Wikimedia UK v1.0

A local Wikimedia chapter is proposed to cover Wikimedians living in the UK. Help to create the bylaws! Or contribute ideas to its possible projects.

Aims

To support the growth and development of multi-lingual, free-content information and learning projects
To encourage and support the use of Wikipedia in education, both in schools and higher education
To promote literacy through projects that contribute to Wikipedia, both locally and a global level

Board of trustees

Chair:
Treasurer:
Secretary:
At least two more! (?)

Points to consider

What effect would UK charity law have on this?
How should this fit in with a European Wikimedia chapter if such a thing comes into existence?
What are the Possible projects of Wikimedia UK? - blue sky thinking

Charitable aims and fundraising

We need to consider what the point of it would be. Would it be fundraising? If so - would it be fundraising for local activity or for the foundation? Education is one of the "heads of charity" but things such as providing social events for British contributors wouldn't be. To fundraise we'd need to be a registered charity which has paperwork overheads and would need to have proper legal structures. We'd need to have accounts and have them approved by an independent examiner (we are unlikely to meet the threshold to require a full audit).

Basically - we would be running a not-for-profit business. Trustees would be liable for the appropriate spending of charitable funds. However this isn't as scary as it sounds.

The benefits are that we could do work in the UK that the foundation couldn't. We could bid for funds for UK specific projects such as work with schools. However projects need managing :(. I really don't see us to be at the level of employing staff at the moment but small projects could be managed by the trustees or a sub-committee.

If this is where we want to go then we'd need a charity to do it. We don't need to worry that we are not developed enough immediately - everyone starts off small. However we'd need to get agreement on what the overall aims would be.

Related languages

Example language portal

See languages in the United Kingdom.

A page like the Swiss portal could be set up related languages and wikipedia.co.uk could redirect there.

Languages native to the UK: Cornish, English, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Scots, Ulster Scots, Shelta, British Sign Language, Irish Sign Language (not sure of progress on sign-language Wikipedias)

Immigrant languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu

Historic languages: Old English, Latin, Breton, Old Norse, Old Irish

Other relevant languages (Crown dependencies etc): Manx, Dgèrnésiais, Jèrriais, French, Yanito, Pitcairnese.

Roadmap

A roadmap is used to begin envisaging the primary goals we need to fulfil to become a charity. This will hopefully inform us of short-term goals needed done. This roadmap is in very rough form, it is in no way official.

Investigate certain issues of charity law:
- the criteria needed to be fulfilled to become a charity
- whether we are responsible for content
- relationship to the non-UK foundation
Establish the fundamentals of the organisation:
- the functions and their legal viability
- the Chapter's geographical coverage (likely dictated by law)
- whether the Chapter legally represents the Foundation
Write a governing document, by-laws, &c.
- translate into non-English UK languages
Seek board approval for by-laws
Arrange a contract with the Foundation for trademark use
Registration

Miscellany

Domains

wikipedia.co.uk - owned by Bomis, redirect to the English Wikipedia
wikipedia.org.uk - owned by Chris Brooking, redirect to the English Wikipedia
wikimedia.co.uk - owned by James F., currently (a somewhat basic) Wikipedia portal
wikimedia.org.uk - owned by James F., currently (a somewhat basic) Wikipedia portal

Mailing list

WikimediaUK-l

People interested in helping to create a local chapter

Meetings

Next meeting

Date: Sunday 13th November
Location: IRC @ #wikimedia-uk
Time: 18:00 GMT
Apologies from LoopZilla

Future meeting

Provisional plans for this meeting.
Date: Sunday 27th November
Location: London: The Royal Oak, 44, Tabard Street, London, SE1 4JU - Lunch followed by a meeting
Time: 12 noon to 6pm (formal meeting starting at 2pm?)
Why 27th November? Jimbo is in town!