On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
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?")
The sub-national chapters document did hint that overlapping wasn't a
problem, but enough "what if" disaster scenarios have been suggested
that we are probably not going to approve any overlapping chapters
anyway. At least, not yet.
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'?
I suspect it's not "will never happen", but instead is "should only
happen after very careful consideration and agreement". If there is a
country with an existing sub-national chapter and an organization
effort to create a national one, I think we would all suggest that the
subnational chapter redefine it's region to become a national chapter,
instead of allowing two separate groups to overlap. Even if it's not a
"problem", it still seems like a needless waste of effort for two
groups to be doing the same things in the same region.
--Andrew Whitworth