Wikimedia France/Summary

Presentation of the chapter

Wikimedia France was created late October 2004. In 2010, we have around 200 members. In 2007 our budget was 40 000€. 10 000 € are fully dedicated to technical support to Wikimedia Foundation. In 2010, our budget is over 350 000 euros. Among the founders of the association we can find Sam Hocevar who was the Debian Project Leader (DPL) of the Debian project (2007-2008), and of course Florence Devouard, the former chair of Wikimedia Foundation.

What has been done so far

Wikimedia France is use to participate to local and national conferences about knowledge, culture and freeness. Wikimedia France also organised a two-day conference in Paris about spreading free knowledge. This conference welcomed more than 300 participants, and this was a lot as there was public transportation strikes during this weekend.

Wikimedia France is also handling all the french press queries (newspaper / radio / TV).

We also spend time to get to know the impotant persons for free knowledge. We met the persons in charge of the technological issues of the main french political partie. We met the minister of culture. We met many other association involved in the free culture promotion. And we also met an association protecting the "familly".

Plans for the future

Since 2007 Wikimedia France is trying to get more organized. We used to work all separately on different things. Now we've created workgroups to gather and coordinate the volunteers. We are also thinking on long-terms perspective and wills.

In the coming month Wikimedia France will handle an old book digitisation project. We're also about to get the digitisation of hundreds of veterinary Phd's essays done.

We're also willing to organise a second conference, as the 2007 ones, in late 2008. Main topic has not been picked yet (probably about History and Wikipedia)

We also want to improve our public outreach and revenues. In France when you have a budget higher than 45 000€ and more than 200 members you get the status of "association of public usefulness". This would extend the kind of donations we could get but it would also give us a mark of seriousness.

Best success

1. Participate to a lot of local and national events
2. Good financial situation
3. Wikimedia France is well known in France (libraries, people involved in ICT and free movement, press)

Worst headache

1. Lack of active members causing a lack of human resources and an overwhelming of the very few active members
2. Difficulties to develop long-term projects
3. Lack of outreach towards Wikimedia communities