On 7/10/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
I agree with the concept of regional/city style chapters in the US.
In Europe, per-country tends to make sense for the following reasons:
1. Countries in Europe are often (though not always, obviously) drawn
in a way that also matches language borders, and languages are a
sensible way to break down the Wikimedia community
Quite apart from whether per-country may make sense for other
very good reasons, I don't think this holds at all. I can't think of *any*
countries in the EU where there are not more than one living language
spoken, and/or where outside their borders there is a significant smaller
or larger community speaking the same language (remember former
overseas colonies).
I am speaking here as a person involved in the preliminary stages
of starting a chapter that is going to be tri-lingual at the minimum.
2. Countries in Europe, despite the ongoing efforts at "common
market", are still significantly more different
from each other on
legal grounds than US states.
Again, as a person who has traveled quite widely around both the
countries of the EU and the states of the US, I would dispute the
view. For my money the europeans were more cohesive as a
shared cultural heritage and values bunch than the US
States (former Puritan states, original 13 states, former
territories of the expansion west, acquisitions by conquest,
admission by plebiscite very late in the game; to name but a
few clearly distinguishable cultural groupings within those
states).
The Europeans certainly have their differences, but even
such a remote place as Finland, which leaped from the
Iron Age to the Industrial Age in the span of a remarkably
few generations, has had deep historical dealings of both the
good and bad kind with such widely dispersed cultures
within the European ambit, as (listing from the top of my
head): Russia, Turkey, Sweden, England, Scotland, France
Germany; and while there may be a very wide difference
between the cultures of the mediterranean countries
and the Nordic countries, those differences are likely
far less notable than the differences say between
those in the US Deep South, and New Englanders.
--------
Perhaps someday, some national chapters in Europe might want to have
"subchapters" in some sense, for example if Milan and Rome had groups
meeting regularly and trying to schedule local events separately.
But that can be for local chapters to decide later on.
Just as a reality check, we are currently thinking of registering
the Finland chapter as encompassing and operating in three
languages, Finnish, Swedish and Saami (indigenous language
of Lapland). I don't have any deep misgivings about this at all,
the fundamental thing is we are all wikipedians, and do wikipedian
things. And I *do* hope there will be no problem with taking Saami
on board. Currently we are in the very early stages of planning
starting the chapter, and I am not currently even aware if the
people editing Saami Wikipedia know we are thinking of inviting
them into our chapter :-)
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]