When we were recognised as a chapter by the Foundation we got permission to use names like "Wikimedia Wales", "Wikimedia Scotland" (plus other language derivations) with the thought that some day they might be useful to have. We haven't yet had the need or opportunity to use them, but there are a couple of things coming up in the pipeline where it may be useful to brand ourselves "Wikimedia Cymru" and "Wikimedia Scotland" respectively rather than Wikimedia UK.
I was thinking through how we could do this, and i was wondering if it might be a bit too much to just use the name without any kind of justification for the Welshness / Scottishness of the organisation. This is the idea I've come up with, which can be implemented with minimal effort and still justify, if we need to, to the outside world, our use of the terns. Please let me know what you think:
1) All members would automatically be allocated to a branch when they join based on where they lived 2) Any member could choose to switch to a different branch if they wanted to 3) The first branches would be England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (could discuss setting up more if the need arose in the future) 4) The board of Wikimedia UK could appoint a branch chair (and more officers if need be) from one of the members of that branch.
That way we could brand things:
xx xx Chair, Wikimedia Cymru followed by a contact address in Wales
rather than:
xx xx Secretary, Wikimedia UK with a contact address in England
This would be particularly helpful when dealing with, for instance, Welsh language projects or devolved governments.
Some time in the future - size and activity permitting - these may be able to evolve into fully fledged autonomous branches - or even independent chapters.
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
Please let me know what you think.
Andrew
2009/12/6 AndrewRT andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
- All members would automatically be allocated to a branch when they
join based on where they lived 2) Any member could choose to switch to a different branch if they wanted to 3) The first branches would be England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (could discuss setting up more if the need arose in the future) 4) The board of Wikimedia UK could appoint a branch chair (and more officers if need be) from one of the members of that branch.
That's pretty much what I've been thinking, although I'm not sure we need it yet. I think we ought to let the members of each branch elect their chair, though (ratified by the board).
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
I disagree. I think Article 3.1 is better suited to it.
Thanks everyone for the comments. To respond to three points raised:
On Dec 6, 5:11 pm, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
2009/12/6 AndrewRT andrewrtur...@googlemail.com:
That's pretty much what I've been thinking, although I'm not sure we need it yet. I think we ought to let the members of each branch elect their chair, though (ratified by the board).
I think that's stage 2 - autonomous branches. Where you only have two or three members having a full blown election seems unnecessary, but a "skeleton branch" would be useful because it gives us a way of using the name before moving to a full autonomous branch.
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
I disagree. I think Article 3.1 is better suited to it.
Article 3.1 would need permission of the AGM first and I'm not sure it would quite fit. I'm talking about two particular projects that could be started before the AGM.
As for London, although it may be a great branch in terms of running activities - although we already have the London Wikimeet for that - I'm not sure we could do anything as "Wikimedia London" that we couldn't do as "Wikimedia UK". Besides, we didn't actually ask for permission to use "Wikimedia London"!
Andrew
2009/12/7 AndrewRT andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
Thanks everyone for the comments. To respond to three points raised:
On Dec 6, 5:11 pm, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
2009/12/6 AndrewRT andrewrtur...@googlemail.com:
That's pretty much what I've been thinking, although I'm not sure we need it yet. I think we ought to let the members of each branch elect their chair, though (ratified by the board).
I think that's stage 2 - autonomous branches. Where you only have two or three members having a full blown election seems unnecessary, but a "skeleton branch" would be useful because it gives us a way of using the name before moving to a full autonomous branch.
I don't think we need them until we are ready to use them fully. Do we have volunteers to be the regional chairs you mention? If they end up just being figureheads that things are done in the name of, I would be opposed.
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
I disagree. I think Article 3.1 is better suited to it.
Article 3.1 would need permission of the AGM first and I'm not sure it would quite fit. I'm talking about two particular projects that could be started before the AGM.
You're talking about members each being in a particular branch - that sounds like the perfect thing to use membership classes for. If we do that then all the rules for holding branch meetings are already in place. I don't know what projects you are talking about, but I think trying to hold them under regional names before the AGM is a bad idea, we just aren't ready for that.
On Dec 7, 12:31 pm, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think we need them until we are ready to use them fully. Do we have volunteers to be the regional chairs you mention? If they end up just being figureheads that things are done in the name of, I would be opposed.
Why? we have a resource - these names - that could be of use to us and this is a way of unlocking them. What's the advantage in throwing away this resource before we're ready to set up fully functioning branches?
Andrew
2009/12/9 AndrewRT andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
On Dec 7, 12:31 pm, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think we need them until we are ready to use them fully. Do we have volunteers to be the regional chairs you mention? If they end up just being figureheads that things are done in the name of, I would be opposed.
Why? we have a resource - these names - that could be of use to us and this is a way of unlocking them. What's the advantage in throwing away this resource before we're ready to set up fully functioning branches?
You said yourself that we shouldn't use them without some justification for them being connected to the relevant home nation and I don't see any way we can get that justification.
Nice idea, but it seems to me that this is a little premature. I think it's something that wikimedians in wales, scotland and northern ireland need to say that they want before time is invested setting it up...
BTW, I would have the officers of the branches elected by members rather than appointed by the board.
Mike
On 6 Dec 2009, at 17:02, AndrewRT wrote:
When we were recognised as a chapter by the Foundation we got permission to use names like "Wikimedia Wales", "Wikimedia Scotland" (plus other language derivations) with the thought that some day they might be useful to have. We haven't yet had the need or opportunity to use them, but there are a couple of things coming up in the pipeline where it may be useful to brand ourselves "Wikimedia Cymru" and "Wikimedia Scotland" respectively rather than Wikimedia UK.
I was thinking through how we could do this, and i was wondering if it might be a bit too much to just use the name without any kind of justification for the Welshness / Scottishness of the organisation. This is the idea I've come up with, which can be implemented with minimal effort and still justify, if we need to, to the outside world, our use of the terns. Please let me know what you think:
- All members would automatically be allocated to a branch when they
join based on where they lived 2) Any member could choose to switch to a different branch if they wanted to 3) The first branches would be England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (could discuss setting up more if the need arose in the future) 4) The board of Wikimedia UK could appoint a branch chair (and more officers if need be) from one of the members of that branch.
That way we could brand things:
xx xx Chair, Wikimedia Cymru followed by a contact address in Wales
rather than:
xx xx Secretary, Wikimedia UK with a contact address in England
This would be particularly helpful when dealing with, for instance, Welsh language projects or devolved governments.
Some time in the future - size and activity permitting - these may be able to evolve into fully fledged autonomous branches - or even independent chapters.
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
Please let me know what you think.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Aside from the possibility that London might want to be a chapter, I would have thought that organising subchapters by language would be at least as relevant as geographical ones. We have wikis for Scots and at least three celtic languages, plus perhaps Bangla and other languages?
I see no reason why we can't cut this cake in several different dimensions, depending on whats relevant to the task in hand.
WereSpielChequers
2009/12/6 AndrewRT andrewrturvey@googlemail.com:
When we were recognised as a chapter by the Foundation we got permission to use names like "Wikimedia Wales", "Wikimedia Scotland" (plus other language derivations) with the thought that some day they might be useful to have. We haven't yet had the need or opportunity to use them, but there are a couple of things coming up in the pipeline where it may be useful to brand ourselves "Wikimedia Cymru" and "Wikimedia Scotland" respectively rather than Wikimedia UK.
I was thinking through how we could do this, and i was wondering if it might be a bit too much to just use the name without any kind of justification for the Welshness / Scottishness of the organisation. This is the idea I've come up with, which can be implemented with minimal effort and still justify, if we need to, to the outside world, our use of the terns. Please let me know what you think:
- All members would automatically be allocated to a branch when they
join based on where they lived 2) Any member could choose to switch to a different branch if they wanted to 3) The first branches would be England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (could discuss setting up more if the need arose in the future) 4) The board of Wikimedia UK could appoint a branch chair (and more officers if need be) from one of the members of that branch.
That way we could brand things:
xx xx Chair, Wikimedia Cymru followed by a contact address in Wales
rather than:
xx xx Secretary, Wikimedia UK with a contact address in England
This would be particularly helpful when dealing with, for instance, Welsh language projects or devolved governments.
Some time in the future - size and activity permitting - these may be able to evolve into fully fledged autonomous branches - or even independent chapters.
For the constitutionalists among readers, I'd propose we establish the branches through an Article 28 resolution of the Board, ratified by the next AGM.
Please let me know what you think.
Andrew
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
2009/12/6 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@googlemail.com:
Aside from the possibility that London might want to be a chapter, I would have thought that organising subchapters by language would be at least as relevant as geographical ones. We have wikis for Scots and at least three celtic languages, plus perhaps Bangla and other languages?
I see no reason why we can't cut this cake in several different dimensions, depending on whats relevant to the task in hand.
Chapters are supposed to be geographic in range rather than linguistic. I guess there is no reason why we can't use different rules for subchapters, though. For the most part languages follow geographic lines anyway, it's just immigrant languages that don't.
2009/12/6 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
2009/12/6 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@googlemail.com:
Aside from the possibility that London might want to be a chapter, I would have thought that organising subchapters by language would be at least as relevant as geographical ones. We have wikis for Scots and at least three celtic languages, plus perhaps Bangla and other languages? I see no reason why we can't cut this cake in several different dimensions, depending on whats relevant to the task in hand.
Chapters are supposed to be geographic in range rather than linguistic. I guess there is no reason why we can't use different rules for subchapters, though. For the most part languages follow geographic lines anyway, it's just immigrant languages that don't.
I vaguely recall that some *huge* proportion (>90%) of Bangla (I think) speakers in Britain are in the borough of Tower Hamlets in London. So geographical distribution does happen! There will be towns where immigrants from a given place will congregate.
c.f. Bradford and Birmingham as the places of origin of many "Indian" dishes.
- d.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org