On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 19:13, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
If the Kosovans are willing to wait, it would be make our lives much easier if we wait until the international community makes up their minds, but that could take a while (it's been 2.5 years already).
I started to analyze the situation, but I've realized that the conclusion is the same as Tomas' one, while worded from another angle: there is no definite conclusion and presently all of them include possibilities for making harm to one of the sides, including WMF.
The most important harm which exists now is the fact that free knowledge activists from Kosovo are not included yet into the Wikimedia movement. So, until the situation becomes more clear, we should think how to solve that problem.
And we have tools to do that. Let's call them to internal-l (for example, to ask FLOSSK, as any WM chapter to delegate five members to the internal-l and chapters-l), let's treat their events as friendly ones (I was in Pristina, Gerard and Siebrand have already been at their event in Albania -- yes, free software and free knowledge activists from Kosovo are responsible for organizing those events in Albania -- but without WMF's official support), let's give to a couple of them scholarships for the next Wikimanias, etc.
BTW, political connotation in such cases could be avoided if WMF is extensively recognizing sub-national chapters. However, it is not the case. The product is that just well organized Catalan group is able to follow current trends inside of the Wikimedia movement. I can imagine how many obstacles have many other Wikimedian groups all over the world. And we need to find a temporary solution for such cases.
Unlike in the case of Kosovo, which has some chances to become a UN member in the future, probably hundreds of other groups would have to be permanently content with the "temporary solution". In some of the cases even willingness of ChapCom to recognize sub-national or cross-national chapters won't help.