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(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
2009/1/20 Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de>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