On 5/25/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
… but in any event all of the people commenting, including me, I think we all agree that it should be left up to those local communities to figure out what makes the most sense for them.
I believe this is documented (somewhere) as Wikimedia policy, but even if not, it's the undisputed consensus of those involved with such decisions. It's certainly not for us to object if the Serbs get together with the Croat community and decide to form a broader organization, or if individual Bosnians simply want to join the Serbian chapter (which they can, even now).
In other cases, we will have chapters which cover only parts of some nations. For example, a 'U.S. local chapter' makes no sense because the US is much much too big and diverse for that to be sensible. I can easily imagine an "eastern seaboard" chapter, a "california" chapter, etc. How to draw those lines, and why, well.... too early to speculate since no one has really tried to form one yet. :)
I could personally see, at least initially, something along the lines of the Writers Guild of America—but as you say, so far it's only been discussed in passing. I've long had this plan to get interested parties together at Wikimania for some preliminary talk, but I've been preoccupied with other chapters and organizing the conference itself, to say nothing of my day job, so it's remained something of a secret plan.
Now that I've mentioned it, I suppose I actually have to do something about it.
Austin