Incorporation

From Miraheze Meta, Miraheze's central coordination wiki

Miraheze was founded in July 2015 by an unincorporated team of individuals. On 20 November 2019, Miraheze Limited was formed as a not-for-profit company in the United Kingdom to manage Miraheze. As Miraheze Limited ran into significant operational challenges in mid-2023, by the end of the year the Miraheze community voted to join the WikiTide Foundation instead. This took effect on 6 January 2024.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

Founding and initial transition

When Miraheze was founded in July 2015, all of its assets (ie funds, domain names and servers) were under the control of John Lewis. As of December 2015, Brent Laabs was in charge of this.

However, this was not a viable situation. All of Miraheze being the responsibility and personal assets of one person posed major risks in various ways for all stakeholders. As such, incorporation was deemed mandatory. In the initial plans, Miraheze was to become a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States, but in late 2019 after considering and exploring different statuses, it was decided to form a not-for-profit company in the United Kingdom. Owen Baines, a family member of John, had taken the lead to do all the required paper work and organisation of this not-for-profit company.

Miraheze Limited

The not-for-profit company, Miraheze Limited, was registered on 20 November 2019. Due to several issues that need to be handled (for example the transfer of assets), a translation period lasted until 31 December 2019. As such, changes were small and planned but did not cause any impact on users.

See File:Miraheze-AoA.pdf for Miraheze Limited's Governing Document.

What changed after 31 December 2019?

  • Legal status: Miraheze is a not-for-profit limited company registered in the United Kingdom.
  • System administrators/SRE: There were no changes visible to users: all current sysadmins keep the same status and responsibilities as before incorporation.
  • Directors: As Miraheze will be not-for-profit company, there will be a board composed of three directors
  • Terms of Use/Privacy Policy: Changes will be made regarding the jurisdiction (now the United Kingdom), Copyright laws (to respect the United Kingdom laws) as well as minor grammatical changes
  • Finance: Finance will no longer managed by Labster but instead will be managed by one of the directors, Owen from now on

WikiTide Foundation

In late 2023, the community voted for Miraheze to become a part of the WikiTide Foundation, a U.S. non-profit organization. The transition went into effect on 6 January 2024.

What changed after 6 January 2024?

  • Legal status: Miraheze is now a project of the WikiTide Foundation
  • Directors: The WikiTide Foundation has a larger Board of Directors including Miraheze, WikiTide, and Wikimedia community members.
  • Trust and Safety: The WikiTide Foundation is working on overhauling Miraheze's Trust and Safety practice.
  • Foundation policies: The Terms of Use and Privacy Policy will be updated to reflect the move to the United States. Policies enacted by the Board will now be designated as "Foundation policies," a type of global policy.
  • Finance: Donations to Miraheze are now tax-deductible in the United States!