[Original poster:]
> In the past, I have informally asked Chapter Committee members about the possibility of a chapter like this. I was told with no equivocation that chapters which officially spanned multiple municipalities were forbidden, and that we could have a Wikimedia Oregon, Washington, or California only because we would have to pick a state in which to become officially incorporated in and be responsible for.
I have to say, this is the kind of nonsense that has personally caused me to reduce my participation in Wikipedia and gives the organization an unfriendly reputation on the Net and discourages new members.
Why on earth should there be arbitrary and restrictive rules about the geographical composition of local chapters of an informal volunteer organization? There are no legal or financial stakes, the issue of "municipalities" is an irrelevant triviality, and it just serves to annoy people.
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Michael C. Berch
User:MCB
mcb(a)postmodern.com