikim?dia France, I use a fact. I give a descriptive name. The description of its legal localisation, and there is no objection to say that it will be legally created in France. It is a fact, it is a *certainty*. It is not pov :-) It is a reality.
Hence, the name does not hold contradiction with the description of the association itself. It will be *an association created under the french law*.

On the other hand, you object that we should call it Wikimedia Francophone, because *in the foreseable future, it will not be acting in France only*.

I agree. Well, I hope it is so. I am not sure it will happen. This is not a fact, this is a wish. Perhaps it will come true, perhaps not. It is the future, and it is just a wish, nothing else. But I hope it will happen. I do not know exactly why, but I think that canadians will be disappointed though. Just a feeling :-)

Second, if I perfectly agree it should not be acting in France only, this name you are trying to impose also implies it will *primarily* act to promote the project in french-speaking countries only. It is not a name based on fact, it is a name that holds a very strong connotation. It openly says it "the goal of this association is to help french speaking projects".
And you actually say it yourself, it is to help promoting french language and set a miror or working server in France.
In short, it is openly dissociating itself from the global project. It is openly supporting only part of the project. Not the project globally.

This is why Wikimedia francophone is not an adequate name to my opinion. And this is precisely why we are currently all realising we *do not* have the same perception of what should be the association and which roles it should have.

And I want to insist that I really do not want to exclude non french people here. Some of my favorite french-speaking are not french :-) And they will be very precious in the french association :-)
I think the french association is just part of the global scheme, and it is obvious nearby countries will be served till they have an association on their own and people from all nationalities are welcome to help.
I am sorry Yann, but I just think you are trying to make it appear more political than it should be. And I won't support that with happiness. Just my opinion.

---------------------------------
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list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: International Wikimedia structure

body:
Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> Ant : I very strongly agree. Which is why I would be deeply unhappy that we
> call our local chapter "francophone". This is an attempt of fairness that
> is uncalled for. I know that some people support this, because they want to
> make it clear that the french chapter will not help France only. I think
> this is perfectly obvious that we should try to be more global in our
> participation.

I see a contradiction here. It's especially *because* this chapter is not for
France only that it should be called "francophone", and not Wikimedia France.
There are already people from Belgium and Switzerland who want to work within
this chapter. And they rightfully object that this chapter is called
Wikimedia France. Which doesn't mean that, at a later date, people from
Switzerland or Belgium, could not create a local chapter in those places.
Then these local chapters will have to decide how they want to be assigned to
the foundation.

> However, calling us francophone is bad. The next chapter in a french
> speaking country will likely be called by the country name, and I sure hope
> that it will not be submitted to the french chapter. We all wish here for
> equality, and I really see not why France will be once again, declared the
> official center of Francophonie. Wikimedia France has the merit of being
> descriptive.
>
> It seems to me that any other name is bringing confusion.

I think we have the same objectives. But Wikimedia France is not an adequate
name, because, for the forseable future, this chapter will not be acting only
in France.

Best wishes,
Yann

-------------------------

Sorry, but to my opinion, the contradiction is precisely on your side.
I know that I am a minority on this issue, but I would like to say that I think this name is probably one of the reason why we are *right now* confused on the role of the association.

When I say it should be called Wikim?dia France, I use a fact. I give a descriptive name. The description of its legal localisation, and there is no objection to say that it will be legally created in France. It is a fact, it is a *certainty*. It is not pov :-) It is a reality.
Hence, the name does not hold contradiction with the description of the association itself. It will be *an association created under the french law*.

On the other hand, you object that we should call it Wikimedia Francophone, because *in the foreseable future, it will not be acting in France only*.

I agree. Well, I hope it is so. I am not sure it will happen. This is not a fact, this is a wish. Perhaps it will come true, perhaps not. It is the future, and it is just a wish, nothing else. But I hope it will happen. I do not know exactly why, but I think that canadians will be disappointed though. Just a feeling :-)

Second, if I perfectly agree it should not be acting in France only, this name you are trying to impose also implies it will *primarily* act to promote the project in french-speaking countries only. It is not a name based on fact, it is a name that holds a very strong connotation. It openly says it "the goal of this association is to help french speaking projects".
And you actually say it yourself, it is to help promoting french language and set a miror or working server in France.
In short, it is openly dissociating itself from the global project. It is openly supporting only part of the project. Not the project globally.

This is why Wikimedia francophone is not an adequate name to my opinion. And this is precisely why we are currently all realising we *do not* have the same perception of what should be the association and which roles it should have.

And I want to insist that I really do not want to exclude non french people here. Some of my favorite french-speaking are not french :-) And they will be very precious in the french association :-)
I think the french association is just part of the global scheme, and it is obvious nearby countries will be served till they have an association on their own and people from all nationalities are welcome to help.
I am sorry Yann, but I just think you are trying to make it appear more political than it should be. And I won't support that with happiness. Just my opinion.

---------------------------------
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list: foundation-l

body:
I know that not everyone will found this association to be the best model, but I think this is the nearest of what I can imagine from structural considerations.

Go the www.unicef.org

This organisation pledged to help ALL children, all over the world.

When you click on "support Unicef", here is what you get :

http://www.unicef.org/support/index.html

Now, click on "donate now"

You are prompted to select your country of choice

Choose "France".
Here is the website in french language. It is still the Unicef, not the francophone Unicef.
You are *still* supporting a Global Project.

You know you will help support people hurt by a cyclon in Madagascar, there are people hurt by war in Soudan, hearquake in Iran.

And jeeeee, with 30 euros, you will help purchase 100 schools textbook !

You also get a tax deduction. 60% of the amount will be removed from your income tax, up to 470 euros. This is possible only because you will pay directly in France. If you had chosen Madagascar, you would not have had any tax deduction because you are not german citizen.

Here, http://www.unicef.asso.fr/index.cfm?id=index_adherez.cfm

I see that I will become member of the Unicef France

And here is what I see

S'engager ? participer r?guli?rement par une adh?sion, soutient directement l'action de l'UNICEF France en faveur de l'UNICEF. Cette cotisation annuelle contribue aux frais de fonctionnement de l'association elle-m?me et permet de d?gager le maximum de fonds revers?s par l'UNICEF France ? l'UNICEF au titre des dons.

This fee will directly help the action of Unicef France in favor on Unicef. This annual fee will help support the cost of the local association functioning Unicef France, and the remaining will be directly sent from the Unicef France to Unicef, as donations. And likely, somewhere, an international team is working on the Iran earthquake issue and will make good use of your money.

--------------

This is my perception of what a local association could begin to be. Not a complicated set of sub-entities, which will help only the last camping flood in the south of the country.

grumble grumble :-)

---------------------------------
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body:
I know that not everyone will found this association to be the best model, but I think this is the nearest of what I can imagine from structural considerations.

Go the www.unicef.org

This organisation pledged to help ALL children, all over the world.

When you click on "support Unicef", here is what you get :

http://www.unicef.org/support/index.html

Now, click on "donate now"

You are prompted to select your country of choice

Choose "France".
Here is the website in french language. It is still the Unicef, not the francophone Unicef.
You are *still* supporting a Global Project.

You know you will help support people hurt by a cyclon in Madagascar, there are people hurt by war in Soudan, hearquake in Iran.

And jeeeee, with 30 euros, you will help purchase 100 schools textbook !

You also get a tax deduction. 60% of the amount will be removed from your income tax, up to 470 euros. This is possible only because you will pay directly in France. If you had chosen Madagascar, you would not have had any tax deduction because you are not german citizen.

Here, http://www.unicef.asso.fr/index.cfm?id=index_adherez.cfm

I see that I will become member of the Unicef France

And here is what I see

S'engager ? participer r?guli?rement par une adh?sion, soutient directement l'action de l'UNICEF France en faveur de l'UNICEF. Cette cotisation annuelle contribue aux frais de fonctionnement de l'association elle-m?me et permet de d?gager le maximum de fonds revers?s par l'UNICEF France ? l'UNICEF au titre des dons.

This fee will directly help the action of Unicef France in favor on Unicef. This annual fee will help support the cost of the local association functioning Unicef France, and the remaining will be directly sent from the Unicef France to Unicef, as donations. And likely, somewhere, an international team is working on the Iran earthquake issue and will make good use of your money.

--------------

This is my perception of what a local association could begin to be. Not a complicated set of sub-entities, which will help only the last camping flood in the south of the country.

grumble grumble :-)

---------------------------------
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body:
I know that not everyone will found this association to be the best model, but I think this is the nearest of what I can imagine from structural considerations.

Go the www.unicef.org

This organisation pledged to help ALL children, all over the world.

When you click on "support Unicef", here is what you get :

http://www.unicef.org/support/index.html

Now, click on "donate now"

You are prompted to select your country of choice

Choose "France".
Here is the website in french language. It is still the Unicef, not the francophone Unicef.
You are *still* supporting a Global Project.

You know you will help support people hurt by a cyclon in Madagascar, there are people hurt by war in Soudan, hearquake in Iran.

And jeeeee, with 30 euros, you will help purchase 100 schools textbook !

You also get a tax deduction. 60% of the amount will be removed from your income tax, up to 470 euros. This is possible only because you will pay directly in France. If you had chosen Madagascar, you would not have had any tax deduction because you are not german citizen.

Here, http://www.unicef.asso.fr/index.cfm?id=index_adherez.cfm

I see that I will become member of the Unicef France

And here is what I see

S'engager ? participer r?guli?rement par une adh?sion, soutient directement l'action de l'UNICEF France en faveur de l'UNICEF. Cette cotisation annuelle contribue aux frais de fonctionnement de l'association elle-m?me et permet de d?gager le maximum de fonds revers?s par l'UNICEF France ? l'UNICEF au titre des dons.

This fee will directly help the action of Unicef France in favor on Unicef. This annual fee will help support the cost of the local association functioning Unicef France, and the remaining will be directly sent from the Unicef France to Unicef, as donations. And likely, somewhere, an international team is working on the Iran earthquake issue and will make good use of your money.

--------------

This is my perception of what a local association could begin to be. Not a complicated set of sub-entities, which will help only the last camping flood in the south of the country.

grumble grumble :-)

---------------------------------
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body:
I know that not everyone will found this association to be the best model, but I think this is the nearest of what I can imagine from structural considerations.

Go the www.unicef.org

This organisation pledged to help ALL children, all over the world.

When you click on "support Unicef", here is what you get :

http://www.unicef.org/support/index.html

Now, click on "donate now"

You are prompted to select your country of choice

Choose "France".
Here is the website in french language. It is still the Unicef, not the francophone Unicef.
You are *still* supporting a Global Project.

You know you will help support people hurt by a cyclon in Madagascar, there are people hurt by war in Soudan, hearquake in Iran.

And jeeeee, with 30 euros, you will help purchase 100 schools textbook !

You also get a tax deduction. 60% of the amount will be removed from your income tax, up to 470 euros. This is possible only because you will pay directly in France. If you had chosen Madagascar, you would not have had any tax deduction because you are not german citizen.

Here, http://www.unicef.asso.fr/index.cfm?id=index_adherez.cfm

I see that I will become member of the Unicef France

And here is what I see

S'engager ? participer r?guli?rement par une adh?sion, soutient directement l'action de l'UNICEF France en faveur de l'UNICEF. Cette cotisation annuelle contribue aux frais de fonctionnement de l'association elle-m?me et permet de d?gager le maximum de fonds revers?s par l'UNICEF France ? l'UNICEF au titre des dons.

This fee will directly help the action of Unicef France in favor on Unicef. This annual fee will help support the cost of the local association functioning Unicef France, and the remaining will be directly sent from the Unicef France to Unicef, as donations. And likely, somewhere, an international team is working on the Iran earthquake issue and will make good use of your money.

--------------

This is my perception of what a local association could begin to be. Not a complicated set of sub-entities, which will help only the last camping flood in the south of the country.

grumble grumble :-)

---------------------------------
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body:
In fact, this chapter will be active in French speaking countries only.
I don't think it will be used to promote the project or raise money elsewhere.
So "francophone" just explains where the chapter will be active.

But if the chapter is used to promote regional languages as well, so why not
called it just "association WIkim?dia"?
I don't think it will be confused with the foundation.

-----------

This name is fine by me Yann.
But we still do not agree on the association roles.
I am not sure whether it matters or not.
I think we should discuss the "r?glement int?rieur" before the association is created, so as to define what "affiliation" mean.

ant

---------------------------------
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body:
In fact, this chapter will be active in French speaking countries only.
I don't think it will be used to promote the project or raise money elsewhere.
So "francophone" just explains where the chapter will be active.

But if the chapter is used to promote regional languages as well, so why not
called it just "association WIkim?dia"?
I don't think it will be confused with the foundation.

-----------

This name is fine by me Yann.
But we still do not agree on the association roles.
I am not sure whether it matters or not.
I think we should discuss the "r?glement int?rieur" before the association is created, so as to define what "affiliation" mean.

ant

---------------------------------
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body:
In fact, this chapter will be active in French speaking countries only.
I don't think it will be used to promote the project or raise money elsewhere.
So "francophone" just explains where the chapter will be active.

But if the chapter is used to promote regional languages as well, so why not
called it just "association WIkim?dia"?
I don't think it will be confused with the foundation.

-----------

This name is fine by me Yann.
But we still do not agree on the association roles.
I am not sure whether it matters or not.
I think we should discuss the "r?glement int?rieur" before the association is created, so as to define what "affiliation" mean.

ant

---------------------------------
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body:
In fact, this chapter will be active in French speaking countries only.
I don't think it will be used to promote the project or raise money elsewhere.
So "francophone" just explains where the chapter will be active.

But if the chapter is used to promote regional languages as well, so why not
called it just "association WIkim?dia"?
I don't think it will be confused with the foundation.

-----------

This name is fine by me Yann.
But we still do not agree on the association roles.
I am not sure whether it matters or not.
I think we should discuss the "r?glement int?rieur" before the association is created, so as to define what "affiliation" mean.

ant

---------------------------------
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list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Philip Newton

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Categories considered harmful

references:
<1087676769.40d4a161d46f5@mail.tu-chemnitz.de>
	<1087676769.40d4a161d46f5-7187ArNAsRfQTwObEM2FzhvVK+yQ3ZXh@public.gmane.org>
	<20040619212239.GB7581@thingy.apana.org.au>
	<c89ad09kog6sdlm7v930fl867inuebpkr7@4ax.com>
	<c89ad09kog6sdlm7v930fl867inuebpkr7-e09XROE/p8c@public.gmane.org>
	<shoenepwdc.fsf@tux.gnu.franken.de>

body:
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 08:38:23 +0200, Karl Eichwalder wrote:

> Philip Newton <Philip.Newton at gmx.net> writes:
>
> > On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 07:22:39 +1000, David Gerard wrote:
>
> >> This could do with fixing. OTOH, it's becoming conventional for one's edit
> >> summary to say "[[Category:xxx]]" when you add an article to category xxx.
> >> Which of course shows up in your watchlist.
> >
> > But only if the article was on your watchlist anyway.
>
> I wish all these category changes wouldn't clutter my watch list.  No,
> it is not an option to ignore all edits marked as "minor".

Would it be an option to unwatch the category?

I mean, nobody forces you to watch a category so that you could receive
notice of articles being added to it, if this feature should become
available in the first place.

(Or were you referring to the edits where someone adds a category to an
article you were watching? In that case, yes, I also find it mildly
annoying, though I believe the volume of those will die down once things
settle down somewhat.)

Cheers,
Philip


body:
Guillaume Blanchard <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp> wrote:
Salut ? tous,

Cr?er une association "Wikim?dia France", c'est un peu laisser sur le pas de la porte tous les non-fran?ais qui souhaite participer au projet d'association. Il est certain qu'une association en Belgique, au Canada ou en C?te-d'Ivoire ne verrons pas le jour avant plusieurs ann?es. En attendant, nous nous cantonnerions ? d?velopper les projets Wikim?dia uniquement en France !?

------------

Comme je pouvais bien ?videmment le pr?voir, tu n'as pas compris ce que je voulais dire :-(

Pourtant, il m'a sembl? essayer d'?tre claire :-(

Il est absolumment HORS de question que cette association ne soutienne que le projet en France. Au contraire, je consid?re qu'elle devrait supporter TOUS les projets, au moins un minimum. C'est aussi ce que veut dire "affiliation". C'est un engagement ? participer ? un projet dans son ensemble, et non pas uniquement sur un sol national.

Si Wikimedia France est "affili?e" ? Wikimedia, cela veut dire qu'elle participe au projet dans son ensemble. Concr?tement, cela veut dire par exemple :

Qu'elle va reverser par exemple 30% de ces revenus ? la foundation
- Sur ces 30%, 20% vont servir ? payer les serveurs (qui rappelons nous, h?bergent la wikip?dia francophone)

- 10% restant pourront ?tre utilis?s ? co-financer la publication d'un wikireader en langue arabe (parce que la langue arabe n'a pas encore d'association, mais ? l'opportunit? de diffuser un document de qualit?)

Les 70% restant resteront ? Wikim?dia France
- Disons qu'elle en utilisera 30% pour ses frais quotidiens (enregistrement de noms de domaines, frais fiscaux, timbres pour le courrier etc...)
Il restera 40% ? utiliser ? notre guise

- peut ?tre 20% pour faire des tee-shirts ? vendre en France
- 10% pour participer ? un gros ?v?nements promotionnel en Belgique, en collaboration avec la future association hollandaise et un coup de pouce financier de la Foundation

- et 10% pour donner un coup de pouce promotionnel ? la wikip?dia bretonne qui stagne compl?tement

En bref, elle aura

* support? ses propres co?ts de fonctionnement,

* elle aura aid? l'ensemble du projet (particip? aux serveurs et ? la diffusion de connaissance en arabe)

* collabor? avec deux autres associations pour une action multilingue

* et soutenu le d?veloppement d'une langue locale

Voila MA vision de ce que serait Wikim?dia France.

Et ceci peut tr?s bien se faire avec un pr?sident fran?ais, un secr?taire japonais et un tr?sorier belge.

Cela n'emp?che pas que l?galement, l'association est localis?e en France, d?pend du r?gime fiscal fran?ais et ne fournit des d?ductions fiscales qu'aux fran?ais.

-----------------------

Ce n'est vraiment pas ma vision de cette association. Nous sommes une communaut? francophone internationale et notre association doit refl?ter cet ?tat de fait. Ce n'est pas parce que nous choisissons la France comme pays d'accueil de l'association que nous devons limiter notre champ d'action. Notre Wikim?dia doit ?tre "francophone" ! Le jour ou une association similaire verra le jour en Suisse, nous n'aurons qu'? renommer l'association de droit fran?ais en "Wikim?dia francophone - France" et nommer la nouvelle association "Wikim?dia francophone - Suisse".

Aoineko

--------------------

Tu veut dire qu'il y aura donc en Suisse quatre associations ? Wikim?dia anglophone Suisse, Wikimedia francophone Suisse, Wikim?dia germanophone Suisse et Wikim?dia italophone Suisse ???

Non, je ne pense pas. Ce serait une perte d'?nergie et d'argent.
Je pense qu'il y a aura Wikim?dia Suisse, qui permettra de servir l'ensemble des habitants suisses en terme de d?duction fiscale et le projet dans son ensemble.

De toutes fa?ons, tout ceci n'est qu'une question de terminologie. Si tu souhaites repayer dans un an pour changer le nom de l'association, ce n'est vraiment qu'une histoire de sou, et je ne crois pas que nous en soyons ? quelques euros pr?s.

Ce qui me pose plus souci est que je ne suis pas sure que nous ayons la m?me vision de ce que doit ?tre l'association par rapport au projet global.

Donc je vais poser une question plus claire et j'esp?re que vous voudrez bien y r?pondre merci :-)

La question est toute simple : pensez vous que l'association doive conserver la totalit? de ces revenus pour elle et uniquement pour le soutien des projets en langue fran?aise, ou pensez vous qu'elle doive aider le projet d'une fa?on plus g?n?rale ?

Une affiliation est une association bilat?rale. Il y a des deux c?t?s des droits et des devoirs. Il y a une coop?ration qui doit s'instaurer, car l'association locale ? besoin de la globale, tout comme la globale a besoin de la locale. Alors, au dela de la simple r?flexion "nous sommes francophones ou rien", envisagez vous de faire tout simplement partie de l'ensemble et de participer ? son d?veloppement, ou pas du tout. Je pense que Villy l'envisageait globale, avec ses sp?cificit?s locales et ses petites sp?cialit?s linguistiques. C'est aussi ma vision. Maintenant, j'aimerais bien avoir l'avis des futurs membres fondateurs. Beaucoup de francophones travaillent sur plusieurs projets ? la fois, et dans plusieurs langues; j'aimerais savoir si ils souhaitent que leur cotisation aille uniquement ? des actions promotionnelles dans des pays francophones, ou si ils souhaitent aussi que leur don aide ? acheter un nouveau serveur pour que le projet ne soit pas en rade tous les 4 matins.

J'esp?re que je suis concr?te :-)

Le suis-je ?

---------------------------------
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Guillaume Blanchard <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp> wrote:
Salut ? tous,

Cr?er une association "Wikim?dia France", c'est un peu laisser sur le pas de la porte tous les non-fran?ais qui souhaite participer au projet d'association. Il est certain qu'une association en Belgique, au Canada ou en C?te-d'Ivoire ne verrons pas le jour avant plusieurs ann?es. En attendant, nous nous cantonnerions ? d?velopper les projets Wikim?dia uniquement en France !?

------------

Comme je pouvais bien ?videmment le pr?voir, tu n'as pas compris ce que je voulais dire :-(

Pourtant, il m'a sembl? essayer d'?tre claire :-(

Il est absolumment HORS de question que cette association ne soutienne que le projet en France. Au contraire, je consid?re qu'elle devrait supporter TOUS les projets, au moins un minimum. C'est aussi ce que veut dire "affiliation". C'est un engagement ? participer ? un projet dans son ensemble, et non pas uniquement sur un sol national.

Si Wikimedia France est "affili?e" ? Wikimedia, cela veut dire qu'elle participe au projet dans son ensemble. Concr?tement, cela veut dire par exemple :

Qu'elle va reverser par exemple 30% de ces revenus ? la foundation
- Sur ces 30%, 20% vont servir ? payer les serveurs (qui rappelons nous, h?bergent la wikip?dia francophone)

- 10% restant pourront ?tre utilis?s ? co-financer la publication d'un wikireader en langue arabe (parce que la langue arabe n'a pas encore d'association, mais ? l'opportunit? de diffuser un document de qualit?)

Les 70% restant resteront ? Wikim?dia France
- Disons qu'elle en utilisera 30% pour ses frais quotidiens (enregistrement de noms de domaines, frais fiscaux, timbres pour le courrier etc...)
Il restera 40% ? utiliser ? notre guise

- peut ?tre 20% pour faire des tee-shirts ? vendre en France
- 10% pour participer ? un gros ?v?nements promotionnel en Belgique, en collaboration avec la future association hollandaise et un coup de pouce financier de la Foundation

- et 10% pour donner un coup de pouce promotionnel ? la wikip?dia bretonne qui stagne compl?tement

En bref, elle aura

* support? ses propres co?ts de fonctionnement,

* elle aura aid? l'ensemble du projet (particip? aux serveurs et ? la diffusion de connaissance en arabe)

* collabor? avec deux autres associations pour une action multilingue

* et soutenu le d?veloppement d'une langue locale

Voila MA vision de ce que serait Wikim?dia France.

Et ceci peut tr?s bien se faire avec un pr?sident fran?ais, un secr?taire japonais et un tr?sorier belge.

Cela n'emp?che pas que l?galement, l'association est localis?e en France, d?pend du r?gime fiscal fran?ais et ne fournit des d?ductions fiscales qu'aux fran?ais.

-----------------------

Ce n'est vraiment pas ma vision de cette association. Nous sommes une communaut? francophone internationale et notre association doit refl?ter cet ?tat de fait. Ce n'est pas parce que nous choisissons la France comme pays d'accueil de l'association que nous devons limiter notre champ d'action. Notre Wikim?dia doit ?tre "francophone" ! Le jour ou une association similaire verra le jour en Suisse, nous n'aurons qu'? renommer l'association de droit fran?ais en "Wikim?dia francophone - France" et nommer la nouvelle association "Wikim?dia francophone - Suisse".

Aoineko

--------------------

Tu veut dire qu'il y aura donc en Suisse quatre associations ? Wikim?dia anglophone Suisse, Wikimedia francophone Suisse, Wikim?dia germanophone Suisse et Wikim?dia italophone Suisse ???

Non, je ne pense pas. Ce serait une perte d'?nergie et d'argent.
Je pense qu'il y a aura Wikim?dia Suisse, qui permettra de servir l'ensemble des habitants suisses en terme de d?duction fiscale et le projet dans son ensemble.

De toutes fa?ons, tout ceci n'est qu'une question de terminologie. Si tu souhaites repayer dans un an pour changer le nom de l'association, ce n'est vraiment qu'une histoire de sou, et je ne crois pas que nous en soyons ? quelques euros pr?s.

Ce qui me pose plus souci est que je ne suis pas sure que nous ayons la m?me vision de ce que doit ?tre l'association par rapport au projet global.

Donc je vais poser une question plus claire et j'esp?re que vous voudrez bien y r?pondre merci :-)

La question est toute simple : pensez vous que l'association doive conserver la totalit? de ces revenus pour elle et uniquement pour le soutien des projets en langue fran?aise, ou pensez vous qu'elle doive aider le projet d'une fa?on plus g?n?rale ?

Une affiliation est une association bilat?rale. Il y a des deux c?t?s des droits et des devoirs. Il y a une coop?ration qui doit s'instaurer, car l'association locale ? besoin de la globale, tout comme la globale a besoin de la locale. Alors, au dela de la simple r?flexion "nous sommes francophones ou rien", envisagez vous de faire tout simplement partie de l'ensemble et de participer ? son d?veloppement, ou pas du tout. Je pense que Villy l'envisageait globale, avec ses sp?cificit?s locales et ses petites sp?cialit?s linguistiques. C'est aussi ma vision. Maintenant, j'aimerais bien avoir l'avis des futurs membres fondateurs. Beaucoup de francophones travaillent sur plusieurs projets ? la fois, et dans plusieurs langues; j'aimerais savoir si ils souhaitent que leur cotisation aille uniquement ? des actions promotionnelles dans des pays francophones, ou si ils souhaitent aussi que leur don aide ? acheter un nouveau serveur pour que le projet ne soit pas en rade tous les 4 matins.

J'esp?re que je suis concr?te :-)

Le suis-je ?

---------------------------------
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body:
Guillaume Blanchard <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp> wrote:
Salut ? tous,

Cr?er une association "Wikim?dia France", c'est un peu laisser sur le pas de la porte tous les non-fran?ais qui souhaite participer au projet d'association. Il est certain qu'une association en Belgique, au Canada ou en C?te-d'Ivoire ne verrons pas le jour avant plusieurs ann?es. En attendant, nous nous cantonnerions ? d?velopper les projets Wikim?dia uniquement en France !?

------------

Comme je pouvais bien ?videmment le pr?voir, tu n'as pas compris ce que je voulais dire :-(

Pourtant, il m'a sembl? essayer d'?tre claire :-(

Il est absolumment HORS de question que cette association ne soutienne que le projet en France. Au contraire, je consid?re qu'elle devrait supporter TOUS les projets, au moins un minimum. C'est aussi ce que veut dire "affiliation". C'est un engagement ? participer ? un projet dans son ensemble, et non pas uniquement sur un sol national.

Si Wikimedia France est "affili?e" ? Wikimedia, cela veut dire qu'elle participe au projet dans son ensemble. Concr?tement, cela veut dire par exemple :

Qu'elle va reverser par exemple 30% de ces revenus ? la foundation
- Sur ces 30%, 20% vont servir ? payer les serveurs (qui rappelons nous, h?bergent la wikip?dia francophone)

- 10% restant pourront ?tre utilis?s ? co-financer la publication d'un wikireader en langue arabe (parce que la langue arabe n'a pas encore d'association, mais ? l'opportunit? de diffuser un document de qualit?)

Les 70% restant resteront ? Wikim?dia France
- Disons qu'elle en utilisera 30% pour ses frais quotidiens (enregistrement de noms de domaines, frais fiscaux, timbres pour le courrier etc...)
Il restera 40% ? utiliser ? notre guise

- peut ?tre 20% pour faire des tee-shirts ? vendre en France
- 10% pour participer ? un gros ?v?nements promotionnel en Belgique, en collaboration avec la future association hollandaise et un coup de pouce financier de la Foundation

- et 10% pour donner un coup de pouce promotionnel ? la wikip?dia bretonne qui stagne compl?tement

En bref, elle aura

* support? ses propres co?ts de fonctionnement,

* elle aura aid? l'ensemble du projet (particip? aux serveurs et ? la diffusion de connaissance en arabe)

* collabor? avec deux autres associations pour une action multilingue

* et soutenu le d?veloppement d'une langue locale

Voila MA vision de ce que serait Wikim?dia France.

Et ceci peut tr?s bien se faire avec un pr?sident fran?ais, un secr?taire japonais et un tr?sorier belge.

Cela n'emp?che pas que l?galement, l'association est localis?e en France, d?pend du r?gime fiscal fran?ais et ne fournit des d?ductions fiscales qu'aux fran?ais.

-----------------------

Ce n'est vraiment pas ma vision de cette association. Nous sommes une communaut? francophone internationale et notre association doit refl?ter cet ?tat de fait. Ce n'est pas parce que nous choisissons la France comme pays d'accueil de l'association que nous devons limiter notre champ d'action. Notre Wikim?dia doit ?tre "francophone" ! Le jour ou une association similaire verra le jour en Suisse, nous n'aurons qu'? renommer l'association de droit fran?ais en "Wikim?dia francophone - France" et nommer la nouvelle association "Wikim?dia francophone - Suisse".

Aoineko

--------------------

Tu veut dire qu'il y aura donc en Suisse quatre associations ? Wikim?dia anglophone Suisse, Wikimedia francophone Suisse, Wikim?dia germanophone Suisse et Wikim?dia italophone Suisse ???

Non, je ne pense pas. Ce serait une perte d'?nergie et d'argent.
Je pense qu'il y a aura Wikim?dia Suisse, qui permettra de servir l'ensemble des habitants suisses en terme de d?duction fiscale et le projet dans son ensemble.

De toutes fa?ons, tout ceci n'est qu'une question de terminologie. Si tu souhaites repayer dans un an pour changer le nom de l'association, ce n'est vraiment qu'une histoire de sou, et je ne crois pas que nous en soyons ? quelques euros pr?s.

Ce qui me pose plus souci est que je ne suis pas sure que nous ayons la m?me vision de ce que doit ?tre l'association par rapport au projet global.

Donc je vais poser une question plus claire et j'esp?re que vous voudrez bien y r?pondre merci :-)

La question est toute simple : pensez vous que l'association doive conserver la totalit? de ces revenus pour elle et uniquement pour le soutien des projets en langue fran?aise, ou pensez vous qu'elle doive aider le projet d'une fa?on plus g?n?rale ?

Une affiliation est une association bilat?rale. Il y a des deux c?t?s des droits et des devoirs. Il y a une coop?ration qui doit s'instaurer, car l'association locale ? besoin de la globale, tout comme la globale a besoin de la locale. Alors, au dela de la simple r?flexion "nous sommes francophones ou rien", envisagez vous de faire tout simplement partie de l'ensemble et de participer ? son d?veloppement, ou pas du tout. Je pense que Villy l'envisageait globale, avec ses sp?cificit?s locales et ses petites sp?cialit?s linguistiques. C'est aussi ma vision. Maintenant, j'aimerais bien avoir l'avis des futurs membres fondateurs. Beaucoup de francophones travaillent sur plusieurs projets ? la fois, et dans plusieurs langues; j'aimerais savoir si ils souhaitent que leur cotisation aille uniquement ? des actions promotionnelles dans des pays francophones, ou si ils souhaitent aussi que leur don aide ? acheter un nouveau serveur pour que le projet ne soit pas en rade tous les 4 matins.

J'esp?re que je suis concr?te :-)

Le suis-je ?

---------------------------------
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body:
Guillaume Blanchard <gblanchard at arcsy.co.jp> wrote:
Salut ? tous,

Cr?er une association "Wikim?dia France", c'est un peu laisser sur le pas de la porte tous les non-fran?ais qui souhaite participer au projet d'association. Il est certain qu'une association en Belgique, au Canada ou en C?te-d'Ivoire ne verrons pas le jour avant plusieurs ann?es. En attendant, nous nous cantonnerions ? d?velopper les projets Wikim?dia uniquement en France !?

------------

Comme je pouvais bien ?videmment le pr?voir, tu n'as pas compris ce que je voulais dire :-(

Pourtant, il m'a sembl? essayer d'?tre claire :-(

Il est absolumment HORS de question que cette association ne soutienne que le projet en France. Au contraire, je consid?re qu'elle devrait supporter TOUS les projets, au moins un minimum. C'est aussi ce que veut dire "affiliation". C'est un engagement ? participer ? un projet dans son ensemble, et non pas uniquement sur un sol national.

Si Wikimedia France est "affili?e" ? Wikimedia, cela veut dire qu'elle participe au projet dans son ensemble. Concr?tement, cela veut dire par exemple :

Qu'elle va reverser par exemple 30% de ces revenus ? la foundation
- Sur ces 30%, 20% vont servir ? payer les serveurs (qui rappelons nous, h?bergent la wikip?dia francophone)

- 10% restant pourront ?tre utilis?s ? co-financer la publication d'un wikireader en langue arabe (parce que la langue arabe n'a pas encore d'association, mais ? l'opportunit? de diffuser un document de qualit?)

Les 70% restant resteront ? Wikim?dia France
- Disons qu'elle en utilisera 30% pour ses frais quotidiens (enregistrement de noms de domaines, frais fiscaux, timbres pour le courrier etc...)
Il restera 40% ? utiliser ? notre guise

- peut ?tre 20% pour faire des tee-shirts ? vendre en France
- 10% pour participer ? un gros ?v?nements promotionnel en Belgique, en collaboration avec la future association hollandaise et un coup de pouce financier de la Foundation

- et 10% pour donner un coup de pouce promotionnel ? la wikip?dia bretonne qui stagne compl?tement

En bref, elle aura

* support? ses propres co?ts de fonctionnement,

* elle aura aid? l'ensemble du projet (particip? aux serveurs et ? la diffusion de connaissance en arabe)

* collabor? avec deux autres associations pour une action multilingue

* et soutenu le d?veloppement d'une langue locale

Voila MA vision de ce que serait Wikim?dia France.

Et ceci peut tr?s bien se faire avec un pr?sident fran?ais, un secr?taire japonais et un tr?sorier belge.

Cela n'emp?che pas que l?galement, l'association est localis?e en France, d?pend du r?gime fiscal fran?ais et ne fournit des d?ductions fiscales qu'aux fran?ais.

-----------------------

Ce n'est vraiment pas ma vision de cette association. Nous sommes une communaut? francophone internationale et notre association doit refl?ter cet ?tat de fait. Ce n'est pas parce que nous choisissons la France comme pays d'accueil de l'association que nous devons limiter notre champ d'action. Notre Wikim?dia doit ?tre "francophone" ! Le jour ou une association similaire verra le jour en Suisse, nous n'aurons qu'? renommer l'association de droit fran?ais en "Wikim?dia francophone - France" et nommer la nouvelle association "Wikim?dia francophone - Suisse".

Aoineko

--------------------

Tu veut dire qu'il y aura donc en Suisse quatre associations ? Wikim?dia anglophone Suisse, Wikimedia francophone Suisse, Wikim?dia germanophone Suisse et Wikim?dia italophone Suisse ???

Non, je ne pense pas. Ce serait une perte d'?nergie et d'argent.
Je pense qu'il y a aura Wikim?dia Suisse, qui permettra de servir l'ensemble des habitants suisses en terme de d?duction fiscale et le projet dans son ensemble.

De toutes fa?ons, tout ceci n'est qu'une question de terminologie. Si tu souhaites repayer dans un an pour changer le nom de l'association, ce n'est vraiment qu'une histoire de sou, et je ne crois pas que nous en soyons ? quelques euros pr?s.

Ce qui me pose plus souci est que je ne suis pas sure que nous ayons la m?me vision de ce que doit ?tre l'association par rapport au projet global.

Donc je vais poser une question plus claire et j'esp?re que vous voudrez bien y r?pondre merci :-)

La question est toute simple : pensez vous que l'association doive conserver la totalit? de ces revenus pour elle et uniquement pour le soutien des projets en langue fran?aise, ou pensez vous qu'elle doive aider le projet d'une fa?on plus g?n?rale ?

Une affiliation est une association bilat?rale. Il y a des deux c?t?s des droits et des devoirs. Il y a une coop?ration qui doit s'instaurer, car l'association locale ? besoin de la globale, tout comme la globale a besoin de la locale. Alors, au dela de la simple r?flexion "nous sommes francophones ou rien", envisagez vous de faire tout simplement partie de l'ensemble et de participer ? son d?veloppement, ou pas du tout. Je pense que Villy l'envisageait globale, avec ses sp?cificit?s locales et ses petites sp?cialit?s linguistiques. C'est aussi ma vision. Maintenant, j'aimerais bien avoir l'avis des futurs membres fondateurs. Beaucoup de francophones travaillent sur plusieurs projets ? la fois, et dans plusieurs langues; j'aimerais savoir si ils souhaitent que leur cotisation aille uniquement ? des actions promotionnelles dans des pays francophones, ou si ils souhaitent aussi que leur don aide ? acheter un nouveau serveur pour que le projet ne soit pas en rade tous les 4 matins.

J'esp?re que je suis concr?te :-)

Le suis-je ?

---------------------------------
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from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Funding for the newly elected Board Members

body:
"Anthere" <anthere9 at yahoo.com> schrieb:

> I think we should relieve you of your fears with regards to this issue
> Mark :-)
>
> Last evening, we were discussing of how much money was currently in bank.
> I made a quick estimate, because Mav in on holidays, so I could not ask
> him last numbers, but basically I know that mid may we had roughly 5.400
> dollars. Add to this the 9000 dollars refund for a server. Plus 10.000
> euros received a few days ago by Jimbo for the trophy.
>
> That makes about 24 000 dollars (it is a *very* rough estimate).
>
> JeLuF made a provisional hardware budget for the rest of the year.
> You may find it here :
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_provisional_budget
> Current amount indicated is 12000 dollars

I read this, and it looks very much underestimated to me.
The total database size of all Wikipedias is growing even slightly more
than exponentially, doubling time at the moment being six months.
Wikipedia's own usage statistics are not very clear, but in as far as
they are, they have increased more than tenfold in the past year. Alexa
tells us that our reach has grown 37% in three months time.

All this draws me to the conclusion: The amount of hardware we need
at the end of the year might easily be double what we need now. And
since we grow faster than Moore's law, we will NOT get by with keeping
the same amount of hardware or growing linearly. Add to that that at
the moment we do not have everything we want (there's well-known
regulars now who have no f***ing idea what the Maintenance Page is
for or what the Wikipedia search results look like).

I'm afraid that this kind of estimates, and Wikipedia hardware buys
in general, are often based on what would be comfortable now rather
than on what will be needed by the time the hardware actually arrives,
or even better, when the hardware _after that_ arrives.

Andre Engels


list: wikien-l

from_name: Charles Matthews

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Restructuring, renaming,
	creating and removing Wikiprojects

body:
Simonides of Ceos wrote

>I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out
categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be
substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working
together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create
and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.
Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and
expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.
Thanks!

Does it work that way?  My experience is that WikiProjects typically have a
stated aim of 'standardising' how articles are written; which sounds good to
some people but is never enforceable and can be too prescriptive.
Categories can be added by individuals acting alone.  Where there are
already lists of articles by topics, adding categories is relatively
straightforward.  The creation of such lists really ought to devolve to
relevant WikiProjects; but that doesn't see to be how it pans out in
practice.

Charles


body:
Delirium wrote:
> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I
>> would like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our
>> elected board members relating to their participation in Wikimedia
>> work. For instance, telephone calls overseas should be covered by the
>> Foundation, and not the elected representatives. A broadband
>> connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.
>>
>> While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
>> projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the
>> users. We should make it as easy for them as possible.
>
>
> I wouldn't consider this a high priority---certainly far below buying
> servers, which we already don't have enough money to buy.

I think we should relieve you of your fears with regards to this issue
Mark :-)

Last evening, we were discussing of how much money was currently in bank.
I made a quick estimate, because Mav in on holidays, so I could not ask
him last numbers, but basically I know that mid may we had roughly 5.400
dollars. Add to this the 9000 dollars refund for a server. Plus 10.000
euros received a few days ago by Jimbo for the trophy.

That makes about 24 000 dollars (it is a *very* rough estimate).

JeLuF made a provisional hardware budget for the rest of the year.
You may find it here :
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_provisional_budget
Current amount indicated is 12000 dollars

We naturally have also to plan for contingencies.

So, I would not say that we do not have *enough* money to buy servers.
The problem might be somewhere else.

I would say that we should plan a fund raising time in fall. It will be
necessary. But saying we do not have enough money right now is just
plain incorrect.

  Unless we
 > find ourselves in a situation where we have so much cash we don't have
 > any place it could better be spent, I think a better approach would be
 > to simply use email to communicate like everyone else does.  As for
 > internet connections, I assume anyone involved in the project already
 > has one (how else would they be Wikipedians, given that this is
 > primarily an internet-based project?).
 >
 > -Mark

Yes. You are correct. But perhaps a board member is not only in touch
with wikipedians, but also with the outside world. And though I tried to
  suggest a couple of journalists to connect to irc or only use emails,
I really do not understand why they strongly insist on phone meeting or
better, face to face meetings :-)....
Same goes for meetings where Wikipedia is presented. Very curious :-)

 >Adding a qualification to this: I wouldn't be opposed to voluntary
 >donations by people who feel strongly about this.  If there are
 >expenses that are turning out to be problematic, there could be a
 >fund-raising campaign to provide funding for the board members.  But
 >this should come out of specific donations for that purpose: people
 >should know they're donating specifically to the "Wikimedia board of
 >trustees communication and travel fund" or something.

Absolutely. It is very important that people know how their money is
spent. I deeply agree. And we know that donations were done to purchase
*hardware*, because most donations were sent while wiki was broken, and
we made a general call precisely to have new hardware, so no money
donated to pay for server should be used for any other means. This is an
essential point, and I really wish that no one have any doubts about that.

We provide right now transparent money use history. Mav has been
maintaining this for a while now. See

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_bank_account_history_for_2004

Now, you should also know that Jimbo goes on paying some expenses as
well, such as when a developer goes to the coloc. This is not reported
in the current history.

I think that in the future, we may ask members to indicate if they wish
that their money is used for a specific purpose. Till now, the two
specific purposes were
* hardware
* purchase of a computer for Brion

I see many more. Especially for firms funding. A firm or an organisation
may wish that the donation money is used in a specific way, such as
support of a minority language, or sending computers with wikipedia on
it to an given african country, or making a whole set of wikireaders
around a specific topic. There are many options and to my opinion,
donators should have the possibility to indicate what they want the
money to be used for.

Aside from donations, we also recently received an award (10 000 euros),
and the money from this award may be used the way we choose to use it.
Which mean, we can use it for hardware, or for *anything else*,
including to support costs which will help to build the community.

 >This is something I feel somewhat strongly about, especially since
 >someone mentioned how other organizations routinely do it: they are
 >most definitely not models to emulate.  A great many non-profit
 >organizations are inefficient, wasteful, and often simply corrupt,
with >a relatively small percentage of their money going towards their
actual >stated mission.

 >-Mark

I'd like to be very direct and to cite a very specific example. In about
2 weeks, there is a meeting in Paris, for many french speaking
wikipedians. I will meet Jimbo there. Jimbo made the great suggestion
that Angela meet us there as well. It will allow her to meet with french
wikipedians AND it will probably be the first and the last opportunity
for the whole year, for the board to meet face to face for really low cost.

I think that though most issues may be solved in irc and emails
discussion, it is very highly suitable that the board meets in real life
at least once in the year, and this meeting in Paris is the lowest cost
opportunity to do so. I deeply believe that on-line discussions can be
improved when people have met around a beer once. Hence, I hope Angel
will come to Paris. It will strengthen the community to do so. And I do
not think a project like our own project, does rely ONLY of hardware
considerations; it relies a lot on PEOPLE. And using a bit of money from
the Foundation to strenghten the bonds between people does not seen to
me to be a waste. Many issues can be fixed on face to face meeting, so
that is not inefficiency either. And finally, talking of corruption is
perhaps a bit premature Mark.

The board will be very much what you all wish it to be Mark. So perhaps
this is what we should discuss right now.

We can solve a lot of organisational issues online.  If you want us to
be only doing this, that is fine. It has little cost, but for our time
and energy.

However, if the board is also expected to meet people outside, to write
to american administration, to give interviews, to go to major events, I
think paying us the costs of it, the costs for US representing YOU is
not very chocking. And has little to do with corruption.

I'd like to personally add a last point. I am a working woman, so I have
income. However, I am not rich. Far from it. My family has enough to
live quietly. No excess though. Like many many many of you, I chose to
give most of my free time (more than my free time actually) for this
project, because I very strongly believe in it. I am all dedicated to
give my energy to help it and I will.

But it will *not* be to the cost of my family financial stability. That
would be highly unfair to my husband and my children.

I will, and I think any board member, will only be what you expect us to
be. If covering our costs is too controversial, then let it be :-) We'll
do just as with operating costs, we'll remove all these handy little
options in special pages :-)

Cheers

ant/flo


body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>It is standard for Trustees to be compensated for travel to convene
>Board meetings, and this would be exactly that. This should not be
>construed to endorse the other things discussed recently, such as
>phone calls, broadband, etc. That should be decided with full careful
>discussion.
>
>However, having served on boards of other US-based nonprofits, paying
>expenses for convening Board of Trustees is a normal practice. I hope
>it can be agreed upon rather quickly that laying out this expense of
>less than 400 euros is money well spent.
>
>
I don't think it'd be money well-spent, and the fact that other US-based
nonprofits do not spend their money wisely (a well-known fact, that
occasionally results in some public outrage in specific egregious
instances) isn't really a good justification for it.

If I were to think of what we should spend money on that we're not
spending money on, there's a million things that are better options.
The immediate one is some sort of bounty system to pay for software
improvements or configuration improvements that are beyond the scope or
interest of the people doing our so-far-volunteer development work. As
someone mentioned on the wiki-tech list recently, throwing more hardware
at the problem isn't always the best solution, although we do also
undoubtedly need more hardware (and will need even more by the end of
the year).

So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
each of them.

-Mark

----------------------

In considering paying developers to stimulate them to work more, while covering our costs is seen by you as a complete loss of money with no good foreseeable justification, you are being plain rude to both Angela and I.

If we are to use our energy, our time and now even our personal money on this project, I think we can expect perhaps a little bit of politness, recognition and appreciation for the work we do.

---------------------------------
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body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>It is standard for Trustees to be compensated for travel to convene
>Board meetings, and this would be exactly that. This should not be
>construed to endorse the other things discussed recently, such as
>phone calls, broadband, etc. That should be decided with full careful
>discussion.
>
>However, having served on boards of other US-based nonprofits, paying
>expenses for convening Board of Trustees is a normal practice. I hope
>it can be agreed upon rather quickly that laying out this expense of
>less than 400 euros is money well spent.
>
>
I don't think it'd be money well-spent, and the fact that other US-based
nonprofits do not spend their money wisely (a well-known fact, that
occasionally results in some public outrage in specific egregious
instances) isn't really a good justification for it.

If I were to think of what we should spend money on that we're not
spending money on, there's a million things that are better options.
The immediate one is some sort of bounty system to pay for software
improvements or configuration improvements that are beyond the scope or
interest of the people doing our so-far-volunteer development work. As
someone mentioned on the wiki-tech list recently, throwing more hardware
at the problem isn't always the best solution, although we do also
undoubtedly need more hardware (and will need even more by the end of
the year).

So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
each of them.

-Mark

----------------------

In considering paying developers to stimulate them to work more, while covering our costs is seen by you as a complete loss of money with no good foreseeable justification, you are being plain rude to both Angela and I.

If we are to use our energy, our time and now even our personal money on this project, I think we can expect perhaps a little bit of politness, recognition and appreciation for the work we do.

---------------------------------
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body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>It is standard for Trustees to be compensated for travel to convene
>Board meetings, and this would be exactly that. This should not be
>construed to endorse the other things discussed recently, such as
>phone calls, broadband, etc. That should be decided with full careful
>discussion.
>
>However, having served on boards of other US-based nonprofits, paying
>expenses for convening Board of Trustees is a normal practice. I hope
>it can be agreed upon rather quickly that laying out this expense of
>less than 400 euros is money well spent.
>
>
I don't think it'd be money well-spent, and the fact that other US-based
nonprofits do not spend their money wisely (a well-known fact, that
occasionally results in some public outrage in specific egregious
instances) isn't really a good justification for it.

If I were to think of what we should spend money on that we're not
spending money on, there's a million things that are better options.
The immediate one is some sort of bounty system to pay for software
improvements or configuration improvements that are beyond the scope or
interest of the people doing our so-far-volunteer development work. As
someone mentioned on the wiki-tech list recently, throwing more hardware
at the problem isn't always the best solution, although we do also
undoubtedly need more hardware (and will need even more by the end of
the year).

So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
each of them.

-Mark

----------------------

In considering paying developers to stimulate them to work more, while covering our costs is seen by you as a complete loss of money with no good foreseeable justification, you are being plain rude to both Angela and I.

If we are to use our energy, our time and now even our personal money on this project, I think we can expect perhaps a little bit of politness, recognition and appreciation for the work we do.

---------------------------------
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body:
Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>It is standard for Trustees to be compensated for travel to convene
>Board meetings, and this would be exactly that. This should not be
>construed to endorse the other things discussed recently, such as
>phone calls, broadband, etc. That should be decided with full careful
>discussion.
>
>However, having served on boards of other US-based nonprofits, paying
>expenses for convening Board of Trustees is a normal practice. I hope
>it can be agreed upon rather quickly that laying out this expense of
>less than 400 euros is money well spent.
>
>
I don't think it'd be money well-spent, and the fact that other US-based
nonprofits do not spend their money wisely (a well-known fact, that
occasionally results in some public outrage in specific egregious
instances) isn't really a good justification for it.

If I were to think of what we should spend money on that we're not
spending money on, there's a million things that are better options.
The immediate one is some sort of bounty system to pay for software
improvements or configuration improvements that are beyond the scope or
interest of the people doing our so-far-volunteer development work. As
someone mentioned on the wiki-tech list recently, throwing more hardware
at the problem isn't always the best solution, although we do also
undoubtedly need more hardware (and will need even more by the end of
the year).

So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
each of them.

-Mark

----------------------

In considering paying developers to stimulate them to work more, while covering our costs is seen by you as a complete loss of money with no good foreseeable justification, you are being plain rude to both Angela and I.

If we are to use our energy, our time and now even our personal money on this project, I think we can expect perhaps a little bit of politness, recognition and appreciation for the work we do.

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
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-------------- next part --------------
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from_name: K Forstner

body:
I agree wholeheartedly with what Jakob says (although it seems many people
don't like the idea of someone rejecting their new toy). Maybe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Writers ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Melbourne_trams or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Viennese_composers can serve as
eye-openers: In each case, the "category" itself is rather pointless, and
the entries are dubious. What is more, no one seems to be discussing this
anywhere.

All the best,

KF

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jakob" <jakob.voss at s1999.tu-chemnitz.de>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2004 1:24 AM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories considered harmful

> Hi!
>
> Maybe the problem with categories is not that bad in en.wikipedia, but as
far as
> I can see its pretty chaotic there, too. I wrote this having in mind the
attemts
> in de.wikipedia - my main reasons are true in every language.
>
>
> Since Version 1.3 of MediaWiki we have the nice category function. In the
> german wikipedia there is a lot of confusion and struggle on how to use
> categories in the right way. As a student of library science I could tell
> several methods how to classify, index and sort things but none of them
> seems to be applicable easily with the current implementation of
categories.
>
> As far as I can tell there are three main reasons for Wikipedia's success:
>
> 1. It's very easy to contribute (Wikitax, everybody can edit)
> 2. Every edit is monitored in watchlists and list of lasts edits
>    so we can control each other
> 3. There is a clear common mission - to create an encyclopedia (+NPOV)
>
> As far as I also can see the category-function contradicts all of them:
>
> 1. It's not easy.
>
> It's not easy to know how to do it in the right way because subject
> indexing is a complex issue and it's not easy because of lacks in the
> implementation (no rename, no redirects, no assignment of articles to
> categories without editing every single the article pages). Editing an
> article I have to guess which categories are existing, how they are
> spelled and the rules what to classify into them and what not.
>
> 2. It's not controllable.
>
> You cannot watch a category to get noticed on new articles or when
> somebody removes an article from the category nor when sub-categories are
> created.
>
> 3. There is no common mission
>
> Can anybody tell the purpose of categories? Finding articles (without
> a coordinated search function?!) Browsing in topics (without a clear
> overview of all categories?!) Are we trying to index articles with
> subject heading, using a thesaurus, a classification or even a structure
> ontology? Library science has invented several kind of schemes like that
> but at the moment everybody is muddling this and that trying to invent
> the already invented wheels of documentation (by the way there are also
> methods of automatic indexing, clustering and classification).
>
> And: In classification there is no NPOV because there is no "right" way
> to classify the world but it depends on the special needs and questions
> I want to answer with a special system of subject indexing.
>
>
> Given the reasons I strongly recommend to stop using the categories and
> to focus on writing and improving good articles. Many categories can
easily
> be replaced with normal links between articles. Adding and removing
> categories do not change an article's content a bit. If you want to
> keep track of all articles in some area use (Wiki)Projects, article
> series, portals and learn how to use the "what links here"-function!
> A good article is an article that can be found easily without categories.
>
> Indeed classifying wikipedia articles is very interesting and will
> become more important, but this should be an independent project - maybe
> in a "Classifipedia" or "Categorypedia" that links to wikipedia articles.
>
> You know - librarians normally do not write the books they organize and
> search engine experts do not write the websites they crawl, so let's focus
> on what we can do the best: creating the most detailed, most
understandable
> and freest encyclopedia in the history of mankind!
>
> Greetings,
>   Jakob Voss (aka nichtich at de.wikipedia)
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Angela

subject: [Foundation-l] Funding for the newly elected Board Members

body:
hcheney wrote:
> If the Wikimedia Foundation starts giving the trustees
> "perks" I feel that fundraising could be quite a bit
> harder.

Firstly, phone calls made for Foundation business are hardly "perks".
Secondly, I don't see this sort of expense coming out of the normal
donation funds. People have given those expecting they will be used on
hardware and related purchases, so that is exactly what should be done
with them.

However, not all of the money in our account is from donors. We
already have ?10,000 from the Ars Electronica award, and one of the
things Anthere and I plan to do over the coming year is to find funds
from alternative sources. We can't rely purely on donations from
within the website, so there is no need for actual donor money to be
spent on board expenses.

I expect the vast majority of our communication to be carried out over
IRC. However, there are situations where this is not plausible. As
well as the press contacts Anthere mentioned, applying for grants is
one example where face to face contact, or at a minimum, phone
contact, is far more likely to result in success.

Delirium wrote:
> As for internet connections, I assume anyone involved
>  in the project already has one ?

I agree. I don't see my internet costs as being something the
Foundation should be paying for.

Anthere wrote:
> In about 2 weeks, there is a meeting in Paris, for many french speaking
> wikipedians. I will meet Jimbo there. Jimbo made the great suggestion
> that Angela meet us there as well. It will allow her to meet with french
> wikipedians AND it will probably be the first and the last opportunity
> for the whole year, for the board to meet face to face for really low cost.

I have mixed views about this. It is a great opportunity for the three
of us to meet, and probably the only opportunity over the following
year. However, I am not entirely comfortable about having to take the
Foundation's money for it, as Jimbo has suggested I do. On the other
hand, I recognise that starting the year with a real life meeting is
likely to be very beneficial, so if the community supported the idea
that some of the award money (not donor money) could pay for this,
then I would be delighted by that. However, I absolutely do not want
this to happen if it is going to cause a huge controversy. People have
expressed views against board expenses, and so this issue needs to be
treated sensitively. I have no intention of upsetting the people who
so recently voted me into this position.

Anthere wrote:
> Danny added to possible official positions,
> the possibility of having an ombudsman.
> I personally think it is premature right now?

I don't think this is premature at all. I think it will ease a lot of
the concerns surrounding the idea we're about to jet off to Florida
each week. :) Having an outsider monitoring the spending within the
project sounds a very beneficial idea to me.

Angela.


from_name: Daniel Mayer

body:
--- epzachte at chello.nl wrote:
> Doiny any serious programming for $100 is almost equivalent to doing it for
> free. What incentive would that be?
>
> If we would pay serious money for any software activity our current cash
> reserves would be gone in no time.
> At the moment developers are rewarded with an occasional 'thank you'.
> Singling out tasks that are important
> enough to pay a token sum, would only muddy the waters.

Why not just provide direct links to the PayPal accounts of every active
developer who has contributed x amount of code on the Foundation's fundraising
page? Kinda like a tip jar. I was planning on asking the developers about this
soon anyway.

And/or we could also have a separate software development PayPal account that
we could offer bounties from (the current PayPal account would be for general
fund expenses - mostly server related). On top of that, we could have a legal
defense fund account as well.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Search on second server?

body:
I take it that we now have two database machines, one server and one
keeping synchronized?

If so, can we use the synchronized machine to enable fulltext search
again? Or would that pur too much stress on it?

Magnus


body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> Sort of to follow up on the last email in more general terms:
>
> * I don't disagree that, ideally, we would provide a small amount of
> funding to the foundation members for specific purposes.
> * However, I also think we should provide a small amount of funding to
> our software developers, who have done a lot more over the past few
> years (and currently) to make Wikipedia what it is, and need more
> resources to continue doing so at the same rate (or, ideally, an
> improved rate).
>
> So, I'd say funding for such niceties as face-to-face board meetings
> should take place only after the developers have the money they need,
> which may include hiring additional developers for specific areas in
> which we have no sufficiently knowledgeable volunteers, or at least
> putting in place a bounty system to attract some semi-paid developers.
> I could easily see EUR1000-2000 in the immediate future being very
> desirable for this purpose.

This is something that the as-yet-to-be-created Wikimedia budget committee
should be working on. Also, there should at least be one face to face meeting
of all board members each year (which could coincide with a Wikimedia meet-up).
It is not at all unreasonable for those board members to be reimbursed for
their basic travel expenses (transport, hotel, and a small amount each day for
food). These expenses will be rather small compared to all our other expenses.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
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body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> ....
> So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
> the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
> software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
> each of them.

What we really need to do is approach some large money-giving foundations with
a grant proposal so that we could hire a full time server admin and possibly
even a full time software developer. In the meantime we could set-up a separate
Wikimedia developer fund to pay bounties from. But this is not something that I
think should be coming from the general fund.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________________________
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from_name: Delirium

body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>It is standard for Trustees to be compensated for travel to convene
>Board meetings, and this would be exactly that.  This should not be
>construed to endorse the other things discussed recently, such as
>phone calls, broadband, etc. That should be decided with full careful
>discussion.
>
>However, having served on boards of other US-based nonprofits, paying
>expenses for convening Board of Trustees is a normal practice.  I hope
>it can be agreed upon rather quickly that laying out this expense of
>less than 400 euros is money well spent.
>
>
I don't think it'd be money well-spent, and the fact that other US-based
nonprofits do not spend their money wisely (a well-known fact, that
occasionally results in some public outrage in specific egregious
instances) isn't really a good justification for it.

If I were to think of what we should spend money on that we're not
spending money on, there's a million things that are better options.
The immediate one is some sort of bounty system to pay for software
improvements or configuration improvements that are beyond the scope or
interest of the people doing our so-far-volunteer development work.  As
someone mentioned on the wiki-tech list recently, throwing more hardware
at the problem isn't always the best solution, although we do also
undoubtedly need more hardware (and will need even more by the end of
the year).

So if we're going to start spending money on various things, I'd propose
the first thing we do with a spare 400 euro is identify four important
software changes that need to be made, and put bounties on 100 euro on
each of them.

-Mark


body:
Sort of to follow up on the last email in more general terms:

* I don't disagree that, ideally, we would provide a small amount of
funding to the foundation members for specific purposes.
* However, I also think we should provide a small amount of funding to
our software developers, who have done a lot more over the past few
years (and currently) to make Wikipedia what it is, and need more
resources to continue doing so at the same rate (or, ideally, an
improved rate).

So, I'd say funding for such niceties as face-to-face board meetings
should take place only after the developers have the money they need,
which may include hiring additional developers for specific areas in
which we have no sufficiently knowledgeable volunteers, or at least
putting in place a bounty system to attract some semi-paid developers.
I could easily see EUR1000-2000 in the immediate future being very
desirable for this purpose.

-Mark


body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>....
> I think that though most issues may be solved in irc and emails
> discussion, it is very highly suitable that the board meets in real life
> at least once in the year, and this meeting in Paris is the lowest cost
> opportunity to do so. I deeply believe that on-line discussions can be
> improved when people have met around a beer once. Hence, I hope Angel
> will come to Paris. It will strengthen the community to do so. And I do
> not think a project like our own project, does rely ONLY of hardware
> considerations; it relies a lot on PEOPLE. And using a bit of money from
> the Foundation to strenghten the bonds between people does not seen to
> me to be a waste. Many issues can be fixed on face to face meeting, so
> that is not inefficiency either. And finally, talking of corruption is
> perhaps a bit premature Mark.
> ...

I very much agree with this. The trustees do need to meet face-to-face at least
once per year. The budget committee needs to work out a way to make at least
that happen and also look into the possibility of having quarterly face-to-face
meetings of the trustees. Those meetings could be conducted in different parts
of the world and coincide with Wikimedia meet-ups. Video streaming and phone
conferencing could also be set-up so that non-board member officers could
virtually attend the meetings (such as the financial officer ;). But it is very
important for at least Jimbo and the representative board members to actually
*be* there. Thus we need to reimburse at least those board members for travel
expenses.

For now we could depend just on the Ars-Electronica award for this, but in
future fund drives we would just say up front something like "no more than 10%
of the money generated from this fund drive will be used for non-server-related
expenses (such as office or meeting/travel expenses of the board)."

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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from_name: Claudio V

subject: [Wikitech-l] Concatenation of Image and old English table files

body:
Hello,

For a couple of days now I have been trying to
concatenate  the Wikipedia image and English dump
files but without any success.  I am using Windows XP
as an operating system but I also have Knoppix when I
want to use Linux environment.

For some reason that I do not understand when I do

knoppix at ttyp0[hdg1]$ cat 20040609_upload.tar.aa
20040609_upload.tar.ab > test.tar

the new file created does not contain any part of the
second file (.ab) yet the file size is the addition of
both files.

The same is true with the English dump files (xaa,
xab, xac, xad, xae).

It seem only the first file of each split data are
valid.

Does anybody have any suggestion?

Thanks,

Claudio

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca


body:
Andrew Lih wrote:

>Delirum, we've spent a *lot* more money and resources on software
>development and server hardware than we have on planning and strategy
>for fundraising, which would immediately benefit if we got Jimbo, Ant
>and Ang together.
>
>
Actually, we have not currently spent *any* money on software
development, unless you count money that people individually donated to
Brion (which did not pass through the Wikimedia Foundation).

-Mark


body:
--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Last evening, we were discussing of how much money was currently in bank.
> I made a quick estimate, because Mav in on holidays, so I could not ask
> him last numbers, but basically I know that mid may we had roughly 5.400
> dollars. Add to this the 9000 dollars refund for a server. Plus 10.000
> euros received a few days ago by Jimbo for the trophy.
>
> That makes about 24 000 dollars (it is a *very* rough estimate).

The figure I have on http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising is US$9,054.63
as of June 18. That figure does *not* include the ~US$9000 server refund and it
does *not* include the ArsElectronica award money.  So your estimate, if
anything, is low by a few thousand dollars. I will update the numbers as soon
as I get exact figures from Jimbo.

> JeLuF made a provisional hardware budget for the rest of the year.
> You may find it here :
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_provisional_budget
> Current amount indicated is 12000 dollars

This is helpful, but the dollar figure looks to be way too optimistic given our
non-linear growth rate.

> ....
> I would say that we should plan a fund raising time in fall. It will be
> necessary. But saying we do not have enough money right now is just
> plain incorrect.

We should have one sooner. In fact we should have one *each* quarter of the
year.

> Absolutely. It is very important that people know how their money is
> spent. I deeply agree. And we know that donations were done to purchase
> *hardware*, because most donations were sent while wiki was broken, and
> we made a general call precisely to have new hardware, so no money
> donated to pay for server should be used for any other means. This is an
> essential point, and I really wish that no one have any doubts about that.

It would be trivial for me to track the ArsElectronica money separately so that
it could be used for non-server expenses. In future fund drives we would say up
front the exact maximum percentage non-server expenses (overhead) would take up
of the general fund budget. Thus fund drives would be best launched right after
a quarterly board meeting. The coming fund drive and revising the budget would
be very important topics for that meeting.

> We provide right now transparent money use history. Mav has been
> maintaining this for a while now. See
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_bank_account_history_for_2004

Which reminds me that I need more bank statements from Jimbo.

> I think that in the future, we may ask members to indicate if they wish
> that their money is used for a specific purpose. Till now, the two
> specific purposes were
> * hardware
> * purchase of a computer for Brion

We just need to be upfront as to how exactly the money is spent. Ergo, we need
a living budget that is adhered to (my main election platform, BTW).

> I see many more. Especially for firms funding. A firm or an organisation
> may wish that the donation money is used in a specific way, such as
> support of a minority language, or sending computers with wikipedia on
> it to an given african country, or making a whole set of wikireaders
> around a specific topic. There are many options and to my opinion,
> donators should have the possibility to indicate what they want the
> money to be used for.

For individual donors, we could have three separate PayPal/MoneyBookers
accounts to choose from:
1) general fund (pays for server-related expenses and basic foundation expenses
which would not exceed 10%)
2) developer fund (pays bounties to developers to fix certain things in
MediaWiki)
3) legal defense fund (pays the expenses of pro-bono legal council)

> Aside from donations, we also recently received an award (10 000 euros),
> and the money from this award may be used the way we choose to use it.
> Which mean, we can use it for hardware, or for *anything else*,
> including to support costs which will help to build the community.

Or to reimburse the travel costs of board members who attend meetings.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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body:
Anthere wrote:

>     In considering paying developers to stimulate them to work more,
>     while covering our costs is seen by you as a complete loss of
>     money with no good foreseeable justification, you are being plain
>     rude to both Angela and I.
>
>     If we are to use our energy, our time and now even our personal
>     money on this project, I think we can expect perhaps a little bit
>     of politness, recognition and appreciation for the work we do.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did not say it had no possible justification, merely that paying
developers ought to be a higher priority.  The developers have spent a
lot more of their energy, time, and personal money on the project, over
the course of several *years*.  Beginning to reimburse board members who
have hardly served for a *week* does not seem even remotely in the same
range.

-Mark


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Planned hardware expenses for the next 6 month

body:
Anthere asked how much money we need to run the system
for the rest of the year, so we took a look at the
servers we have and at the growth we have seen over the
last years.

The results can be seen at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_provisional_budget

and I invite eveyone to have a look at it and provide comments.

Regards,

JeLuF


body:
 The
> developers have spent a
> lot more of their energy, time, and personal money
> on the project, over
> the course of several *years*.  Beginning to
> reimburse board members who
> have hardly served for a *week* does not seem even
> remotely in the same
> range.
>
> -Mark

Well.
A week.
Sure.

I think Mark, that it is **never** a good idea to
belittle the amount of work **offered** by a
**volunteer**, be it a developer, a board member, a
graphist, an editor, a check speller or any one.

Well.

I do not do good work when I am in a bad mood.
I am in a bad mood.

I will be away for a few days to focus on my childen,
my husband, and my real life job, very much neglected
since february 2002.
I will need a raise next year to be able to pay to
participate in a constructive way :-)

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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Setting up for the Greek language

references:
<40CD966B.70105@cs.ucy.ac.cy> <40CFECA5.4000702@cs.ucy.ac.cy>
	<cb6vr0$vff$2@sea.gmane.org>

body:
Timwi wrote:

> Andreas Kasenides wrote:
>
>> Now that the months have been translated and put in place I realized
>> that for Greek things are not really so simple!! I am sure other
>> languages
>> have the same problems (Spanish?). The problem is that most words
>> in Greek take a different ending depending on the person that is
>> being referred to or talking. [...]
>> Can somebody offer a suggestion?
>
>
> You should probably give us more information on how Greek month names
> work. You have only told us what does *not* work. I might be able to
> come up with a technical solution if you explain to me what
> morphological properties of Greek need to be satisfied in the month
> names.

There may be cases I'm not covering, but for the one I can immediately
see in the interface, the issue is that "day month" type dates use the
possessive form of the month name, while month names used by themselves
use a simple noun form.  Using Latin-character transliterations without
accents:

May used as a simple noun is "Maios".  You'd use this if you wanted to
say "May is a nice month".
The possessive form of May (i.e. "May's", or "of May") is "Maiou".
You'd use this if you wanted to say "The flowers are the best part of May".
Dates use the possessive form, roughly equivalent to the English phrase
"15th of May"---"15h Maiou", or simply "15 Maiou"

I'm not sure how to name these as variables with maximum generality.  It
would help if someone knew of any other languages where month forms
change when used in dates versus as simple month names, to make sure all
cases are covered.  Considering only Greek, it would suffice to have
something like (feel free to rename the variables):
MonthName -- to use in things like headers (are there any month headers
anywhere?)
MonthNameInDate - to use as parts of dates, like "15 May"

(Where in many languages, these would be the same.)

-Mark


body:
--- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> ...
> This is something I feel somewhat strongly about, especially since
> someone mentioned how other organizations routinely do it: they are most
> definitely not models to emulate.  A great many non-profit organizations
> are inefficient, wasteful, and often simply corrupt, with a relatively
> small percentage of their money going towards their actual stated mission.

Travel and phone expenses for meetings are part of the basic operating expenses
of any organization. This is called overhead. Yes many organizations have
overhead expenses that are absurd, but that does not mean we will. We just need
to state up front in our budget the maximum percentage we will allow for
overhead.

I propose that that percentage be 10% of the general fund, allowing for 90% of
all money from that fund to be used on hardware and (perhaps eventually)
bandwidth/colo expenses. Other funds could also be set-up (such as a developer
bounty fund and a legal defense fund). But a fund devoted just to something as
unexciting as overhead will be doomed from the start.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

PS: IMO, any full time paid personnel (such as a on-site server admin,
software developer, and eventually Jimbo) would be paid with money from
specific large grants from money-giving foundations. At least in the mid term,
I do not think that our current revenue stream can be depended upon to meet
payroll. Thus we need multi-year large grants to pay for that.

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from_name: Yann Forget

body:
Hi,

Le Monday 21 June 2004 11:42, Anthere a ?crit :
> I am glad we convinced Jimbo to come and I will be even happier if Angel
> comes.

I think it's fine if the fundation pays Angela's travel expenses to Paris.

> This travel will be optimised, as I will meet on saturday the 3rd, some
> people currently doing a CD Rom on sustainable development. They are
> willing to give us under gfdl part of their content, but want to meet first
> to discuss which content will be transfered, and how. Looxix will come to
> that meeting as well.
>
> Aside from the content consideration, which will be great, I see this as an
> important move for the french wikipedia, and perhaps a step in a direction
> which will bring funds when the french association will be created :-)
>
> This content donation was suggested by Bruno Oudet, who I met in Lyon,
> during a meeting in may. You may find a cv of Bruno Oudet here :
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030501121123/www-leibniz.imag.fr/SI/index.php?
>page=cvbo. I believe this person might help us further penetrate the french
> information network, but this very likely imply "meeting" him again in
> other circonstances.

I have to add that it's Bruno Oudet who invited me to present Wikipedia to a
meeting on "sharing information on the Internet" last January. He was also
present during the presentation I made last May in Aix-en-Provence, in south
of France.

So there is no doubt that his contributions will be helpful to the project.

> ant

Yann

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subject: [Foundation-l] International Wikimedia structure

body:
--- Arne Klempert <wikipedia at klempert.de> wrote:
> I am something irritated by some suggestions on meta regarding the
> international structure of Wikimedia. There are made suggestions,
> aligning local Chapter at a language, instead of aligning at a country,
> for example Wikimedia Francophone and Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO that is
> the wrong way. Please look at other international non profit
> organizations how they do that.

I very much agree with this.

Anybody who wants to participate in a local chapter should be able to. The only
limitation is the amount of travel the person is able/willing to do. Thus local
chapters should serve *nations* not languages.

> The following points are important to me:
>
> * There should be as clear as possible a separation between projects and
> chapters because all projects are international and should remain widely
> self-determined.
>
> * Chapters should not primarily spend their money for projects in a
> certain language but on all projects, as far as legally possible.
>
> * There should be no sub-chapters on national level (i.e. Wikimedia
> Austria as a sub-chapter of Wikimedia Germany). Each national chapter
> should be directly assigned to the Foundation. Exceptions could be
> meaningful for regional chapters, which could be subordinated to the
> national chapters.
>
> The bylaws of Wikimedia Germany consider these principles. I would be
> glad, if future chapters would do this likewise.
>
> We should create an international organization to promote *together* all
> international projects and not create an accumulation of single
> organizations, which primarily promote "their" projects.

Wow! I'm very impressed with the amount of thought that went into Wikimedia
Germany's bylaws. The above points seem to be very important and logical. I
suggest a Wikimedia board committee look at the Wikimedia Germany's bylaws in
detail and form some basic principles upon which all future chapters are
organized (each chapter would write its own bylaws but those bylaws would have
to be ratified by the Wikimedia Foundation's board which in turn would use a
set of principles to guide them). I for one would like to form a regional
chapter of the as-yet-to-be-created Wikimedia United States chapter.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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