Nathan wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Erik Moeller
<erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
2009/1/20 Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de>de>:
Not quite. One criteria is that the chapters
should have well defined
geographical areas and they should not overlap. So an Amsterdam chapter
beside a Dutch chapter is not possible.
It was my understanding from the
sub-national chapters document that
such chapters might be permitted to form anyway:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sub-national_chapters
(Question: "Aren't we setting up sub-national chapters to compete for
funding with nation-based chapters?")
What I'm taking your statement to mean is that when a subnational
chapter is formed where a national chapter could be later formed, the
overlap and potential harmful consequences of such overlap would have
to be carefully considered before national chapter is approved. Would
that be a fair characterization? Or are you meaning 'is not possible'
truly in the sense of 'will never happen'?
Earlier in this thread, Ting clearly stated that recognition of a
sub-national chapter meant a national chapter could not later be formed.
Andrew Whitworth indicated the same. Is that not the definitive answer to
the question?
Nathan
This would be real bad, because it could exclude entire areas that do
not drain sufficient memberships or funds to be able to really create a
sustainable chapter.
That could be typically the case of a country with two big cities and a
big rural area. Two chapters could be created in each city, leaving all
wikipedians in the rural areas helpless. If such was to happen, I hope
WMF would either accept the creation of a national chapter, or negotiate
with the city-chapters so that they can extend membership to neighbours.
Note that this is already the case for many national chapters. In the
French one, we host a couple of people living in Switzerland ('cause
they are French in nationality), as well as from Belgium and Luxembourg,
('cause these nations have no chapter).
I suspect a consensus will need to be found, so that 1) no harm is made
to current chapter and 2) no one be excluded which would defeat the process.
As such, flexibility should be a must.
Ant