Wikimedia Germany

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikimedia Germany
(WMDE)
logo
legal form registered association
founding June 13, 2004
Seat Berlin ( ⊙ coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 54.3 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 51.5 ″  E )
purpose Promotion of free knowledge
Action space Germany
Chair Lukas Mezger
Managing directors Abraham Taherivand
sales 18,300,338 euros (2018)
Employees 140 (2020)
Members 80,279 (2020)
Website wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Germany - Society for the Promotion of Free Knowledge is a German association based in Berlin at Tempelhofer Ufer 23–24 . It was recognized as the first national country organization (chapter) in 2004 by the US Wikimedia Foundation , which runs Wikipedia and other projects . According to its own information, it had over 72,000 members in 2018. The association employs around 140 people, among other things for the further development of the software behind Wikipedia, for the Wikidata project , for public relations, fundraising and supporting the cooperation of volunteers in Wikipedia and its sister projects (projects, meetings, cooperation with institutions, and much more. ). There are also departments that are generally dedicated to the free accessibility and usability of knowledge resources ( free knowledge ) and are only partially connected to Wikipedia.

Goals and Activities

The association describes the general objectives in its statutes as follows:

"The purpose of the association is the creation, collection and distribution of free content ( English open content ) to promote in selfless activity, to promote equal access to knowledge and education."

- Wikimedia Germany statutes : § 2 objectives and tasks , November 26, 2016

In detail, the articles of association stipulate the objectives

  • that wikis should primarily be used for collection and distribution ,
  • that the association should fulfill the tasks of a section of the Wikimedia Foundation ,
  • that the following activities serve the purpose of the association:
    • supporting the operation of the Wikimedia Foundation's wikis ;
    • the offline distribution of the content of the Wikimedia projects in digital or printed form;
    • the organization of information events and the creation and dissemination of information material on free content, wikis and the Wikimedia projects;
    • the clarification of scientific, social, cultural and legal questions in connection with free content and wikis.

The association is involved in software development related to Wikimedia projects, supports the projects of volunteers from various Wikimedia projects (including Wikipedia) and cooperates with educational, scientific and cultural institutions on the subject of “free knowledge”.

structure

Video of the founding meeting of Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. on June 13, 2004 in the TU Berlin
The founding board of Wikimedia Germany. Back row (from left to right): Jakob Voss, Kurt Jansson, Arne Klempert, Mathias Schindler; Front row: Hans Joachim Raschka, Elisabeth Bauer, Joachim Kerschbaumer, Daniel Baur, Henriette Fiebig, André Darmochwal

Legal status

The Wikimedia Germany association - Society for the Promotion of Free Knowledge e. V. was founded on June 13, 2004 by 34 Wikipedia authors and entered into the register of associations of the Berlin-Charlottenburg District Court on October 25, 2004 under the number 23855 Nz .

The tax office for corporations I Berlin has recognized the activities of the association under the tax number 27/029/42207 because of the promotion of education as charitable .

organs

General meeting on June 15, 2008
21st General Assembly on November 18, 2017 in Berlin

The organs of the association are the general assembly , the honorary presidium and the full-time executive board .

General meeting

Development of the membership of Wikimedia Germany 2011–2018

The general assembly is the highest organ of the association. It decides on fundamental questions and matters of the association, elects the Presidium and decides whether the Presidium and the Board of Directors are to be discharged . Active members can participate in elections as well as decisions on changes to the statutes and contributions by remote voting. The members present decide on simple applications.

According to its own information, the number of members grew to over 72,000 by April 2019. In addition, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is an honorary member of the association.

Supporting members are not entitled to vote. Honorary members are exempt from paying membership fees by statute; they have the same rights as active members.

General meetings have been held twice a year since 2011.

Bureau

Up until a change in the association's statutes on March 19, 2011, an honorary board of directors held the main functions of today's presidium, but was entitled to legally represent the association within the meaning of Section 26 of the German Civil Code (BGB) and thus in principle also liable for legal transactions of the association.

Today's honorary presidium consists of a chairman, a treasurer and five assessors, and two further presidium members can be co-opted. It no longer has the legal representation of the association.

The Presidium appoints, supervises and dismisses the Board of Directors and is also responsible for the strategic direction of the association. The Presidium represents the association in bodies in which it is involved.

Lukas Mezger has been the Chairman of the Presidium since December 2018.

Board

From 2006 until the statutes of the association were changed on March 19, 2011, a managing director was responsible for the day-to-day management and management of the office under the supervision of an honorary board member. However, he did not have the power of representation according to § 26 BGB. A full-time board member has been responsible for the management since 2011 and also represents the association externally.

Previous board members:

Period Board
November 20, 2011 to August 31, 2014 Pavel Richter (was managing director since 2009)
September 1, 2014 to April 30, 2015 Jan Engelmann ( interim )
May 1, 2015 to December 8, 2016 Christian Rickerts
December 8, 2016 to January 30, 2017 Abraham Taherivand ( interim )
since January 30, 2017 Abraham Taherivand

Employees

According to its own information, the association had around 100 employees in 2018, including working students and federal volunteers .

Finances

The association is mainly financed from donations and membership fees.

According to the company, it was used until 2009 "in consultation" with the American Wikimedia Foundation - for example for technology and community support - and thus a contribution was "made for international work". Around 30% of the annual expenditure in 2009 went into administration and advertising.

In 2010, the association had to forward half of the donations to the American Wikimedia Foundation.

In the meantime, the Wikimedia Foundation allocates part of the donations received to the German chapter on the basis of a fundraising agreement and also grants an annual grant on request. In the association's annual plan for 2015, a transfer of more than 7.6 million euros to the US foundation was planned. Wikimedia Germany received just over 2 million euros from the donations received, plus an allocation from the Wikimedia Foundation's donation distribution committee (FDC) of 840,000 euros. For comparison: in 2013 this was 1.5 million euros in donations and 1.4 million euros in FDC subsidies.

In addition, membership fees have become an essential item in the association's financial planning. In 2015 this was 1.1 million euros. In 2013 this was 150,000 euros.

The funds are mainly used for the areas of "software development" (1,360,000 € for 2015), "idea support" (770,000 €) and "education, science & culture" (610,000 €). The next largest cost factors are the board of directors (€ 490,000 including specialist presentations on international relations and political advice) and the association's communication (€ 405,000).

Non-profit Wikimedia support company

To raise funds for the association and to be able to pass on donations to the Wikimedia Foundation , the non-profit Wikimedia Fördergesellschaft was founded in 2010 as a gGmbH , also based in Berlin (register entry HRB 130183 B). Wikimedia Germany is the sole shareholder. The company's full-time board member is the company's managing director and authorized representative.

In 2015, the subsidiary transferred a "management fee" of 150,000 euros to Wikimedia Germany in addition to part of its donation income.

Panel discussion on Wikimedia Germany's Free Knowledge Day, June 2019

Controversy

Comparison with DZI criteria

Wikimedia Germany has been criticized by members and Wikipedians for its lack of transparency. In 2010, the association only mentioned its expenditure on administrative and advertising expenses in its activity report in the text: “This makes up about 30 percent of the total expenditure and is thus below the limit set by the German Institute for Social Issues (DZI) for non-profit Organizations. "The managing director of the DZI, Burkhard Wilke, however, said:" You can only advertise compliance with this limit if you allocate the expenditure according to our specifications, otherwise it has no meaning. "The then managing director of Wikimedia Germany , Pavel Richter, admitted that you do not work with the DZI, but follow the advice of a tax office. The association has "a corresponding cost center accounting that enables the clear allocation of all costs to project and administrative expenses".

Konrad Lischka explained in Spiegel Online that one does not know “whether the Wikimedia figures can even be compared with the DZI's specifications.” While the 253 organizations examined for the donation seal , the general advertising and administrative expenses in 2007 averaged 13, 8 percent of the total expenditure, Wikimedia Germany had just under 30 percent in 2009. In the activity report of the Wikimedia Association, it is noticeable that "the salaries or at least the personnel costs are not published in total." According to a request by the Spiegel, 216,877 euros in personnel costs were incurred in 2009 and 77,683 euros were spent on external consultants.

subsidiary

The establishment of the subsidiary GmbH "Gemeinnützige Wikimedia Fördergesellschaft" was also discussed controversially. In parallel to a working group “AG responsibility structure” commissioned by the general assembly to restructure the board and management, the board and the managing director prepared the establishment of the subsidiary in 2010 without the knowledge of the working group and the members. Anke Pätsch from the Federal Association of German Foundations said in 2010 that having a company of its own has the advantage “that the decision-making processes are faster with a GmbH because, unlike with an association, the general assembly does not have to agree to everything”. Konrad Lischka concluded that the members had "de facto less influence on what happens with the income." According to the director of the Maecenata Institute at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Rupert Graf Strachwitz , an unincorporated foundation would have been "much cheaper" .

Early separation from the board

In May 2014 the premature separation of the association from board member Pavel Richter caused a public dispute. The then chairman of the presidium resigned. In the subsequent general assembly, the majority of the previous presidium was replaced; three former club chairmen returned to the presidium; a re-elected vice-chairwoman resigned the next day.

Wikimedia's cost-benefit comparison

During the same period, the Wikimedia Foundation cut its money allocation to Wikimedia Germany and criticized the cost of dismissing the board; Pavel Richter received a severance payment and continued to work as a consultant. The American foundation also criticized that the success of the association was disproportionate to the costs.

Lack of cooperation with volunteers

Wikimedia Germany is also controversial among the voluntary authors of Wikipedia, as the association - so the criticism - neglects the community of the encyclopedia. Authors demand that more resources should go into concrete support of the volunteers. In addition, the autonomous parallel structures of the association and Wikipedia caused displeasure. The Wikimedia officials would still have nothing to say in Wikipedia and vice versa. "Members of the volunteer community distrust the work of the offices", summarized the journalist Torsten Kleinz at Heise online . For example, an unsettled cooperation between the association and ZDF to check election campaign statements by Wikipedians caused a dispute . This was criticized in the authorship as “resource misdirection in its purest form”.

Legal disputes

As in 2006 in another case about the Tron hacker , the homepage wikipedia.de operated by Wikimedia Germany was blocked by an injunction in November 2008 . This time the politician Lutz Heilmann was bothered by information in Wikipedia about his Stasi past. The search entry on wikipedia.de only redirects to the corresponding article on de.wikipedia.org; the latter is operated by the American foundation. There was no trial. The ban was lifted three days later. The case occurred during the annual fundraising campaign and triggered a wave of donations to Wikimedia Germany. Instead of the previous 3500 euros donations a day, 16,000 euros were received daily.

In 2008 the Regional Court of Cologne ruled that Wikimedia Germany is not liable as a " disruptor " for Wikipedia content. The Frankfurter Verlagsgruppe found itself vilified in Wikipedia, so it warned the German association in 2006 and filed a lawsuit in 2007. The court found that Wikimedia Germany was not making the Wikipedia content its own by forwarding it. In addition, the Wikipedia authors are not employees of the association.

In 2010, Wikimedia Germany was again able to achieve a dismissal of the action, this time before the Hamburg Regional Court . A former member of the Hamburg Parliament wanted to enforce with his lawsuit that the Wikipedia article about him and its discussions will be deleted. According to Heise, he argued: "Wikimedia Germany is actually interwoven with the US foundation through events such as the Wikipedia Academy, among other things, and actively recruits users who would ultimately determine the content of the online encyclopedia." The court refused: That The actions of the Wikipedia authors cannot be assigned to the German association.

Web links

Commons : Wikimedia Germany  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b members. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed September 30, 2019.
  2. ↑ In the interview: Lukas Mezger. In: Wikimedia. Retrieved on May 21, 2020 (German).
  3. ↑ a b c d Articles of Association. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  4. ↑ Software development. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  5. ↑ volunteers. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  6. ^ Education Science Culture. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  7. ↑ a b Association. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  8. ^ Wikimedia Germany. In: Meta-Wiki. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  9. ↑ In the club's membership publication on wikimedia.de, honorary member Jimmy Wales is not counted.
  10. ^ Association - Wikimedia Germany. Retrieved December 11, 2018 .
  11. ↑ a b Presidium. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed in May 2020.
  12. ↑ 6. The Presidium of Wikimedia Germany is elected. In: Wikimedia Germany Blog. Accessed December 11, 2018 (German).
  13. ↑ Tim Moritz Hector (Chairman of the Board of Wikimedia Germany): Interim Board . In: wikimedia.org. Announcement on the mailing list “VereinDE-l - Mailinglist des Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. ", July 11, 2014, accessed on January 4, 2018.
  14. ↑ Melanie Melzer: Wikimedia Germany: Christian Rickerts becomes board member. In: kress.de. March 2, 2015, accessed December 4, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Tim Moritz Hector: Abraham Taherivand becomes interim director. Wikimedia Germany, December 8, 2016, accessed December 8, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Entry on blog.wikimedia.de
  17. ^ Association - Wikimedia Germany. In: wikimedia.de. Retrieved July 16, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b c d e f Wikipedia donations - Wiki authors argue about money and transparency. In: Spiegel Online . October 8, 2010, accessed January 4, 2018.
  19. ↑ Fundraising Agreement. In: wikimedia.org. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  20. ↑ a b c d 2015 annual plan. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Accessed January 4, 2018.
  21. ↑ Budget 2013. In: wikimedia.de. Wikimedia Germany e. V. Wikimedia Germany, accessed on January 4, 2018.
  22. ↑ 2013 annual plan. In: wikimedia.org. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  23. ↑ Founding entry . In: handelsregisterbekanntmachungen.de. November 10, 2010, accessed January 4, 2018.
  24. ↑ Public Notice AUREG. In: handelsregisterbekanntmachungen.de. Retrieved January 29, 2016 .
  25. ↑ Wikimedia e. V. founds non-profit e. V. ( Memento from March 10, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) In: gulli.com. Telepolis, September 29, 2010, republished January 17, 2011.
  26. ^ Controversy over strategy: Wikimedia Germany separates from Pavel Richter. In: Spiegel Online . May 20, 2014, accessed January 29, 2016.
  27. ↑ Wikimedia separates surprisingly from the board. In: tagesspiegel.de. May 20, 2014, accessed January 29, 2016.
  28. ↑ Wikimedia Germany disputes the dismissal of the board. In: zdnet.de. May 20, 2014, accessed January 29, 2016.
  29. ↑ Björn Greif: Wikimedia Germany elects Tim Moritz Hector as chairman In: zdnet.de. CBS Interactive, May 26, 2014, accessed January 4, 2018.
  30. ↑ a b c Torsten Kleinz: Wikimedia Germany is repositioning itself .. In: Heise online . December 1, 2014, accessed January 4, 2018.
  31. ^ Leonhard Dobusch: Back to the future? New presidium at Wikimedia Germany. In: Netzpolitik.org. November 30, 2014, accessed January 29, 2016.
  32. ↑ Stefan Mey: Wikimedia Germany is 10 years old. In: dw.de . June 13, 2014, accessed January 4, 2018.
  33. ↑ a b Torsten Kleinz: Wikimedia Germany: Dispute over strategic realignment causes a scandal. In: Heise online . May 20, 2014, accessed January 4, 2018.
  34. ↑ Forwarding offline: District court closes wikipedia.de. In: Spiegel Online . January 19, 2006, accessed January 4, 2018.
  35. ↑ Controversial entry: Linke-Politiker can block wikipedia.de. In: Spiegel Online . November 15, 2008, accessed January 4, 2018.
  36. ↑ Site lock lifted: Wikipedia.de is back. In: Spiegel Online . November 17, 2008, accessed January 4, 2018.
  37. ↑ Spectacular site blocking: Linke-scandal brings Wikimedia donation boom. In: Spiegel Online . November 16, 2008, accessed January 4, 2018.
  38. ↑ Court: Wikimedia Germany is not liable for Wikipedia. In: Heise online . May 16, 2008, accessed January 4, 2018.
  39. ^ LG Hamburg: No liability for interference for Wikimedia Germany. In: Heise online . April 13, 2010, accessed January 4, 2018.