Gov/en/Portal:Onboarding/About-History: Difference between revisions

''From WikiDeal — [[Gov/en/Portal:Onboarding/About|About]] · [[Gov/en/Portal:Onboarding/Main|Onboarding]]''

== 1998 — Founded at the invitation of Swiss cooperation ==

At the time, Swiss cooperation wished to support '''non-profit''' international cooperation projects. The organisation it had until then primarily supported had gone public (IPO) and thereby become a for-profit company. The delegates of the Swiss federal body chose instead to favour structures driven by a '''non-speculative intent''' — not mere service providers, but genuine '''partners in an ethical and inclusive digital transition'''.

== 1998–2003 — First funding and a first social network ==

== 2003–2008 — Self-sufficiency and sharing the know-how ==

The organisation succeeded in becoming self-sufficient over roughly a decade. It began to '''put its know-how to work for other actors''', then developed '''educational programmes''' across Europe and internationally — notably for Eastern European countries.

== 2008 — Becoming a foundation, and a strategic direction ==

In practice, this meant courses, mentoring and methodologies, designed to be deployed afterwards — directly within citizen associations, or through universities and other institutions. This positioning went hand in hand with the ambition to gather '''experts in free software culture and free culture''' more broadly, drawn from a wide range of organisations.

There was no clear-cut answer, nor any real confrontation — rather a '''tendency'''. The operational team and the foundation’s board implemented the educational direction, drawing on many experts, notably in the development of research and training programmes.

== 2008 onward — Diversifying the programmes ==

* active participation in the launch of '''Wiki Loves Africa''', aimed at showcasing the creativity — particularly photographic — of Africans, for a re-appropriation of African culture by Africans (a form of autonomous visual ethno-anthropology);

In total, '''30 to 50 socio-educational innovation programmes''' were created. '''Socio-technological''' work remained very rare — almost non-existent — with two exceptions:

== 2020–2023 — Reformulating the strategy to reach the mission ==

== 2020–2022 — Two needs converge ==

The foundation considered '''connecting the various actors of the digital world''' within a global package — a monthly subscription bringing together the smartphone, the computer, relevant software, training and the internet provider — all within a '''non-speculative framework'''.

Its need: '''contract templates''' allowing human facilitators to combine several agreements smoothly — lease, service contract, volunteering contract, placement of shares, amendments, addenda, and so on — without falling into the vague disputes of the ''“you told me / I told you / it wasn’t clear / it’s unfair / it’s too complicated”'' kind. Because deep ethics often requires '''several agreements''', to be refined with care.

This need echoed an emerging movement at the time (less prominent today): the '''PropTech''' — technologies applied to property.

Just as, on Wikipedia’s articles and portals — or on sister projects such as Wikimedia Commons or Wikibooks — discussions, reversions, conflicts and at times edit wars coexist, all of it remains held together by a '''fundamental agreement''': ''“knowledge is a commons.”''

<blockquote>'''“Transactions, the ways of managing them — more broadly the culture of agreements — are a commons.”'''

* '''La Mobilière''' — a cooperative insurer that redistributes its profits to its members;

* '''Coop and Migros''' — leading cooperative supermarkets, non-speculative (the subject of internal yet constructive criticism from humanist-minded citizens);

* '''Raiffeisen''' — a cooperative banking movement;

* '''The stability of the Swiss franc''' — a kind of “stablecoin”, not on a blockchain, yet deeply anchored;

* '''An innovation-friendly environment''', which explains the density of “crypto-creatives” in Switzerland — for legal and innovation-stimulating reasons, not for tax evasion.

It is from this cooperative heritage and this twofold demand — federating an ethical digital ecosystem on one side, equipping the culture of agreements on the other — that the '''WikiDeal''' adventure was born.

The choice to draw on Wikipedia’s governance is no accident. That governance uses '''decision-making modes adapted to complexity''', which can go as far as elections or the '''Condorcet method''' — often presented as a possible new stage of democracy.

Wikipedia is also often nicknamed ''“the miracle”'': it is the '''only leading project in its field''' to sit at the top of the global digital world '''without being a speculative structure'''. Among the ten to twenty leading digital players, all (or nearly all) are publicly listed companies — Wikipedia is the exception. It is precisely this model that WikiDeal seeks to transpose.

== 2023–2025 — From idea to flagship project ==

Between '''2023 and 2025''', the principle was adopted '''in successive cycles''', through workshops and validations in council sessions. WikiDeal thus became the foundation’s '''new flagship project''' — one intended to encompass existing initiatives as much as possible, without abandoning the TEDx conferences or the other training programmes, now regarded as progressively secondary.

The starting intuition: if WikiDeal operates at the scale of an international structure comparable to Wikipedia, the '''operating costs''' — and more broadly the financial flows passing through the marketplace — will be counted in hundreds of millions, even billions.

The model envisaged (prototype 1) reconciles two seemingly contradictory goals — attracting initial support '''and''' preserving a commons:

The intended outcome: enabling '''initial support''' while guaranteeing the '''non-privatisation of a commons''' — a global platform '''launched, run and maintained by the users themselves'''. A genuine shared marketplace.

<blockquote>''“Can it be done when the platform is, at the same time, launched, run and maintained by its users?” — that is the experiment at the heart of WikiDeal.''

''Imagination: Théo Bondolfi for Ynternet.org Foundation. Created with AI assistance.'' ''This content awaits more human validation.''