|
Popular Keywords: old books, old book, cook books, poetry, find books, travel books, book search, bargain books, cheap books, inexpensive books, book compare, book comparison, comics, books and collectibles book, books, new books, new book, used books, used book, rare books, rare book, second hand books, second hand book, out of print books, out of print book, textbooks, used textbooks, cheap textbooks, college textbooks
Membership fees
For general details about membership, see Membership FAQ.
All type of people can help Wikimedia projects. People can help by editing, by giving money, or both. Setting separate membership for those editing and those giving money is only in recognition that these two ways of giving are good, are necessary, and are appreciated.
It is important to remember, that anyone with an account on any wikimedia project and participating in that project is/may be by default a volunteer active member. A participant may be a member just as an editor; he may also choose to be a member as an editor and a donor.
Why is setting membership important?
Part of the point of having two categories of members is precisely to recognize that people who give money have slightly different interests from people who give time, and therefore deserve separate representation at the board level.
Volunteer Active members are participants who are editors, but not paying fees. Their participation is not measured in terms of “money” but in terms of personal involvement. According to the bylaws, a volunteer member is anyone with at least one account, and who has registered their membership with the Foundation.
Contributing Active members may be of two types
Other details about membership are covered by the Membership FAQ.
Becoming a member (active contributing) will be possible through the wikimediafoundation website, which will host all membership-related pages and an online dues-paying system.
The membership system will be common to WMF and its chapters (but only if local chapters desire it so of course). This will have several benefits:
Contributing members may have an account or may not. It will be asked however, during registration, as we might plan special benefits for contributing members being editors as well.
The main membership page will be on the wikimediafoundation website, in several languages if possible (most world wide organisations propose a half dozen languages, we should perhaps aim at this). A limited number of languages can be managed on one page only. Languages suggested are en, de, ja, fr, es. More than 10 would probably become cumbersome. However, very obviously, in case local chapter membership pages are hosted on this website, they will need to be in local language(s).
The membership pages should explain
A form will be available either to fill in online, or to download and send by postmail (this is mandatory for the german chapter).
Example: the form for membership in the German Verein: http://wikimedia.de/Aufnahmeantrag.pdf
The form for membership will ask
Additionally, it is strongly suggested that over time, another form section is added to allow members to indicate preferences for how to use part of their contribution/fee.
We will distinguish two amounts
A contributing active who is also an editor, will have two options: the regular due (60 dollars) and the reduced due (6 dollars).
A certain portion of membership fees will be string-free -- based upon Foundation decisions (for example 30 dollars).
That reduced fee will be available for those who would have great difficulty paying the standard fee. This reduced fee is quite low so as to accommodate most cases. For those who may not be able to pay 6 dollars per year, we remind that all editors are volunteer members of the Foundation by default, and suggest that the grant system be explored if needed.
The reduce price will allow the contributor to be a contributing member, and to vote. Nothing else.
We need to set barriers, so as to avoid people joining as participants, while they are not really – or opening new accounts just to pay less (hehe). Joining with a reduced fee will require that the editor has an account open for at least 3 months. To avoid abuse by sock puppets and people who have stopped participating in the project, they also need to have at least 200 contributions in the past 3 months to be eligible to join (so that one who has basically left the project won't be able to join as an active contributor with reduced fees). This is all meant to focus on those truly belonging to the editing corps, and will help eliminate jokers and sock puppets.
A benefit of being a standard fee contributive active member, will be the ability to indicate one's wish to have part of the money dedicated to a certain purpose. For example, a participant paying 60 dollars might be able to indicate he wants half of it to be used specifically for hardware.
Those who can afford the regular fee might also get a couple of other benefit, which are currently under discussion (such as perhaps a smith@wikimedia.org email ).
Dues could be paid once per year, or the member could ask that a monthly amount be taken from his bank account (for the 60 dollars fees).
During registration, we will suggest that people can donate more (membership due + donation). In case of donations, we will ask people to their preferences for its future use.
We propose that corporations helping with funds will be members when they make a donation of an amount around 500-1000 USD. This amount should be given to the Foundation itself directly.
A paying participant registering to a local chapter will be a contributing active member of the local chapter AND a contributing active member of WMF by default, providing that there is an agreement between the local chapter and the Foundation.
The local chapter will make it possible that part of its revenus are refunded to the Foundation, or that part of its revenus are spent to cover global needs. Federally-based membership organisations may review the remitted proportions each year and set payments in one direction against support payments in the other, setting the percentages by need at each end. However, all this will have to be set case by case depending on local legislation.
Yes, that proposal is great or acceptable as is
I like it... but I may just have a comment or two
Preamble
Opening to membership: why?
The Wikimedia Foundation will soon be open to membership.
This does not mean you will need to pay to read articles or to participate. Participating by donating is only one way to participate, and joining the community with full editing rights is completely free. Opening membership means that the Foundation will also recognise as members people who are financially contributing to the project.
It is important because it is the safest and strongest and least controversial method of financing. Small individual donations do not come with strings attached, as opposed to grant money which sometimes may.
Encouraging a strong level of community financial support will make the organization healthy in the long term.Membership classes
According to current bylaws, the following membership classes may be found
Life, honorary, sustaining and sustaining/corporate are not affected by this proposal.
This essentially leave: Volunteer Active and Contributing Active.
Note: a modification of the bylaws is planned to reflect this precision.Joining
Where to join
However, this unified registration may be undesirable depending on local situations. Each case will be studied separatly.The membership pages
The "membership" page should be linked from various places in the individual projects (perhaps in "user preferences" and from "special pages").Application for membership
A check of the length and degree of contribution will be made in case low dues are selected.Member information storage
The member's private information (name, adress...) will be stored in a separate database (not on the same servers as the wikimedia project).
A membership flag however should be stored in the Wikimedia database, so as to easily check whether the member is allowed to vote or not, or to list the person as a member if he chose that information to be made public.Membership and dues
Generalities
A contributing active who does not have an account on any Wikimedia project will have only the option of paying 60 dollars. More on the reduced fee
We also hope, that most users will join with paying the regular fee.More on the regular fee
More on dues
More on sustaining/corporate membership
Relationships between local paying members and global paying members
24th of July: provide a feedback
21:27, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I oppose it (beware Anthere's reaction)
