Wikimedia news/numero 81/en

W i K i M e D i A N e W s no. 25 - June 04, 2009

Official bulletin from Wikimedia Italia Association.

Editorial

Wikimedia Italia has entered its 4 year on the 17th of June. As you may know WMI is a piece of my life: I worked for a year with about thirty people to bring it founded, then for 3 years, as chair, I took care of it, and during the year I spent in WMF I was an advisor of WMI too. I did not become richer, I lost hours of sleep, I had to plan very carefully my work/family/events to participate in, to gain a kind of balance, lawyers emails and telecommunication police phone calls are normal routine; on the other side I met many people, I was lucky enough to tell what we do to many people and in many occasions, humanly I'm a much richer person than 4 years ago.

I do not intend to provide links or lists, but also WMI, thanks to many of its members and the constant engagement of all the boards who have led the association, has come a long way. The 17 founders are now 150 members, still (slowly) growing. None of us was born wikimedian or member of an association. We tested, tried, made errors, restarted, we set ambitious goals.

The year ahead will be very hard:

• We are awaiting response to our application form to the register of associations of social promotion for the province of Monza and Brianza. If the answer is positive, we must work for 5x1000 (which means: we asked to gain a tax-exempt donation status and we're waiting for the response; besides, we might apply for obtaing a direct donation from income tax return)
• "bureaucratic" stuffs (as tons of emails) are overloading the board, when they could often be managed by a group of members
• The legal entity is a major goal, even for protection of next presidents
• we are pursuing many projects, but we can improve them: wiki@home is languishing since almost a year awaiting fresh vigour, both Musica and Biblioteca need to be more known and visible..
• The commitment of the members does not increase and old associates are beginning to be tired

Perhaps it is the last point that worries me much. I was able to find just 2 reasons to explain to me why the commitment of the members is not increasing any more: either the people sign up to give us financial support or they do not agree with what WMI makes. That's why this year during the assembly, I'd like to meet more members as possible, and people who do not know or don't like Wikimedia Italia as well; I'd like to talk and discuss, and define together the objectives of this year.

Finally, the hardest part. At the moment there is only one candidate to the board, who applied many months ago. (update: right now there're 4 candidates) Now that on the WMI (and thus in some way on the past board, and myself too as legal representative) hangs the sword of a 20 million euros lawsuit (so much we were asked by Mr. Antonio and Giampaolo Angelucci, for wrong contents appeared on Wikipedia), I do not see too much interest in running for the board.

Let me remind you, to the boredom, if necessary, that Wikimedia Italia:

• Does not own the domain wikipedia.org
• Does not own the servers on which Wikipedia is hosted
• Does not have access to the servers
• Is neither the head nor responsible for Wikipedia
• Has no control over the content of Wikipedia (neither through privileged access nor for statutory purposes)
• Has an agreement with Wikimedia Foundation (the foundation which operates Wikipedia) that clarifies all these points

I'm almost tired to repeat always the same stuffs to everybody .. but you know, in Italy it is easier to file a lawsuit against the first person you meet (in the hope of involving and accusing him), rather than to inform and embark on an international cause whose jurisdiction is San Francisco. Actually what upset me more in this affair is that there has been no prior contact with the association neither with OTRS nor with Wikimedia Foundation, only and solely the summons.

I hope to meet you in Rome on 19 September. There is much to discuss, much to do, and much need of you.

Frieda

Strip of the month

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Editorial staff:

• Luca Sileni;
• Frieda Brioschi;
• Marco Chemello;
• Nemo (section "News from our projects")
• Aubrey (section "News from Biblioteca")
• DracoRoboter (section "News from W@H")
• .mau. (English version)

To contact the staff, write at: redazione@wikimedia.it or directly to the editor:

• Luca Sileni - wikisenpaigmail.com
• Frieda Brioschi - ubifriedagmail.com

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Notice. This newsletter is exclusively intended for information about Wikimedia Italia, both to the members and to the general public; as per Art. 1, Comma 2, Legge 7 marzo 2001 no. 62, it is not an editorial product