On 14/07/2014, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Balazs, It's interesting that you feel that way, because I disagree entirely. Out of curiosity, have you ever met another Wikipedian in real life, and do you feel that meet-ups are beneficial to the movement? Jane
Jane,
"Without a single person involved (ever) from WMF or any of the chapters" has nothing to do with meeting other Wikimedians in real life (or Wikipedians for that matter). The comment was about whether strategic discussion automatically means the WMF or Chapters need to be in the middle of it. They don't, even at real life meetings.
As an example, in the UK our Wiki-meets are not the domain of Wikimedia UK, they are independent. Keeping them that way ensures that if the community of UK Wikimedians have issues with their local Chapter or WMF funding, then we are not in the bizarre position of only being able to talk to each other at chapter/WMF sponsored and controlled events or in chapter/WMF controlled forums. If this were the case then it would rapidly only become possible to talk about "Public Relations positive" affairs.
Volunteer community independence and associated free speech are generally thought to be a good thing for the purposes of governance, though not everyone agrees, or at least, by their actions support this philosophy when faced with "Public Relations non-positive" subjects.
Fae