On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Wow, that's... pretty offensive, actually.
If you are offended by statements of fact, that is your problem.
I think it's fairly clear that I dispute the factualness of your statement.
Last time I checked, being a non-profit (and a charity if possible) *was* a requirement to be a Wikimedia chapter. The WMF does have experience of running a charity.
I don't know when it was that you checked, because this has never been a requirement. In countries where there's some analog to what Americans and Brits would call a non-profit, that's generally the desired form, but different countries have different legal systems—WMF Inc., for instance, is not a "charity" in the American sense of the word—and we do now have chapters which are neither.
That's not even the point, however. WMF Inc. does not have experience running a non-profit in, say, Brunei. I couldn't tell you the exchange rate in Brunei, much less what it costs to organize an event there. It's preposterous to assume that we can step in and throw highly paid western consultants at a situation, with the poor, incompetent Bruneians bowing to our superior wisdom and experience.
Austin