h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Been wanting to bring this up, not sure what's been addressed yet...

I'd really like to argue for open access to all the new site for all people registered. That means that there is no joining fee, and people who pay don't get extras (apart from merchandise etc, which can be bought separately).

Registration and membership need to be completely devoid of having to pay a fee. Leaving aside the issue of some people can't afford to pay fees, there is also the issue of privacy and anonymity. Unless there is a way for people to pay without using their RL identity, having fee paying creates a block for some people to join (many people have legitimate and important reasons for not using their RL identity online).

I know that funding is likely to be one of the big challenges for the new site (if we don't get a rich buyer), but I think we have alot of options that don't involve setting up barriers at the registration point. Going down the path of being the kind of organisation that can apply for public funding is a choice we would need to make fairly early on.

Just wanted to mention those because I know there's been some brainstorming around funding that have included things like fee paying.

Definately an important issue to debate. It is also actually turning out to be quite a complex one. I think that there are three sorts of "levels of user" that we would need to accomodate. This is my summary of the different ones

1. People who want to register, lurk, post, contribute - any one and everyone should be able to do that', with as few barriers as possible. People can have multiple accounts (why not!) and sock puppets etc.

2. People who want to have a vote in who is on the committee.

Again everyone who is interested should be able to vote. But we would need to ensure that only people who had an interest in the site got to vote - to prevent someone signing up all their friends who had never visited so that they got to win an election. We would also need to also ensure that people can only vote once, even if they have multiple accounts. We would also need to discuss exactly how we did this.

3. People who make regular finanical contributions.

Applying for public money is an option, and I think we could be the sort of organisation that could apply, but in the current uk climate it is not a realistic form of raising money, and is very vunerable to being cut. I think that we would be the sort of organisation that could apply for public money, but we should not rely on it as an income stream.

One very very useful way of raising money would be to give people the option to have regular donations, such as a committement to pay, I don't know, say £10 a year. They would do this because they wanted to support us, not because they would get anything extra. This would be useful because it would enable us to plan for the future better rather than relying on adhoc donations. If we knew that if we had, I don't know 20 regular contributers we could pay the rent for our server it would great. We could choose to give them a special graphic for their personal space if they wanted, but not really anything else.

4. People who are 'members/shareholder's of the company that owned h2g2.

There are two legal not-for-profit entities that we could become, a company limited by guarentee, and, co-operative. We'd need to be something so that we could sign contracts, own property etc, without it being us personally that owns it. Each of those has a legal structure that we don't have much control over.

People join them, and have to give their name and address, there has to be an Annual General Meeting in the UK, and in the case of a Company LImited by Guarentee you have to be able to guarentee to pay a fixed amount if the company goes bankrupt (£1 usually).

Given that lots of people couldn't do this, or wouldn't want to, but would still have a valid interest in who runs the site we would have to keep the role of the 'members' as low as possible, so that people who couldn't become them would not feel sidelined.

That's such an excellent outline, thanks.

The voting one is interesting. Maybe it could be attached to length of registration and/or contribution to the site (x posts in PR, or X EGEs, although I think that people who have nothing to do with the EG should also have voting rights so we'd need a broader range of qualifications).

Re public funding, I guess part of the problem is that at the moment we have very little idea of how much money we'd need for start up or ongoing costs. I wasn't suggesting public funding be the main or only source of revenue, but that if we want public funding then how we set up at the start will be very important (sounds like you got that covered).


>>4. People who are 'members/shareholder's of the company that owned h2g2.

Are those legal terms or just what's been used by another group? Maybe we could find some other terminologies. 'Member' doesn't seem right to me because of the potential to leave others feeling sidelined. 'Shareholder' to me means someone who's invested money (and generally requires a return on that investment, although not always. I've seen a local business here work its way out of considerable debt by using a shareholder scheme that didn't require any return to the shareholders. They did get their money back in the end though).

Does one of those options include people putting in money as shareholders?

Well we're actually working on establishing what our start up costs would be, so we're quite close to getting an idea. There are reasons why we don't want to make this public, but I'd be happy to share it with you off site. Some of that information will only be available if we register an offical interest in bidding with the BBC and sign a confidentialy agreement.

I think you'd be a great person to come up with the different options and consult the community on this.. if you've got time..

WHOAMI has spent ages researching the legal structures that we could use - we've put that into an entry here.. A80949153

Ooh yes, and the terms are legal ones, but we could refer to it as something different on h2g2, with the legal term in the small print.

Ok, so... how about this:
Paying members get a 'button' to put on their personal page on hootoo and enywhere else they care to put it. I think we can ask Tavaron to design one.
We could make it a sticker to emblazon one's laptop / pda / ?pad.
How about a small towel to wipe the (intergalactic) dust from the screen with the hootoo logo.
I'd go for this type of exclusive gadgets to show I'm a paying member of hootoo.
I'd pay to be a member of hootoo regardless.

On the matter of protecting one's privacy I'd suggest using Western Union Money Transfer or similar services. It might cost a bit in transfer fees but if you value your anonimity that much...
One could also ask a friend to donate on your behalf and state "Anonymous" on the transfer so the h2g2c2 knows not to link the h2g2 login to that particular real name.

I think that funding will not be a problem in the first year but we have to consider the following years when a certain amount is needed just to keep the site up and running. I am sure the Committee is capable (with a little help from the experts among the Community) to come up with a plan that -at least- keeps the site up and running for the least money. For now we can't make a calculation because we have not a clue to what resources are required to run the site.

We have an ample supply of volunteers and with a bit of clever organising we need not rely on hired help for the maintenance of the site. We might even be able to start a Community Project to implement fixes/improvements in the software. There is so much talent and knowledge among the members I am sure It Can Be Done (tm).

Cheers!
Martin
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I know where my towel is. It says so on the towel.

The donation button or badge thingy is a great idea. I think hardware merchandise should be kept separate though. The more goodies you give people the less it becomes a donation and the more separation is created amongst the membership.

Not sure if there is anyway to transfer money anonymously from where I live to the UK. Getting a friend to do it is a possibility, which I might personally use, but the point I am making is that if those are requirements for membership or full participation, then they're barriers. We would lose people.

Agree about the volunteers and our capacity as a community


Thanks Z, I'll try and catch up on my reading on the weekend and see how I go from there

Donating anonymously in the UK - postal orders? Do they still do those?
Also, has anyone mentioned Paypal yet?

Paypal is a good idea, it should be an option if that's possible.

I think we need to look carefully at our possible company structures. For example, the whole co-op option is based around one member one vote, so the 'voters' and 'company owners/members' category would probably need to be one under that, although I'm pretty sure not everyone needs to sign up as a full co-op member in order to use the site - see what the chap who is running a co-op owned site says here about members and non members.

Perhaps you wouldn't need every vote open to co-op members, perhaps it's just linked to the AGM, so we could have the committee people voted in separately, but that's not how that website above does it, so perhaps not.

The advantage of a co-op is that you can sell 'shares' to the members, but under this structure the number of shares does not affect your voting power. Again, I don't know if that's the only way you can get money from people who use the site. Perhaps subscriptions would be possible without. You certainly wouldn't have to buy a share if you were a member.

I think if we went the co-op model, though, for the sake of not disappearing under admin to try and keep track of who was in which category, it would be best to have two types of users, co-op members and non members. Co-op members could vote, attend the agm and such, and donate money/buy shares and get a badge. Only co-op members could buy merchandise, because there are tax rules about it. IE we wouldn't have to pay taxes if we are selling to ourselves. Actually that would be the same for the company limited by guarentee. Or we could have two 'shops' one to trade with members and one with non-members).

The company limited by guarentee would probably be more felxible for the four catagories (except for the merchandising aspect - see above), so you could keep the legal membership smaller, but I think that collecting the £1 guareteee might be a bit of an admin nightmare.

Sorry, here's the link to the google group convo about the co-op run website

http://groups.google.com/group/h2g2communityconsortium/browse_thread/thread/e3aeaa3837d4e93e?hl=en

Oh and the company ltd by g does not allow the company to make a profit. It needs to be given away. I'm not sure if that would allow us to put money back into the site, although I daresay we could have a large section of th budget marked 'necessary development' which woud accidently swallow up all profits.

The co-op lot is supposed to share profits equally among members. Again, I'm not sure if that means we could wave the profits and put them back into the site, but I assume it might be one of the things members could vote on.

I assume that it should be possible in both cases, though. It's probably just a case of figuring out how in each case.

It's complex isn't it?

We want people who use the site to be able to have a role in the runing of it, without necessarily donating money, or even perhaps giving their full name and address. I don't want people to feel excluded from the running of the site if they don't want to donate a few £s, or don't want to give their full details.

However to actually have a vote at the AGM for the commitee then you actually need to give a small amount of money (only a £1 or £2 I believe) and your full name or address...I suspect you may have to be over 18 as well.

Legally there are going to be certain offical committee roles, which are going to have to be voted on at the AGM, such as Treasurer, Secterary and Chair. They would have to be held by people such as

However there's nothing in law that the Chief Scout, Community Editor, Editor of The Guide and Master of Badgers need to be voted on at an AGM.So what about having some positions on the committe that are reserved for people who can vote at the AGM. And some that anyone can stand for and vote on.

Realistically lots of people are going to want to be Chief Scout who gets to choose all the entries, or Editor of The Guide, but not that many people are going to want to be Treasurer.

The collecting of the guarantee for the 'company limited by guarentee' does not have to be a nightmare, just collect on sign-up and park it on a separate account or with a barrister (i think they are called, the fellers that do contract things and documents of ownership and wills).
This way the guarantee is there and secure so that the 'company limited by guarentee' cannot touch it.

Cheers!
Martin
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I know where my towel is. It says so on the towel.

>>...postal orders? Do they still do those? <<

As long ago as 2002...
I sent an International Postal Order by Registered Mail,
purchased with Canadian dollars from a Canadian Post Office,
made out in UK pounds to the institution I was buying from
and had it returned as 'unacceptable by any bank'. Maybe
they had never seen one before and didn't try to cash it
at a Royal Mail outlet but the experience put me off ever
trying again.


~jwf~

I would not mind being Treasurer, but the fact that I am not a UK citizen might complicate matters too much.

On the point of members I'd like to see this structure :

0. A Benefactor is a person not holding a registered account with h2g2 and he/she feels good donating to our cause. A Benefactor can be anonymous OR recieve a honorable memento in our Galactic Gallery (under construction), commercial mention is not excluded.

1. Everyone can be a Visitor (aka Lurker) on h2g2. A registration is not needed to be a Visitor. Completely anonymous and without us recording whatever personal information whatsoever.

1a. A Visitor cannot comment on Entries or participate in Discussions on h2g2.

2a. A Reader is a person that has registered an identity on h2g2 (currently through the BBC-id thingy), regardless wether they use an alias or their real name. The only personal information needed to register is a valid E-mail address to confirm the registration. If one wants to stay anonymous this should satisfy one's qualms.

2b. A Reader can participate in Discussions on h2g2 on whatever they feel that needs their opinion/point of view/critique. I'd like to see participations in Discussions preserved for Readers and upwards to put up at least this fence for the spam-/trollbots.

2c. A Reader can vote on a Survey/Poll/Ballot on h2g2 to which end we need to incorporate a technical solution on hootoo so that there will be 1 Reader - 1 Vote limit. This does not prevent one from voting more than once by creating multiple accounts so I suggest a minimum duration of the registration for, say, 1 month.

3. A Supporter is a person that holds a (at least one) registered account and pays a (yearly) fee to show their support for h2g2. Supporters get a badge to put on their Personal page or anywhere else they like. And maybe a sticker of said badge. Or a button. Or...

3a. A Supporter is a superset of Reader so all priviledges granted to a Reader are extended to a Supporter.

3b. A Supporter is the last level in the structure where one can stay as anonymus as one wants.

4. A Member is a person that holds a (at least one) registered account
and that has registered his/her personal details (age, snailmail-address, etc.) with h2g2c2 (the Consortium that ultimately runs h2g2 if/when Auntie could not flog it off to a third party).

4a. A Member is a participant in the company limited by guarentee and deposits the minimum required guarentee (a small sum around 1 Pound UK I believe) with the company.

4b. A Member is a superset of Supporter so all priviledges granted to a Reader are extended to a Member.

4c. A Member can apply for a position on the Assembly (the group that runs h2g2c2 on a daily basis) subject to ballot by the Members.

5. An Assembly-Member is a Member that has been accepted into the Assembly and is actively engaged in the day-to-day affairs, support and maintenance of the h2g2 site.

5a. An Assembly-Member is a superset of Supporter so all priviledges granted to a Member are extended to an Assembly-Member.

5b. An Assmbly-Member is eligable for a position on the Board (Chair, Secretary, Treasurer), subject to ballot by the Members.

6. A Board-Member is a Member tha has been accepted into the Board and is actively engaged in running the company limited by guarentee as such is described in the official documents and required by law.


This is my interpretation, feel free to substitute your own or to comment.
I may have missed a lot but this is the general outline that constitutes a structure that differs not much from what we know already with additional functionality.


Cheers!
Martin
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I know where my towel is. It says so on the towel.

With either of the models, is there any legal barrier to over-18 non-UK citizens being in the higher forms of membership?

Someone already mentioned PayPal, so all I'll say about it is that setting up a PayPal account for a US-based nonprofit was no different than setting up my own business PayPal account, and PayPal will give you the code for a Donate button linked to that account. Though we've got enough folks that could manage that for us themselves. (Theoretically, the code for that button could be given to people to put on their own not-h2g2 websites.)

The only ones that there would be possible reisdency requirements would be being treaseser, secretary, or chair. I think it would be difficult for a Non-uk resident to do our taxes for us, for instance.

We'd basically widen partipation as much as possible, and have as few restrictions as we could.

For the AGP we will have to think about how we incorporate tele-presence. The Community is dispersed all over the globe and as I've stated before somewhere, not every one will be able to be physically present on the annual meeting.
I'd say broadcast a feed and have Assembly-Members connect via chat and have a "Mouth" at the meeting to voice the messages.
Although this could be a bit difficult for them that type slowly, like me, but I think it can work.
Perhaps I did not read it right but for the annual meeting to be valid a limit number of people must be present in person and the rest can vote by proxy, online or by tele-presence.

Cheers!
Martin
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I know where my towel is. It says so on the towel.

Crud, I meant to say AGM, the annual meeting required by regulation/law to validate the charter.

Cheers!
Martin
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I know where my towel is. It says so on the towel.