Group: Ipernity General Assembly

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Agenda item 1: Opening

Ladies and gentlemen,
respected club members of ipernity!

We welcome you and hereby open the Ipernity General Assembly 2020.

Our communication with each other will mainly take place here, in this discussion. To translate these posts into your native language, use ipernity's internal translation function please. To do this, click on the "Translate" link directly below each post

Because the ipernity group uses static web pages, you should reload or refresh the web page at regular intervals (every 1 to 2 minutes), to monitor the exchanges. Depending on your device and browser, this may be with the F5 function key on your keyboard, or by clicking an icon in the toolbar. We will not rush ahead.

Also take into account that locally, due to high Internet traffic, short waiting times may occur. Let's just be grateful that we have this opportunity here to communicate with each other.

Agenda item 2: Appointment of the minute taker

All posts here will serve as minutes and proof of the lawful conduct of the meeting.
There will be made screenshots in real time. They are subsequently available to all members of the community at any time.

Agenda item 3: Determination of the quorum

Invitations to this online meeting were sent via ipernity Team Blog at March 13, 2020. The agenda and the proposed amendments to the Revised Statutes of the Association were brought to your knowledge together with the invitation.

By the closing date on Friday, 27 March 2020, 67 members had registered.

The registered members were informed in time about the technical procedure. Furthermore, they were given the opportunity to view the following documents 24 hours in advance:

● Report of the CEO (activity report)
● Report of the CFO
● Annual accounts 2019
● Election proposals for the ima team
● Motions by Members

This IGA 2020 group has restricted visibility. Only registered club members with voting rights have access. Separate discussions will be used for the prescribed votes.

From the ima team the following are logged in at this moment:

● Eric Desjours, (eric.desjours), France
● Bernhard Westrup, (bergfex), Austria
● Rob Stamp, (robstamp), United Kingdom

As advisors, assistants or auditors the following are logged in:

● Helena-Paule Fitoussi, France
● Isabel Queiroz Marcellot, (xata), Portugal
● Markus Fritsch, (b_k), Germany
● Pam Johnson, United States (hotline, spam removal)
● Sami Serola, (serola), Finland

Subsequent changes are possible.

The total number of attendees at this very moment is 39.
This may still change until the votings will take place.

We hereby declare that the meeting will take place in accordance with the Bylaws of Association and will be legally binding and quorate.

Agenda item 4: Report of the CEO on the past business year (2019)

We will publish this report in English here. Authorised translations in French and German are published simultaneously and can be consulted via the following links:

● English: IGA2020 - Report of the CEO
● Français: IGA2020 - Rapport du CEO
● Deutsch: IGA2020 - Bericht des CEO

If any of these languages is not your native language, you can have the report translated into your language using ipernity's internal translation function and read it in this way.

As all attendees have had the opportunity to read this report in advance, we are now publishing it here rather quickly.

Ladies and gentlemen,
respected club members of ipernity,

I would have preferred to be able to open our General Assembly today under different circumstances: With less worry about what is happening to us right now, how we can cope with everyday life, and what is yet to come.

But I think that what I can report on today can give you a good measure confidence, at least with regard to the future of ipernity. For many in our community, regular communication via ipernity is an integral part of everyday life.

Therefore, as President of the Ipernity Members Association, I stand by the mandate you have entrusted me with, even in these difficult times, despite the enormous private and professional burden I am currently under. Because I have a strong team that helps me to master all challenges, a team that you chose in 2019 and that has achieved a lot since then. In addition, since April 2019, we have had an extended group of advisors to support us.

Despite the fact that a year ago it seemed completely hopeless to be able to carry out the urgently needed renewal of our subscription structure without reprogramming, we have managed to do it on our own, without expensive external support for programming. All ipernity users can now book subscription packages of varying complexity to suit their needs much better than the former uniform club-subscription.

As before, guests are still welcome at ipernity. In the new, free trial account, they can try out all ipernity functions for 3 months. Afterwards they can stay with us with a free account if they do not want to book a subscription. However, the possibilities of guest accounts are more limited compared to the past. This is because, as a solidarity community that covers its expenses exclusively through membership fees, we can only offer limited free use.

For our contributing members we have created the possibility to book multi-year subscriptions at more favourable conditions. The subscription reductions are up to 25 percent. The extent to which this option is chosen is very pleasing. After all, the fact that it is fixed for several years is a great vote of confidence and increases our planning reliability. Above all, however, it brings additional money into the club's fund, with which we can conclude more cost-effective long-term contracts with the Amazon Web Service. In this way, everyone benefits from the discounts. Moreover, it guarantees that membership contributions will remain stable for the foreseeable future.

With a contribution of only $49.90 pa for the standard subscription ($39.90 pa for a five-year subscription), our community is the most affordable photo sharing provider in the world. New members pay as little as $25.90 for the first year, as well as the low-cost new basic subscription for users with fewer needs with respect to disc space and features.

All of these improvements have necessitated a complex redesign of ipernity's payment processing pages. We were able to handle the necessary programming completely in-house, as well as the conversions in the area of geolocation and map services. We were forced to do this by new, unfavorable user fees for Google Maps. This was also managed in house, by changing to Open Street Maps for the location display. Google Maps was retained for positioning and satellite view only. More recently, the pop-up windows were positioned differently, enlarged and made movable.

The migration of our integrated translation module to DeepL, however, was our own considered decision. After all, the world's best translator is just about good enough for our members to communicate across national and language borders.
During the year there were hundreds of bug fixes and many improvements. The most important ones were reported in our 14-day team blog. I would especially like to emphasize the completely new FAQ. It is a prime example of club-internal teamwork beyond the confines of the ima core team. Without doubt, it is thanks to the committed help from our advisors that this mammoth project was managed to such a high standard.

The Alexa ranking of ipernity has also improved. In the course of the year, our website rose from 106,445th place to 46,933rd place, with a sustained positive trend.

Regrettably, we were unable to initiate the reprogramming decided upon at the last general assembly. Despite the high commitment of many members, the necessary starting capital did not accumulate. Our community is simply still too small for such a huge project. On the other hand, the campaign led to the fact that the equity ratio of our association is now very solid. This, as well as all other financial aspects, is reported separately.

Apart from the effects of the global coronavirus crisis, which cannot be assessed in any way, we currently do not see any major risks for ipernity. The technical and financial basis is now very solid. However, our personnel resources are rather weak. A long-term absence of members of the ima team would not be easy to cope with. After all, my colleagues on the team are doing almost impossible things. For this I thank them on behalf of the whole community, as well as our advisors and all those members who, through their feedback in the team blog, create indispensable realism. Your comments and critical questions are not always comfortable, but always valuable.

With regard to the fact that many of us will involuntarily spend much more time within our own four walls during the next weeks or months, I would like to invite you to use this time to make ipernity even more attractive for visitors and potential members. Let us make the best out of this crisis by using it for a quality offensive.

I hope that our fellowship will continue to grow together in this year of crisis and ultimately emerge stronger. There will certainly be a time after the coronavirus pandemic for which it is worthwhile to stand together and deepen friendships. Because “ipernity is more than just photo sharing”.

Thank you.

March 29, 2020
Eric Desjours
CEO of the Ipernity Members Association

Since we assume that you have read the report in its entirety before the meeting, we continue directly with

Agenda item 5: Report of the CFO on the past fiscal year (2019)

The corresponding annual financial statement of the association were examined by the advisers and found to be correct:



These financial statements are also available in audited French and German translations. You can get there by clicking on the thumbnail above. Downloadable pdf files are also available there.

We will publish the report of the CFO in English here. Authorised translations in French and German are published simultaneously and can be consulted via the following links:

● English: IGA2020 - Report of the CFO
● Français: IGA2020 - Rapport du CFO
● Deutsch: IGA2020 - Bericht des CFO

If any of these languages is not your native language, you can have the report translated into your language using ipernity's internal translation function and read it in this way.

As all attendees have had the opportunity to read this report in advance, we are now publishing it here rather quickly.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The turnaround of ipernity was successfully continued in the reporting year. Total assets increased to EUR 20,486 (previous year: EUR 1,954). This exceeds expectations (EUR 17,000) by EUR 3,486 (20.5 percent). The reserves cover almost six months of operating costs (without IT projects). Our association now has a solid financial footing.

The inflow of cash from regular contribution payments grew by 22.6 percent to EUR 52,582 (previous year: EUR 42,879). The average contribution income per member was EUR 37.03 per year. The donations received increased tenfold to EUR 3,787 (previous year: EUR 365). In addition, advance contribution payments of EUR 10,852 were made. This expresses the members' great confidence in the future. Overall, income rose by 34.8 percent to EUR 67,295 (previous year: EUR 49,986).

In turn, costs were reduced by 26.6 percent to EUR 48,736 (previous year: EUR 66,465). The most significant savings were achieved in external IT services. The costs for these fell by EUR 9,663 (55.6 percent) to EUR 7,723 (previous year: EUR 17,386). This was made possible by IT services provided internally without charge since March 2019.

The costs for the Amazon Web Service (AWS) were also reduced. They fell by EUR 7,509 (17.5 percent) to EUR 35,397 (previous year: EUR 42,906), although the exchange rate of the US dollar against the euro deteriorated by 5.5 percent. The major savings were achieved by deleting invisible content that had accumulated since ipernity was founded. As a result, storage costs fell by EUR 7,320 (35.5 percent) to EUR 13,278 (previous year: EUR 20,598).

Because Google had modified the pricing for API usage, there was a high unexpected additional expenditure of around EUR 630 per month from March onwards. Calculated over the year, this would have meant an unplanned budget burden of EUR 7,540. We have cushioned the cost increase by switching the GEO localization and map service from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap. As a result, we were able to limit the additional expenditure to a total of EUR 1,900.

In order to invest the capital reserves profitably until they are needed for reprogramming, we started to convert the server leasing contracts with ASW to cost-effective long-term contracts with advance payment in 2019. During the contract periods, this will reduce the costs for the AWS servers (including depreciation) by around EUR 4,400 (12 percent) annually. Thus the mutual trust of the members leads directly to financial advantages for our community.

The liabilities in the form of subscription obligations amounted to EUR 56,667, which results in an equity ratio of 36.2 percent. This is a robust economy of scale.

Since the one-off effects on income (EUR 14,649 from donations and multi-year subscriptions) will not be repeated in this magnitude, we expect a smaller increase in reserves in 2020. We expect the amount to be EUR 30,000 in total. The equity ratio should rise to over 50 percent. Apart from the Corona crisis, whose economic impact on ipernity is completely unpredictable, no other financial risks are known that could endanger ipernity's operations.

March 29, 2020
Dr. Bernhard Westrup
acting CFO

Since we assume that you also have read the report in its entirety before the meeting, we continue directly with

Agenda item 6: Report of the auditors

Ladies and Gentlemen,
respected club members of ipernity,

We have audited the financial statements of the ipernity Members Association for the financial year from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. Based on the findings of our audit, the financial statements comply in all material respects with the legal requirements and give a true and fair view of the financial position of the Association. It accurately presents the opportunities and risks of future development.

March 29, 2019
Markus Fritsch
Thomas Reck
Auditors

We step on now with

Agenda item 7:
Formal approval of the actions of the Executive Board (ima team) in the past

This item consists of two parts:

7.1 The debate on the previous period of activity of the ima team
7.2 The vote on discharge for the ima team.

▶ Firstly the debate (7.1)

You can now submit your questions on the reports by posting comments below.
You can write the question in your mother language.

To avoid duplicate answers, we will answer the questions collectively after some time.

(here!)

excellent work. Thanks!!

My sincere thank you and respect for a tremendous job by IMA!

Is het mogelijk een verdeling van de diverse lidmaatschappen te krijgen ??

Respekt , Anerkennung und Dank für die Arbeit des Teams!

Great work! Many thanks!!!

Thank you to all the team for the clear reports and excellent financial report.

Herzlichen Dank dem ganzen ima Team für eure tolle Arbeit!

Thank you very much for your commitment and the great work

Großartige Arbeit! Herzlichen Dank an alle Beteiligten!

I would like to record my appreciation for the hard work of the IMA team over the past year.

Exellent work; I strongly appreciate the switch to Openstreetmap and the simplification of video playing among others.

Sehr gute Arbeit, Freunde! - Ich habe momentan keine Fragen.

Keine Fragen bisher - "nur" Danke für alles.

het verwijderen van 'dode' acounts is een doorlopende zaak; is daar nog veel financieel voordeel te behalen ??

Vous êtes courageux et je suis plein de respect même si je ne participe pas beaucoup, bravo

Das habt Ihr gut gemacht !!!
Die Ergebnisse des Jahres 2019 stimmen doch sehr optimistisch.
Herzlichen Dank für die von Euch allen geleistete hervorragende Arbeit.

Just a word: OBRIGADA

Thank all of you very much - fantastic work!

Auch hier noch mal: Danke für die übersichtlichen und gut erläuterten Berichte! Und natürlich erst Recht für eure Arbeit und investierte Zeit!

Many thanks from me too!

Auch meinerseits vielen Dank für Euer Engagement. Die Berichte haben meine Fragen hinreichend beantwortet. Im Moment habe ich keine weiteren.

Als ik het nu mag vragen: zet de positieve trend van het aantal betalende deelnemers zich voort in de eerste drie maanden van 2020 ??

Can the period of three years be reduced to 30 months for accounts that have remained idle, would this create any significant savings?

I agree with everyone's sentiments: great work and very clear reports and explanations of everything going on. Thank you for keeping us all in the loop.

Impressed by the management of the association towards a healthy structure ! Congrats

I wouldn't mind to grasp a look on what's planned for the site for the coming year
- as technical possible improvements
- as "communication" issues regarding Ipernity's positionning itself facing the giants (like Flickr and so on)

How can we suggest improvements later on ?

I understand point 10 of the agenda is the place for this?
At least, I prepare something to post there at that time...

can you paste point 10 here ? please

Adding to Jaap's question it would be interesting to know the age range of members?

▶ Let us please pause the posting to give first answers.

After that, the debate will continue.

Merci infiniment pour la somme du travail accompli et le sérieux avec lequel chacun de vous a oeuvré! Croisons les doigts pour que notre site soit plus attractif que jamais!

The memberships were only differentiated in the 4th quarter of 2019. Since January 1, 2020, it has been possible to upgrade or downgrade when a Sunscription expires. This has not been given much consideration so far. However, a representative figure cannot yet be quantified before the process has gone through a 12-month cycle.

We then estimate the proportion of Basic Subscription at around 20 percent.

By deleting dead accounts in 2020 we will be able to achieve further financial benefits because storage space will be released. This advantage is already included in the above mentioned prospects for 2020.

▶ Are there any more questions?
(Continue, please.)

Danke an das IMA Team

Het aantal Plus Accounts bekend ??

@Au Coeur, I'll answer your question & your ipermail. This issue is not exactly on the Assembly's agenda.

thanks Eric

Könnte eine Empfehlung hilfreich sein, die Bildgrößen vor dem Hochladen auf beispielsweise 2 bis 3 MB zu reduzieren? Könnte man damit nicht erhebliche Kosten sparen?

Gegenrede. Das würde die Qualität der Fotos auf ipernity verringern und wäre gegenüber potentiellen Neumitgliedern nicht sehr einladend.

Das würde mir auch überhaupt nicht gefallen!

Wegen des zu erwartenden Qualitätsverlustes bin ich dagegen.

Das finde ich auch nicht gut. Müßte die Bilder alle runterskalieren und ich bezahle ja auch für den Speicherplatz. Wenn ich mehr brauche und mehr bezahle ist das meine Sache.

ich skaliere meine Bilder ohnehin auf 1500 px die lange Seite im Querformat und 1000 px die lange Seite im Hochformat. Bei den "üblichen" Monitoren ist das mehr als ausreichend, um das Bild vernünftig zu sehen.

Genau! Dafür kannst Du halt mehr hosten wie ich. Und? Das sehe ich nicht als Problem an.

@ ୱ Kiezkickerde ( ͡°… and @ Ruesterstaude @Angelofruhr @cammino
Par contre, dans l'optique de favoriser la mise en ligne d'images optimisées,

... proposer éventuellement un outil (du type de PicMonkey) avec des possibilités d'enregistrement optimisées
ou peut-être un espace de diffusion d'apprentissages un peu comme le fait déjà LinkedIn.
Que ce soit payant ou non. (ou les deux versions, d'ailleurs...)

Ou laisser la possibilité de l'upload des vidéos pour un compte premium ?

à réfléchir :-)

genau das meine ich ;-)

ich mache das auch so, denn der Qualitätsverlust ist auch auf einem großen Bildschirm nicht erkennbar.

gut gesagt!

Do I understand correctly that the most important risk on our financing is Amazon evolving their tariffs? If this is true, is there any chance we can consider, at least in part or as a test breadboard, an independent hosting?

▶ Let us please pause the posting to give first answers.

After that, the debate will continue.

How the number of participants will develop is completely open. In the last four weeks it has fallen by 20 (to 1,400, as of today) for various reasons. However, in the past, the number of registrations has always fluctuated greatly according to season. There could be major changes as a result of the Corona crisis. However, it is completely uncertain in which direction.

@ Happy Snapper: You would have to explain in more detail how you imagine it. In general, however, it can be said that each additional choice would greatly increase the complexity of the payment module. This would be a complication for both the members and the administration. Nevertheless, optimizations are always possible.

OK

Another point I'd have liked to see is the impact of the "switchers from other services", which if important last year may not repeat next one.
-no need for huge reporting, just, is there an impact expected...

Wäre es vielleicht sinnvoll, sich eine Möglichkeit zu überlegen, wie man bei bestehenden Mitgliedschaften helfen kann, wenn der Benutzer den Beitrag wegen Corona vorübergehend nicht mehr zahlen kann? Also z.B. wegen Arbeitsplatzverlust oder Kurzarbeit.

@ Ruesterstaude: Das ergäbe keinen nennenswerten Effekt. Mit einem einzigen Video in 500 MB Größe wäre die Einsparung von 500 Bildern wieder weg. Woran wir schon alternativ gedacht haben, wäre die selten genutzten Dateien in eine andere Speicherklasse zu transferieren. Das brächte bis zu 30% Ersparnis. Wir sind aber noch in der Erprobung.

o.k. danke!

Es gibt immer noch Gruppen, die vor 8,9,10 Jahren gegründet wurden, mitunter nur ein halbes Dutzend Mitglieder haben/hatten und seitdem "freischwebend im All" unterwegs sind, d.h. keinerlei Moderation erkennen lassen und auch keine neuen Beiträge beinhalten, ... die könnte man evtl. einfach löschen.
Solche Gruppen ausfindig zu machen, wäre ich gern bereit; vielleicht auch andere Freiwillige ?
Frage: ist es überhaupt technisch/organisatorisch möglich, solche Gruppen durch die IMA (Sami ?) KOMPLETT zu löschen ??

Als video's zo zwaar belastend zijn, is het dan een idee te onderzoeken of voor het uploaden een toeslag kan worden berekend ??

If it is a significant problem then would a different class of member for videos at a higher rate be necessary or helpful?

Das ist für meinen Geldbeutel ohnehin schon belastend. Wenn ich Videos poste ist mein Kontingent schon viel eher erschöpft und ich kann weniger Bilder hosten, muß also meinen Speicherplatz erhöhen. Warum sollte ich dann für Videos extra noch mal mehr zahlen. Das sind genauso bits.

yes that's true

Ist irgendetwas bezüglich der Gruppen geplant? Da ist einfach zuviel "Totholz". Bei Manchen ist vor 8 Jahren mal was los gewesen.

Or limit the quality of the videos with an automatic resizing option?

Versteht ihr mich nicht? Ich habe ein normales Club-Abo mit 100 GB. Wie ich die nutze ist doch meine Sache ..

Auf gar keinen Fall! Das ist nicht die Aufgabe eines Hosters, bei dem man für seinen Speicherplatz bezahlt. Wo kämen wir denn da hin, ich lade ein perfekt aussehendes Foto oder Video hoch und dann verändert es irgend eine andere Software einfach von sich aus, was ich anderen zeigen möchte? Das ist eines der nervigsten Dinge bei anderen Foto-Plattformen, dass die JPG-Artefakte in meine Fotos rein basteln, die beim hochladen noch nicht vorhanden waren, das geht überhaupt nicht!

das sehe ich genauso. Was der einzelne mit seinem Speicherplatz anstellt, ist seine Sache.

I did not aggress you, so...

Da stimme ich absolut zu. 100 GB sind 100 GB, egal, wie man sie nutzt.

I agree. But if one wants to resize to save space it can be good and easier to have such option available. I was not thinking of imposing it, sorry if I was not clear.

Ich verstehe dich - und du hast vollkommen recht!

Genau!

Sure, but resizing should not be done by a tool but by the respective members theirselves.
We should not look like bossing our members ;-)

@ Crisbou: Auf Objekte aus der günstigeren Spreicherklasse wir bei Bedarf genau so schnell zugegriffen. Die Details sind kompliziert. Schau bei "AWS Inteloligent Tiering". Aber es entsteht kein Nachteil.