A few French wkipedians are not happy with the board
and some of the
employees. They are about 25-30% of Wikimedia France members
To be honest, 25-30% of WMFR members is quite a lot. And, don't
forget, include roughly half of the Wikimedia France Board elected at
the last General Assembly.
This isn't the first governance crisis in the Wikimedia movement (WMF
and other chapters have certainly had them) but it is probably the
biggest and most long-drawn-out.
And those people refuse to acknowledge reality, even
when the
board explains everything, even when lawyers explains what can and cannot be done within
a chapter.
To my mind the board's "explanations" are part of the problem. Reading
the statements from WMFR about the FDC process, or their emails to
members or their response to the timeline - it's all about how WMFR
has never been wrong about anything. All the criticism is wrong (and
probably a conspiracy). WMFR's board has been doing the only thing
they could possibly have done. All of this is repeated again and
again.
That is a dysfunctional response to the situation. A significant part
of the French Wikimedia community has lost confidence in WMFR. The
Board should be working to restore that confidence, and the more it
denies the problem is real, the worse the result will be.
Regards,
Chris