Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Really? Cause I didn't get that message at all. What I got out of it was, "The board intends to consolidate the power of the existing big name chapters, and make some gesture of including them on the board, but we're actually not addressing substantively the issue of making it easy for them to actually form and be approve."
Big names ? What do you mean ? What came out of the chapter meeting in May is that there should be no such thing such as inequality between chapters. Since then, a few people have objected this, but generally, there was a perception that the representatives would not be there to "consolidate" the power of big chapters, but rather to be people chosen by chapters to propose another approach that other board members would not bring.
The resolution leading to the addition of these two members was absolutely not meant to solve any issue regarding the way chapters are approved or not. That's a completely different matter.
There's no excuse for blaming the chapters or the people in them when the system for developing and approving them is fundamentally flawed.
I can not speak for the "approving" part (eg, recognising as Wikimedia chapter). But ultimately, the business of wikimedians choosing to group and form a local organization is nowhere the business of the Foundation.
Ant
-Dan On Nov 2, 2008, at 11:55 AM, Florence Devouard wrote:
In my view, when the board of WMF decided to let chapters select two representatives, it was also a heavy message to the chapters: collect your wits and be grown ups. I am not quite sure how chapters can select board members when they are not even able to self organize to get a common mailing list for an election. That's not necessarily out of bad will, but mostly poor infrastructure and lack of cooperation.
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