Good idea. Where i see this as beneficial would be in several areas. This might end up including the West Coast
Whereever we stage events, the visas are going to be a nightmare. California has several dozen consulates and INS offices. A Wikimedia California would have the boots on the ground to get Consular Officers to help us with visas. Even if we still have to submit a stack of paper, it will be a lot more coordinated than worrying about someone being denied at the border.
Also museums often bar public members from photographing their collections. A organization would have the ability to get these museums to open their doors.
----- Original Message ---- From: Kul Takanao Wadhwa kwadhwa@wikimedia.org Cc: wikimedia-sf@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 1:49:10 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-SF] California Chapter
We should probably have a discussion with Mike (general counsel) to figure out the best legal structure for this depending what we want to accomplish as a US "chapter."
--Kul
Head of Business Development Wikimedia Foundation
phoebe ayers wrote:
I think the answer is, as Brion said, "it's hard." It has been really difficult to organize US-based chapters so far because of our particular legal structures. Therefore a better question to ask is "If we had one, what would the chapter be doing, and can we do those things anyway?" Because we are in the US and therefore money can be handled directly by the Foundation, having the structure of a chapter may not actually provide much benefit. That does not stop us however from getting together and doing stuff, like the current chapters do now.
-- phoebe
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.com wrote:
Several meetups have already occurred, I am curious as to whther or not people are interested in making a chapter.
----- Original Message ---- From: Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org To: wikimedia-sf@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 12:27:25 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-SF] California Chapter
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Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
San Francisco Wikipedians (Sanfranpedians?);
I am looking into starting Wikimedia California. Would anyone here be interested?
I think we have yet to figure out firmly what the mission or legal structure for chapters in the US would be... :)
For other countries, a big part of it is to establish a local legal structure that can accept tax-free donations -- something the Wikimedia Foundation itself handles here the US.
But that structure can also be a useful way to organize local activities, outreach, conferences and meetups as well as other online and offline activity by Wikipedians other Wikimedians. Since the Wikimedia Foundation decided not to become a membership-based organization, concentrating on the high-level hosting and PR, there's a bit of a vacuum still on how individuals can get involved and organized.
Rather than starting by saying "let's start a chapter", I might suggest picking some particular event to organize, such as a California or west coast-based Wikimedia user conference, and then we can see what kind of organization can and should grow up around the community that builds it.
I should also stress that such an event should be a community-organized, community-oriented affair. Make the Wikimedia Foundation a guest, not an organizer or a funder... :)
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
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I have pondered in the past why European countries have tended to have a stronger culture of face to face meetups than the United States. I have considered and mostly rejected some theories, and settled for myself on what I think is the most likely explanation.
One theory is that Americans aren't as sociable as Europeans. I know of no evidence for this, and if there are any differences they are surely quite minor. Americans do get together for all kinds of meetings and social events.
A related theory is that the availability of public transportation in Europe means people can get together more easily. Again, I don't see this as being particularly relevant. We have cheaper gas and drive a lot more, and in terms of people getting together with friends, I have not seen this as a major barrier.
A completely different theory is that chapters arose first and most strongly in non-English Europe because the Foundation was not there for them, and they needed to get things done. This theory is likely partly true, and especially for the Germans it seems to ring true to me. On the other hand, let's be honest, until very recently, the Foundation was not there for anyone :), and we got everything done by just getting things done.
Finally, I think there is the matter of the "language compactness". And this to me is most persuasive. For the most part, non-English languages are more "compact" than English. For an extreme example, consider Dutch: virtually all Dutch speakers can make it to anywhere in Holland within 2-3 hours by train. This means that when a meetup happens, everyone who is anyone is likely to be there.
In English, though, we are so geographically dispersed that in a major city like San Francisco, you could go to a meetup and meet people with whom you have never interacted on-wiki. This means that meetups are not automatically a clean continuation of on-wiki work and friendships, but a matter of meeting new people (with whom you may have few interests in common, other than a general interest in Wikipedia/Wikimedia) and making new friendships.
I suspect this means that English-speaking chapters (including in the UK, which is a small country but not a compact language!) will have a slightly different character as compared to chapters based on more compact languages.
This analysis, if true, suggests something or other about chapters in the US, but since I am not sure what, I will stop here. :-)
--Jimbo
I think there is some validity to your last point. I went to one meetup in San Francisco and walked away thinking, what exactly are those folks trying to do? We had no real purpose, or maybe I missed it, and maybe folks were just looking for social experience. an agenda sounds too formal, but what else are we there for? Besides, the insiders who seemed to already know each other kind of huddled off from the crowd.
I had two issues relating to my own experience as a wikipedia content provider that I wanted to talk about, and one was answered quickly and the other never came up. Then the assembled went to a restaurant and I hopped on BART somewhat perplexed.
So, if this is a community, some form or shared world-view or acknowledged reason for meeting would be helpful, and I've got my ideas.
And another thing, in your write-up referring to the dutch group, you say, "everyone who is anyone" can be there . This is kind of high school, eh?
Hank Chapot - Oakland CA email: hchapot@igc.org Phone: 510.654.5311 http://hchapot.blogspot.com/ Cogito Ergo Green
On Apr 2, 2008, at 6:34 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I have pondered in the past why European countries have tended to have a stronger culture of face to face meetups than the United States. I have considered and mostly rejected some theories, and settled for myself on what I think is the most likely explanation.
One theory is that Americans aren't as sociable as Europeans. I know of no evidence for this, and if there are any differences they are surely quite minor. Americans do get together for all kinds of meetings and social events.
A related theory is that the availability of public transportation in Europe means people can get together more easily. Again, I don't see this as being particularly relevant. We have cheaper gas and drive a lot more, and in terms of people getting together with friends, I have not seen this as a major barrier.
A completely different theory is that chapters arose first and most strongly in non-English Europe because the Foundation was not there for them, and they needed to get things done. This theory is likely partly true, and especially for the Germans it seems to ring true to me. On the other hand, let's be honest, until very recently, the Foundation was not there for anyone :), and we got everything done by just getting things done.
Finally, I think there is the matter of the "language compactness". And this to me is most persuasive. For the most part, non-English languages are more "compact" than English. For an extreme example, consider Dutch: virtually all Dutch speakers can make it to anywhere in Holland within 2-3 hours by train. This means that when a meetup happens, everyone who is anyone is likely to be there.
In English, though, we are so geographically dispersed that in a major city like San Francisco, you could go to a meetup and meet people with whom you have never interacted on-wiki. This means that meetups are not automatically a clean continuation of on-wiki work and friendships, but a matter of meeting new people (with whom you may have few interests in common, other than a general interest in Wikipedia/Wikimedia) and making new friendships.
I suspect this means that English-speaking chapters (including in the UK, which is a small country but not a compact language!) will have a slightly different character as compared to chapters based on more compact languages.
This analysis, if true, suggests something or other about chapters in the US, but since I am not sure what, I will stop here. :-)
--Jimbo
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Hank Chapot - Oakland CA email: hchapot@igc.org Phone: 510.654.5311 http://hchapot.blogspot.com/ Cogito Ergo Green
Hank Chapot wrote:
And another thing, in your write-up referring to the dutch group, you say, "everyone who is anyone" can be there . This is kind of high school, eh?
I didn't mean it in that way, not in terms of social status. What I meant is that if you meet someone on-wiki in Dutch Wikipedia, then it is (often, not always, but very often) easy enough to agree to meet them in person at the next meetup.
Unless you are working on geographically local content (San Francisco stuff for example), it's unlikely that a friend you made while working on, say... differential equations... is going to happen to be in the same city, in English Wikipedia.
I don't think this is an obstacle to local chapter formation, by the way. It just means that it's different...
--Jimbo
Hank Chapot wrote:
I think there is some validity to your last point. I went to one meetup in San Francisco and walked away thinking, what exactly are those folks trying to do? We had no real purpose, or maybe I missed it, and maybe folks were just looking for social experience. an agenda sounds too formal, but what else are we there for? Besides, the insiders who seemed to already know each other kind of huddled off from the crowd.
I had two issues relating to my own experience as a wikipedia content provider that I wanted to talk about, and one was answered quickly and the other never came up. Then the assembled went to a restaurant and I hopped on BART somewhat perplexed.
So, if this is a community, some form or shared world-view or acknowledged reason for meeting would be helpful, and I've got my ideas.
I think some people are happy to have free-form meet-ups, and other people want events that are more structured. It's all good :-)
Personally, I think there is plenty of room for a Bay Area "chapter-like entity" and other U.S.-based volunteer groups. (That is distinct from the question of how such entities would be legally-constructed.) Since moving to the Bay Area, the staff of the foundation has gotten requests to participate in outreach-type events (e.g., a street fair) - and IMO, the entity that's best positioned to do those things would be a chapter or other volunteer-based group. After all, if there were an outreach opportunity in Milan or Stockholm, it would be handled by community members. I don't see why we'd want it to be any different in the Bay Area.
There's lots of stuff to do - public outreach, PR, etc. So I applaud Geoffrey, Hank and others for exploring the possibilities :-)
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Hank Chapot hchapot@igc.org wrote:
I think there is some validity to your last point. I went to one meetup in San Francisco and walked away thinking, what exactly are those folks trying to do? We had no real purpose, or maybe I missed it, and maybe folks were just looking for social experience. an agenda sounds too formal, but what else are we there for? Besides, the insiders who seemed to already know each other kind of huddled off from the crowd.
I had two issues relating to my own experience as a wikipedia content provider that I wanted to talk about, and one was answered quickly and the other never came up. Then the assembled went to a restaurant and I hopped on BART somewhat perplexed.
So, if this is a community, some form or shared world-view or acknowledged reason for meeting would be helpful, and I've got my ideas.
One thing about meetups -- at least as I'm familiar with them -- is that the agenda (formal or otherwise) should always be open. If you'd like to run a gathering focussed on content issues, then by all means! I think a lot of people would be interested in that. Really, just calling such a meeting and doing the minimal planning work is all that is needed to make it happen. I think meetups can become whatever people want it to be. I have always enjoyed purely social meetups -- just as a chance to meet and chat with like-minded people -- but that is certainly not the only alternative.
As for the last meetup at the ferry building, it was rather distracted -- which is partly if not mostly my fault, for not picking a better venue and for not trying to keep the group together longer. In a quieter place (a restaurant with a private room, an office, a coffeeshop or library room) people would certainly have more engaged and focussed conversations.
Speaking of ... it's about time for the next one, no?
cheers, phoebe
On undefined, phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Hank Chapot hchapot@igc.org wrote:
I think there is some validity to your last point. I went to one meetup in San Francisco and walked away thinking, what exactly are those folks trying to do? We had no real purpose, or maybe I missed it, and maybe folks were just looking for social experience. an agenda sounds too formal, but what else are we there for? Besides, the insiders who seemed to already know each other kind of huddled off from the crowd.
I had two issues relating to my own experience as a wikipedia content provider that I wanted to talk about, and one was answered quickly and the other never came up. Then the assembled went to a restaurant and I hopped on BART somewhat perplexed.
So, if this is a community, some form or shared world-view or acknowledged reason for meeting would be helpful, and I've got my ideas.
One thing about meetups -- at least as I'm familiar with them -- is that the agenda (formal or otherwise) should always be open. If you'd like to run a gathering focussed on content issues, then by all means! I think a lot of people would be interested in that. Really, just calling such a meeting and doing the minimal planning work is all that is needed to make it happen. I think meetups can become whatever people want it to be. I have always enjoyed purely social meetups -- just as a chance to meet and chat with like-minded people -- but that is certainly not the only alternative.
As for the last meetup at the ferry building, it was rather distracted -- which is partly if not mostly my fault, for not picking a better venue and for not trying to keep the group together longer. In a quieter place (a restaurant with a private room, an office, a coffeeshop or library room) people would certainly have more engaged and focussed conversations.
Speaking of ... it's about time for the next one, no?
cheers, phoebe
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Yes! (It's time for another meetup)
-Jon
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