Hi Teofilo,
Chapters are geographic entities, I don't think they have a role in disputes
about Commons templates. As for the controversial content referendum, I
suspect some chapters or proto chapters in Islamic countries will be
strongly for having such filters. But the content filtering thing is a
Foundation initiative. If you want to judge the chapters look at the things
they are achieving - I'm a Londoner and I think that having a chapter helps
with our collaborations with the British Museum and other UK Museums. Yes
you can have a GLAM initiative without a chapter, but sometimes it makes a
difference - some institutions want to talk to a local organisation not a
local volunteer or a US organisation.
Details as to what the United Kingdom chapter has been getting up to are at
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports - I don't know where you are from but
if there is a chapter there I suggest you look up their reports.
As for the money issue, we need local national if we are to get charity
status in different tax jurisdictions. In some countries that may not mean
much money, but here in the UK it is a big opportunity. If you look at other
international charities you will find that creating national organisations
is not an unusual strategy.
WSC
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:14:11 +0200
From: Teofilo <teofilowiki(a)gmail.com>
Subject: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia chapters' raison d'?tre?
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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Wikimedia chapters are not only an example of what should not be seen
in Wikimedia projects (an "institution[...], of any kind, [...]
claiming to represent [...] individuals" [1]) they also absorb funds
and hire people, pushing with more weight the goal to make money (a
salaried person expects his/her salary to be increased by X % each
year) which is different from what a volunteer based project should
be.
They aslo are de facto put in a position where people expect them to
perform decision making. It is already bad that they deprive the
communities of a decision making of their own, and take volunteer
seats at the WMF board of trustees, but they don't do the job. See
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:CC-AR-Presidency#Bad_templa…
. If the chapters showed that they are helpful in doing things better
than what volunteer communities alone can do, they could prove that
they are useful. But I am afraid they are not doing this. If they are
not present when we need them...
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Conten…