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Wikimedia UK v1.0 is being dissolved due to difficulties in getting it all set up, so it's time to start work on a new UK chapter. In order to avoid some of the problems that plagued our last incarnation we are committing now to being open, transparent and democratic from the get go.
Objectives
Feel free to edit below in the usual wiki fashion!
- to act as a voice and representative for the UK Wikimedian community;
- to promote Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia Foundation projects;
- to enable, assist, promote and promulgate wider participation in the creation, dissemination and expansion of information and educational resources covering the world's knowledge and languages to all persons, everywhere;
- to further the development of electronic, printed, and other resources required to support such participation;
- to produce, publish and develop, or cause to be produced, published and developed, information resources, whether in printed, electronic, or other forms;
- to make use of or encourage the use of information resources for the advancement of education;
- to encourage the adoption of practices and policies to widen education, participation and dissemination of information worldwide; and
- to undertake and carry on any other business which may seem to the Company capable of being conveniently carried on in connection with any of the above specified objects, or calculated directly or indirectly to enhance the value of or render profitable any of the Company's property or rights.
Potential future activities
Very very preliminary ideas, please add yours too!
- Public relations.
- Supporting Wikipedia v1.0.
- Running campaigns in universities and schools encouraging students and academics to edit.
- Installing new tool servers in Kennisnet that we would have (some) control over (probably no legal issues with this).
- Giving sessions at teacher training "top-up" days on the responsible use of Wikipedia (et al.) in the classroom.
- Working with the community to increase coverage of e.g. historical sites.
- Supporting the Oxford bid for Wikimania 2010.
- Employing developers.
The following would also be nice, but might be legally problematic:
- Donating back to WMF (subject to issues around donating to foreign charities without sufficient control).
- Hosting/funding a UK squid server (heavily subject to finding a way round the UK's libel law).
- Supporting the German Chapter owned, Amsterdam located toolserver (subject to issues around donating to foreign charities).
Mailing list / discussions
To discuss the details of this further it might be a good idea to join the Wikimedia UK mailing list or at least view the updated archives. Additionally, you may wish to join the two IRC channels in which real time discussions are being held, here and here.
Next steps
The first task is to select a group of 3-5 people to be the first board of directors and handle all the paperwork of getting the company started (we'll be a ""). The first step in doing that is to get a list of people interested. Please add yourself to the appropriate lists below (if you're in one list, you will want to be in the all the ones below it as well, most likely).
Once we have a list of potential board candidates we will ask all those who have signed up as potential guarantor or supporting members to vote for our first board. This election will be held using the approval voting system, with the top 5 candidates being elected, providing they each get above 50% approval amongst those who vote. If fewer than 3 candidates obtain the required approval level we will restart the process, looking for new candidates and rerunning the election.
After 3-5 candidates have been elected they will then begin our first priority of setting up the company then becoming a charity. If after 6 months from the end of elections we are still not a company, elections will be re-held (and so on). If after 6 months of being a company we have still not held an AGM at which all of the board stood down, or if we have not processed more than 95% of the membership applications received more than one month before the AGM, by the time it happens, then we will ask the WMF to withdraw any trademark license and official UK chapter status they have given us. We hope to arrange for WMF to commit to doing this.
Candidates for the first board
If you want to be on the first board, add your name below. Be advised, being on a board of directors can have significant legal repercussions and should not be entered into lightly (see [1] for details). Board members must be UK residents over the age of 18 and will be required to make public their real names. They must not be bankrupt. Board members must also be willing and able to attend board meetings in reasonably central locations (hopefully these will be infrequent - most meetings will be online, and once we've done some fund-raising, we'll be able to reimburse reasonable expenses). This board will just be concerned with doing the paperwork and signing up the first members, there will then be an AGM to elect a board to get things going properly. Requests for candidate statements, etc., will come later and then we'll have an informal vote. In addition, it would be useful if the initial board were all in the same area of the country to facilitate certain activities that require people to be in one place, however this is just something to be born in mind by those who are voting and will not be rigorously enforced.
Please only add your name to this list if you fulfil the above requirements.
- Tango
- Cfp
- Skenmy
- KTC
- Kate
- Mike Peel
- Cormaggio — happy to help, but unsure as of yet in what capacity
- Warofdreams
- OwenBlacker — happy to help, also unsure as to in what capacity; I'm already a trustee of a registered charity and a director of a non-profit (mySociety), if that helps
- Andrew Turvey
A list of candidate statements can now be found here.
Guarantor members
If you are interested in being a guarantor member (a legal member of the company), add your name below. This will give you a vote at AGMs. It can have some legal repercussions, so again, should not the entered into lightly (as I understand it, you'll only be liable for a token amount [probably £1] of the companies debts in the event it gets wound up, but nevertheless, I have to warn you!).
- Tango
- Cfp
- Skenmy
- Majorly
- Kaihsu
- Dev920
- Ryan Postlethwaite
- KTC
- Kate
- Theresa knott
- Mike Peel
- Cormaggio
- the wub
- Thryduulf (en,commons)
- Warofdreams
- OwenBlacker
- User:Privatemusings
- Algebraist
- AndrewRT
- Colds7ream
- Rwendland
- RexxS
- Rebroad
- Owain
- Gazimoff (en)
- Guy Cosnahan (Cosnahang)
Supporting members of the chapter
If you are interested in supporting the chapter, add your name below. This has no legal standing and just shows you support our goals. There will, most likely, be an annual membership fee (concessions available) — the other two lists don't require paying anything. You can be a guarantor member without being a supporting member, but if you can afford the fee, we could use the money!
- Tango
- Cfp
- Skenmy
- Majorly
- Geni
- Kaihsu (maybe)
- Dev920
- Rodhullandemu
- KTC
- Theresa knott
- Mike Peel
- the wub
- Thryduulf (en,commons) (maybe, depending on whether I can afford the fee when I know what it is)
- Warofdreams
- Microchip08
- User:Privatemusings
- OwenBlacker — obviously depends on the fee ;o)
- Rwendland
- Mstislavl
- 82.4.172.153
- RexxS
- Rebroad
Interested in being kept informed
If you do not wish to be a member at this time but wish to be kept informed or can help in other ways please add your name below.
- Following proceedings with interest. Adambro 06:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- Particularly interested in being involved if the new entity is Not-For Profit Open Research 08:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC).
- It will most certainly be non-profit, we will eventually be registering for charitable status (there are hoops to jump through first). — Tango 18:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
- I'd like to know what's going on. Axl 07:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
- Please keep me informed...Zir 00:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- Hiding 11:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- Please keep me informed.82.29.255.162 08:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
- I need to know what the fees are before I commit, but I'm interested in seeing whats happening. Anonymous101 10:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
- Interested. Please don't call it a "chapter" though. Unless it's actually a section of a book. Or possibly Hell's Angels. Does it come with a leather jacket? --Dweller 11:30, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
- "Chapter" is the correct term for something like this. Even if we didn't like it, we have little say in the matter since that's what the WMF calls organisations like ours. --Tango 17:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)