On Jan 21, 2009, at 2:13 AM, Florence Devouard wrote:
Nathan wrote:
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
2009/1/20 Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de:
Not quite. One criteria is that the chapters should have well defined geographical areas and they should not overlap. So an Amsterdam chapter beside a Dutch chapter is not possible.
It was my understanding from the sub-national chapters document that such chapters might be permitted to form anyway: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sub-national_chapters (Question: "Aren't we setting up sub-national chapters to compete for funding with nation-based chapters?")
What I'm taking your statement to mean is that when a subnational chapter is formed where a national chapter could be later formed, the overlap and potential harmful consequences of such overlap would have to be carefully considered before national chapter is approved. Would that be a fair characterization? Or are you meaning 'is not possible' truly in the sense of 'will never happen'?
Earlier in this thread, Ting clearly stated that recognition of a sub-national chapter meant a national chapter could not later be formed. Andrew Whitworth indicated the same. Is that not the definitive answer to the question?
Nathan
This would be real bad, because it could exclude entire areas that do not drain sufficient memberships or funds to be able to really create a sustainable chapter.
That could be typically the case of a country with two big cities and a big rural area. Two chapters could be created in each city, leaving all wikipedians in the rural areas helpless. If such was to happen, I hope WMF would either accept the creation of a national chapter, or negotiate with the city-chapters so that they can extend membership to neighbours.
Note that this is already the case for many national chapters. In the French one, we host a couple of people living in Switzerland ('cause they are French in nationality), as well as from Belgium and Luxembourg, ('cause these nations have no chapter).
I suspect a consensus will need to be found, so that 1) no harm is made to current chapter and 2) no one be excluded which would defeat the process.
As such, flexibility should be a must.
Ant
I agree with your concern here Florence, but I don't see anything saying that national chapters cannot form if there is a sub national chapter there. I don't quite know where Ting extrapolates "chapters should have well defined geographical areas and they should not overlap" into "If we have a sub national chapter, we cannot have a parent national chapter"; it sounds like a misreading of "Should not" into "Must not".
I can think of several good reasons why sub-national chapters should not preclude a national chapter; not the least of which being the concerns raised by Florence, but also situations in places such as China where subnational chapters in one area of the country may not adequately represent the rest of the country.
Was this some sort of unilateral proclamation by Ting, or has the chapters committee officially made some sort of decision on this topic?
-Dan