I'm curious, and maybe this is the wrong thread, but can someone explain to
me the difficulty in setting up a US organization that is essentially a
Wikimedia membership chapter? I get the issues with trademark ownership
(although it seems you could solve that with a license of some sort) and the
issue of diverting donations, but what are the other impediments if any? I
set up a non-profit corporation in high school, it didn't strike me as that
difficult at the time.
If this has been discussed at length, as I'm sure it has, on meta - could I
get the link as well?
thanks,
Nathan
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
effe iets anders wrote:
What you seem to mean to me, is a group of
enthusiast volunteers who
want to do stuff. Yeah, the Volunteer Coordinator (Cary) might be a
good point of approach then. And maybe in some cases (conferences,
Wikipedia academies) the guy who is handling reachout (Frank). But the
same goes for enthusiast volunteers in southern Spain, Zambia, Nepal
or New Zealand. They would have to approach the same people for the
same things, and I still do not see why US volunteers should take a
different position on this. They are not more important, at most
higher in number (although that would have to proof itself first).
As soon as there are legal entities (or at least groups with
formalized structures) in the US, incorporated or not, I guess their
point of approach would be the chapters coordinator (Delphine) /
chapters committee . As long as you're not, I think that the regular
current structures should be sufficient (because you're no "affiliate"
anyways)..
BR, Lodewijk
Effe's correct.
Delphine is the point person for chapters, so if volunteers in the
United States want to formally organize, she would be their contact for
that. The fact that she's not in the United States doesn't/shouldn't
matter - she's the chapters' global representative (Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Argentina, Israel) and is used to working with people who are far from
her geographically. There's no need for the United States to get any
special treatment.
People who don't want to organize formally into chapters or chapter-like
entities can continue to work with Cary, who is the point person for
individual volunteers. So Pharos working with Cary for Wikipedia Takes
Manhattan makes perfect sense :-)
--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation
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