2008/11/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I wouldn't put it quite like that, but the WMF board really did need to give the chapters some kind of structure to work with (flying all the chapter boards to Wikimania and arranging a big meeting would have been one way). People have been saying this ever since the idea of chapter seats was first announced. Chapters sorting things out amongst themselves without support from the central organisation was never going to go well...
It could just about be done by a determined enough person who knew about a dozen or so languages. Normally on wikipedia you have a chance of getting things done by moveing fast and giving people a choice of moveing with you are being left behind but that very much relies on being able to let people know you are moveing. Doing that across languages when chapters are not that well documented in any case cannot be done.