On 24-apr-2006, at 10:22, oscar wrote: in 5 meetings, see http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Ontmoeten/Plaatsgevonden the ideas concerning the founding of the dutch chapter took their final form. these meetings have been open to everyone and have been announced well before they actually took place, and were each attended by various wikians, both from holland and from belgium. it was finally agreed upon by those present, that 2 organizations would suit the dutch situation best, and would give maximum possibilities of being active and to apply for funding in holland; both an association (see: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten_VWN_%28en%29 and a foundation, see: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten_SWN_%28en%29 were founded - see also http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten/Reglement_FAQ, translation not complete yet).
since the creation of these, negative comments have bursted from a limited number of wikipedians, rather loudly advocating their mistrust in the chapter and the people involved.
etc. etc. etc.
I am afraid Oscar is misleading the members of this list again.
1) At first GerardM wanted a Dutch foundation with raising money for the Florida based foundation as its sole purpose. However, stirred by a remark by Jimbo, a lot of Dutch users wanted an organization that had social aspects as well and could organize meetings and engage in other activities, all democratically controlled. For that a Dutch association was better. It is more democratic, and would therefore suit us better, as the wiki's are more or less democratic too. On the other hand RonaldB had this idea that a foundation would be better at raising money.
At the meeting I attended (November 11th, 2005) RonaldB kept pushing and pushing his idea until everybody got bored, and we finally gave in and decided there would be a Dutch association, as was the wish of a majority of users, *plus* a Dutch foundation as was the wish of less than a handful of users. The foundation *would be created by the association*, ensuring a somewhat democratic process. Oscar was very much in favor of that.
Now this foundation apparently has no longer the sole purpose of raising money. It will be the main organization, together with a toothless and money lacking association for the social aspects. The interaction of the two organizations is unclear to me, but apparently the association will be more or less at the mercy - at least financially speaking - of the foundation. As this is not what the Dutch users intended, a lot of them - not just a small group as Oscar is suggesting here - feel betrayed.
2) Also the meetings were not all that open. For instance: the meeting after the one I attended would be for the new board-members only. At the wish of one of them they also decided in a split-second that they would constitute themselves out of a group of would-be board-members, *without an election or other democratic process*. As I felt me being in a board together with GerardM would probably be not a good idea (Muijz winks at Jimbo), I decided to quit the process there. Much to my surprise I later on discovered there had been several meetings after that one, and RonaldB had pushed there his idea of creating a foundation *without* any democratic procedure at all. (And RonaldB got his undemocratic way, again.)
To me the whole affair is a classic example of board-members not listening to the community they are to represent. They rather feel the users should listen to them. (!)
Returning the complaints by simply accusing the Dutch community, only leads to more mistrust and more complaints - as always. And the pure speculations of a board member about the nature of the complaints, and about concerted action - as far as I am aware of there is none - won't stop those either.
What also did not help the process was all information being put on a special wiki and to be discussed solely *there*. The reason being that Media-NL was and should not be limited to the Pedia alone. While this is theoretically true, it only served as an extra barrier between the new board and the users. The Dutch community is simply too small for a lot of wiki's; our WikiNews for instance is more or less braindead and the other projects don't flourish either. De facto, Wikipedia-NL is the only flourishing community here. There probably would have been less complaints and less mistrust had the Dutch board-members not so strictly adhered to their rules - even refusing to discuss matters at the vilage-pump of Wikipedia-NL.
+++ Muijz