Today's WikiWednesday

[Kotra D]

Hi all, at today's WikiWednesday, a couple of the regulars would like to discuss if and how to set up a joint financial account owned by multiple people to handle PortlandWiki's monthly server costs, as well as if we would need to set up a legal entity or filing with the state for that to happen; either as a registered nonprofit association, "club", or some other organization.

If you're interested, you're encouraged to join the conversation at 7pm at The Mezz (Whole Foods, NW 12th & Burnside). I'll be there in a yellow jacket. Thanks!

kotra

[Teresa Boze]

I am going to be wading in a deep fast stream as long as there are GA's on Mondays and Wednesdays. Don't look for me anytime soon!

Best,

Teresa

Concept | Connections, NW

503. 664.4896 twitter: @PDXsays

http://www.linkedin.com/in/teresaboze

"Hacker: Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations." Robert Bickford

kotra

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[Dave Myers - Open Forest Consortium]

Don't be foolish, Teresa. Wading in the deep and fast stream is dangerous. Get on the bridge!

http://portlandwiki.org/Get_On_The_Bridge_-_17_November_2011

--
- Dave Myers
(503) 852-1437 / google voice

[Kotra D]

The following notes are the result of today's meeting: http://portlandwiki.org/PortlandWiki:Finances

If anyone has additional thoughts on the proposal, possible solutions, or questions, please feel free to add them to that page (or raise them on the associated talk page).

Thanks to Matthew, Julie, and Dave for participating.

kotra

[John Sechrest]

I would encourage you to look at the process that ended up producing the Legionoftech.org group and how they ended up with a system. I think it is a good structure, worth understanding.

If you have an umbrella organization like that, then you can have many little groups like Portlandwiki that can have a sub-account. And you can build an amplifier.

I think that many of the user groups like linux users, Perl mongers, ruby folks all have this same problem at some level. Is there a space for an umbrella group that will solve the wider problem quickly?

One choice is to see if you can use Legion of Tech. (although they have some reseting to do in order to get back on track ) 

Another choice is to use something like the SAO as a host. I have used SAO as a host fo the Lego League event management in Corvallis.

A third choice is to use one of the community organizations as a host. 

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                                                               .                      sech...@gmail.com
                                                                          .                              @sechrest 
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[Kotra D]

That's a great idea, John. I'm not sure if any of us involved with PortlandWiki have the time or resources to set up an umbrella group, though it does sound like would serve a demand in Portland, so I hope someone pursues that. As for using Legion of Tech, the last post on their website says they have ceased operations (though haven't dissolved). Do you know if that's still the case? We would like to get a solution up and running sooner rather than later, so if we had to wait for LoT to reassemble, I don't think that would work.

What's SAO? Software Association of Oregon? Pardon my ignorance.

I think we may not need a host, however, since obtaining an EIN as a community or volunteer group (no registration with the state required) is very simple, and setting up a joint bank or credit union account requires very little information other than the EIN and account holders' personal info (at least, from my research thus far). But finding a host is certainly an option to consider... especially if the volunteer group route ends up not being as straightforward as I think it is.

kotra

[John Sechrest]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 3:11 AM, Kotra D <kotr...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's a great idea, John. I'm not sure if any of us involved with PortlandWiki have the time or resources to set up an umbrella group, though it does sound like would serve a demand in Portland, so I hope someone pursues that. As for using Legion of Tech, the last post on their website says they have ceased operations (though haven't dissolved). Do you know if that's still the case? We would like to get a solution up and running sooner rather than later, so if we had to wait for LoT to reassemble, I don't think that would work.

Yes, the LoT is still trying to figure out what they want to do, as far as I know. The structure and the idea are very good. 

I think there is a simple way to pill LoT out of this particular mess and that is cash. 

However, you might not want to jump into that particular pool.

 

What's SAO? Software Association of Oregon? Pardon my ignorance.

Yes, SAO is Software Association of Oregon.. They should have a new executive director soon, and that would be a good place ot start. 

I think we may not need a host, however, since obtaining an EIN as a community or volunteer group (no registration with the state required) is very simple, and setting up a joint bank or credit union account requires very little information other than the EIN and account holders' personal info (at least, from my research thus far). But finding a host is certainly an option to consider... especially if the volunteer group route ends up not being as straightforward as I think it is.

Yes, setting up a EIN and a bank account is easy. However, having strucutre, and accounting and other support tends to make things last longer. 

And if you can share resources between organizations, you often gain some serendipity. At least we did when we were doing this in Corvallis SAO. 

Some groups need to talk things out so much in the NW that it may be better to go it alone instead of doing the discussion. But when you find the teams that want to play, I think you end up building an amplifier. It does not take that much more work to do the umbrella than to do the singleton. It does however take clarity and focus. 

In any case, I hope it goes well. 

[Teresa Boze]

The LoT core migrated to a new group with an evolved mission. They now handle such events as Ignite Portland, BarCamp, and OSBridge that were staples of LoT

They are Stumptown Syndicate. The board is comprised of the LoT and OS Community as-usual folks, Christie Kohler, Reid Beals, and Audrey Escher.

The development of LoT and STS is an interesting case study with many lessons learned. The STS actually has a short presentation on their evolution and choices of purpose and structure as an evolutionary result of the LoT experiences. It includes in detial the reasoning and process of their structure for financials and purpose and community

This situation of missing the obvious and begs a point - Portlandwiki keeps itself aloof and disjointed from the rest of the OS community in Portland. I can say this with surety as the rest of the OS Community can find each other, and joins frequently in common events. Portlandwiki has no presence. 

Almost the entire Portland OS community has coder contingent  are present at a code event that is the same night as Portlandwiki - but is EVERY Mondays. Portlandwiki decided not to avail itself of this great opportunity to participate in a collective because it insists on being in a place where the other OS coders are not on Monday nights - old coders and new. So it has a turn out of two to five peolpe, while the rest of the OS Community are in  a place of 15 to 30. Despite that fact it is on major bus lines and the MAX. Also, the LoT and Stumptown kernel are there. Every Monday night. 

What is more, for every event LoT or Stunptown Syndicate has had, they use a wiki for participants, activities, record keeping, and outreach.  Portlandwiki completely ignores this as an opportunity for participation and growth of contributors to potential recruit and partner with.

I won't tell you how I know all this. Me. A non-coder. The kernel group of Portland wiki should have known all this. But their own personal preferences are keeping Portland wiki insular and them inundated in arcane process and structure. 

How can Portland wiki represent collaborative activity and community information when it can't even think where to find the resources that are closest related to its own activity?

Best,

Teresa

503. 664.4896 twitter: @PDXsays

http://www.linkedin.com/in/teresaboze

"Hacker: Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent limitations." Robert Bickford

[John Sechrest]

I would love a copy of that case study. What is a good way to get it?

[Teresa Boze]

John -

To write it. It exists. It is not in written form.

The STS does have the preso I spoke of. It is not implied that they produced a case study as part of the preso.

You have the contact information of the three board members for the preso onthe formative aspects of STS.

Best,

Teresa

Concept | Connections, NW

[Mark Dilley]

Where is the wiki you speak of for IgnitePortland?

[Teresa Boze]

Beats me. Ask LoT or STS. Or maybe I dreamed it it up, but I don't think so.

In place, go see the Wherecamp wiki or campcampcamp wiki. 

The point is that I would heartily suggest it would behoove you to instead go ask the STS people what they know, since they have got their act together far more than anyone has been following.

[Portland Wiki]

Teresa,

It's all Kotra's fault that we're so insular, aloof and disjointed. He keeps bamboozling us with promises of hookers 'n' coke so long as the other 1 & 1/2 of us keep showing up at the Mezz each Monday evening.

Unfortunately, the only "entertainment" that ever arrives is a middle-aged cross-dresser clutching a tiny purse half filled with cheap meth.

As far as this "place where the other OS coders" congregate on Mondays, isn't that where all those nerdy guys doing dorky nonsense and talking incomprehensible gibberish hang out?

-dave myers

PortlandWiki.org

The community-powered knowledge commons for Portland, Oregon.

[in...@spellmanux.com]

Folks,

 

Julie and I have reservations for obtaining an EIN, since it's a serious thing to the IRS. Being able to have a bank account is just a benefit to getting it. It's something the IRS instituted in order to take away the pain of what it is used for. It is a broad stroke for the IRS to collect tax revenue. Having an EIN is an agreement to the IRS that the group is taxable for it's resources. We get taxed, but since we don't have nonprofit or corp status, we don't get the added protection.

 

It means a double cut for the IRS. First the taxes each member has to pay for income tax, and then the money goes into a group with an IEN. Sound unfair? Yep. Anyway to stop that? Yep -- File as a business/nonprofit and hire a CPA to keep the IRS honest.

 

I'm totally fine with us having an EIN if we also chose to incorporate. I've said it again and again, we should form a corporation, so that we can do more important things like have sponser community events, and pay for out IT needs. (I realize that some of you are freaked out by my pro-commercial stance, but the truth is we are already commercial and have been since we started using a paid service for the server. I'd bet anyone a chicken dinner that the IRS already knows about us.)

 

--Matthew  

Matthew Spellman
tel 503 803-2614
Portland, OR 97209

[John Sechrest]

Remember that the IRS Collects taxes on the profits of the business, not the revenue. So if income and expenses are equal, then there are no income taxes for the business.

Secondly, you can register as a non-profit entity which is seperate from a Tax-exempt organization non-profit is not the same as 501c(3)

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 6:18 PM, in...@spellmanux.com <in...@spellmanux.com> wrote:

Folks,

 

Julie and I have reservations for obtaining an EIN, since it's a serious thing to the IRS. Being able to have a bank account is just a benefit to getting it. It's something the IRS instituted in order to take away the pain of what it is used for. It is a broad stroke for the IRS to collect tax revenue. Having an EIN is an agreement to the IRS that the group is taxable for it's resources. We get taxed, but since we don't have nonprofit or corp status, we don't get the added protection.

 

It means a double cut for the IRS. First the taxes each member has to pay for income tax, and then the money goes into a group with an IEN. Sound unfair? Yep. Anyway to stop that? Yep -- File as a business/nonprofit and hire a CPA to keep the IRS honest.

 

I'm totally fine with us having an EIN if we also chose to incorporate. I've said it again and again, we should form a corporation, so that we can do more important things like have sponser community events, and pay for out IT needs. (I realize that some of you are freaked out by my pro-commercial stance, but the truth is we are already commercial and have been since we started using a paid service for the server. I'd bet anyone a chicken dinner that the IRS already knows about us.)

 

--Matthew  

Matthew Spellman

tel 503 803-2614
Portland, OR 97209

[kotra]

Teresa, I can only speak for myself, but on my part there is certainly
no intention or interest in keeping PortlandWiki aloof and disjointed
from the open source (OS) community or any other. I simply hadn't
heard of any of these things. Each of us has different predilections
and abilities to keep up with current developments, and I admit I live
in a cave a lot of the time. So I respect people like you that consume
information so readily. I didn't know about Stumptown Syndicate (STS),
its wiki, or what coding event on Mondays you're referring to. But I
am interested, so if you have any clues as to where you have learned
these things I would grateful.

Regarding contacting STS, I think that's a great idea, and since
PortlandWiki is a community-owned project, I encourage anyone to do
that and report back to the rest of us. I've been pretty busy lately,
having trouble even keeping up with these few emails, so I'm not sure
if I can do it soon, unfortunately. Not trying to pass the work off to
someone else... just offering support for the idea.

kotra

> *"Hacker: Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent
> limitations." Robert Bickford*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 2:11 AM, John Sechrest <sechr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 3:18 AM, John Sechrest <sechr...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>> I would encourage you to look at the process that ended up producing the
> >>> Legionoftech.org group and how they ended up with a system. I think it is a
> >>> good structure, worth understanding.
>
> >>> If you have an umbrella organization like that, then you can have many
> >>> little groups like Portlandwiki that can have a sub-account. And you can
> >>> build an amplifier.
>
> >>> I think that many of the user groups like linux users, Perl mongers,
> >>> ruby folks all have this same problem at some level. Is there a space for
> >>> an umbrella group that will solve the wider problem quickly?
>
> >>> One choice is to see if you can use Legion of Tech. (although they have
> >>> some reseting to do in order to get back on track )
>
> >>> Another choice is to use something like the SAO as a host. I have used
> >>> SAO as a host fo the Lego League event management in Corvallis.
>
> >>> A third choice is to use one of the community organizations as a host.
>

> >>>              sechr...@gmail.com
>
> >>>  .                              @sechrest <http://www.twitter.com/sechrest>

> >            sechr...@gmail.com
>
> >  .                              @sechrest <http://www.twitter.com/sechrest>

[kotra]

I would like to distance myself from this comment by raving local
eccentric Dave Myers.

kotra

> > *"Hacker: Any person who derives joy from discovering ways to circumvent
> > limitations." Robert Bickford*
>
> > On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 2:11 AM, John Sechrest <sechr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >>> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 3:18 AM, John Sechrest <sechr...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>>> I would encourage you to look at the process that ended up producing
> >>>> the Legionoftech.org group and how they ended up with a system. I think it
> >>>> is a good structure, worth understanding.
>
> >>>> If you have an umbrella organization like that, then you can have many
> >>>> little groups like Portlandwiki that can have a sub-account. And you can
> >>>> build an amplifier.
>
> >>>> I think that many of the user groups like linux users, Perl mongers,
> >>>> ruby folks all have this same problem at some level. Is there a space for
> >>>> an umbrella group that will solve the wider problem quickly?
>
> >>>> One choice is to see if you can use Legion of Tech. (although they have
> >>>> some reseting to do in order to get back on track )
>
> >>>> Another choice is to use something like the SAO as a host. I have used
> >>>> SAO as a host fo the Lego League event management in Corvallis.
>
> >>>> A third choice is to use one of the community organizations as a host.
>

> >>>>                sechr...@gmail.com
>
> >>>>    .                              @sechrest <http://www.twitter.com/sechrest>
>

> >>              sechr...@gmail.com
>
> >>  .                              @sechrest <http://www.twitter.com/sechrest>
>

> >>                .
> >>        http://www.oomaat.com
> >>                    .
>
> >>  --
> >>http://PDX.Wiki.org
>
> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> >> Groups "PortlandWikiWednesday" group.
> >> To post to this group, send email to pdx...@googlegroups.com
> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>

> ...
>
> read more »

[in...@spellmanux.com]

 

The IRS won't magically know what is exempt. We have to spoon-feed it accurately and legally. Otherwise, the IRS could try to collect on anything. Since 2004, it's had the ability to estimate what they think an EIN account is worth and then bill for it (and we're talking like a $41,000 bill). The burden would be on us to contact an agent by a specific time to petition for correction. This isn't BS. EIN a liability. This has happened a couple of times for me.

 

So we'll need to file taxes, and likely quarterly, for IRS, Oregon, and Portland. I for one think we should get the benefits of a commercial entity if we have to spend time doing taxes. We could get credit from a bank for centralizing bills. We could do service trading with other media companies. Heck, we could even find a buyer (if they agreed to keep hands off on editorial).

  When I was a part of BayCHI, they had a Steering Committee with yearly positions like, chairman, operations, finances and things got done. I think we should do the same.

 

--Matthew

[Melissa Chavez]

Kotra,

I work with Reid and Christie planning Open Source Bridge, an annual 4-day conference focusing on open source tech. OSB is managed under the umbrella org of Stumptown Syndicate, which has indeed taken over LoT's events (Reid & Christie were both on the board of LoT as well). 

If we contact them, it could be about using the Collective Agency space as a meeting place.  

When OSB came around in June, I suggested moving the weekly meeting to the conference's hacker lounge to meet more people. Until more people have heard of PortlandWiki, we're going to have to go to them. And post meet-up notices to Calagator. 

—Melissa

[Kotra D]

Thanks Melissa! I definitely think Collective Agency would be a great fit for meetups. Some of our meetups at other places have been too noisy for the rules in the main loft, but we could either be strict about keeping our voices at a normal conversational tone, or see about using the conference rooms.

You're of course right that going to existing communities more often than we have been is important, a point Teresa also has quite accurately been making for many months. Any help we can get on that front would be massively appreciated. About a year ago, a couple of us tried to post our meetups on Calagator, with the mailing list and Twitter account to also throw those notices to, and not a lot of people interested in helping with those, we've definitely been dropping the ball (on all three, at some points). I blame my own laziness for that, and you're right, I (or someone else) should definitely put the meetups on Calagator.

Thanks again for the feedback... this is all good stuff.

kotra

[Kotra D]

I just found out that Collective Agency is only open until 5pm for the free space. We would need to get a membership ($157.50/month) to use the space after then... so I think probably not the best fit after all for the existing monday meets and wikiwednesdays (which usually start around 7pm). But it definitely could work for any meetups that are 9-5, M-F.

kotra

[Pete Forsyth]

Hi everyone, do any of you guys use IRC?

I just set up a new chat channel on freenode: #wikimedia-westcoast

Please drop by any time if you want to gab about wiki stuff with us California folk etc.

-Pete

p.s. Don't know what IRC is? It's a chat program -- generally easiest to use with a dedicated program, but there is a web version you can use too: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikimedia-outreach

And more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC

[John Sechrest]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 9:06 PM, Pete Forsyth <petef...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone, do any of you guys use IRC?

I use IRC in a directed way, not in the general hangout sort of way. 

 

I just set up a new chat channel on freenode: #wikimedia-westcoast

Please drop by any time if you want to gab about wiki stuff with us California folk etc.

Interesting idea. 

 

-Pete


p.s. Don't know what IRC is? It's a chat program -- generally easiest to use with a dedicated program, but there is a web version you can use too: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikimedia-outreach

And more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC

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[Kotra D]

Cool idea, Pete! I don't typically use IRC, but I'll check it out sometime.

kotra