Achal,
Thanks a lot for the detailed clarification. I was wondering how I could clearly differentiate these things and explain to people outside our list/community. I felt the media coverage (some / most) recently after Barry's meet up also did not convey the differences between the Chapter and Foundation office properly. I also felt one other point which Barry told us about motive of foundation office that did not reach well to the media / general public well. Barry mentioned to us the common misconception of press "when some global org is setting up office, it brings jobs,money etc" which he had come across during the meetups.Sadly the misconception seems to have been carried forward. Random sample (unscientific) of what reached out:- http://www.quoteurl.com/kmh92 . I think we gave out too much to the press to digest at the same time. Information about chapter, office, "wikicapital" etc. Only few articles I read clearly expressed them as different things and drew the line.
My 2 paisa
Regards, Srikanth L
On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 20:35, Achal Prabhala aprabhala@gmail.com wrote:
To add to the recent discussion on this list, perhaps a few clarifications are in order.
All of you are familiar with yourselves - i.e. us - the community; people who edit, organise and otherwise help Wikimedia projects move ahead in interesting and productive ways. Many of those interesting and productive things happening here are captured in this first edition of the Wikimedia India Community Newsletter:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter_...
Then there is the chapter. Chapters are "independent organizations founded to support and promote the Wikimedia projects within a specified country." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters). Chapters are approved by the Chapters Committee, constituted by folks whose mission is to further Wikimedia, and while affiliated to and recognised by the Wikimedia Foundation, are yet independent entities which plot their own course. Chapter efforts in India started up as early as 2004 and critical momentum was achieved from 2008 onwards, the result of which is that we now have an approved Wikimedia India chapter - awaiting registration in India as a non-profit organisation (for more see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India). The Wikimedia India chapter is currently being registered as a 'society' in Karnataka and will function as a national organisation. As a 'society' it is required to have founding 'members' - and in our case, those members are Arun (President), Sundar (Secretary), Hari (Treasurer), Gautam, Srinivas and Arjuna. (See: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-PostChapComVer).
Once the chapter is recognised as a legal entity within India, these members will serve as the Executive Committee of the organisation. Contrary to earlier discussions, the Wikimedia India chapter has never had 'Directors' or 'Directors (designate)' - it's a society, and societies have members. On operation, it will, of course, extend membership widely to anyone who wishes to join. Chapters have a wide variety of functions, all of which are evolving - for now, a crude summary of their purpose would be that they allow individuals from within the community to do more than they could normally do alone, besides providing the benefits of a formal, organisational setup to utilise when necessary.
Then we have the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation based in San Francisco that is the legal home of all Wikimedia projects. Over the last few years, the Wikimedia Foundation has grown in staff strength and capacity, and works to facilitate everything we do as volunteers from around the world. In the last few months, and on the basis of a strategic planning exercise (http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy) the Wikimedia Foundation decided to actively help a few geographies grow, one of which is India.
The National Country Director job that Barry Newstead (Chief Global Development Officer) talked about on this list ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-August/000850.htm... ) is a position that will report to him, which is to say, the staff employed at the Wikimedia Foundation office in India are exactly that, and not to be confused with the India chapter - they are a separate entity, an off-shoot of the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, though they will obviously be working closely with both the community and the chapter. Further clarifications on the Wikimedia Foundation's office plans in India are available in this email from Barry ( http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-August/000849.htm... ).
I trust this helps somewhat in understanding the landscape.
Cheers, Achal
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