Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
Lars Aronssen mentioned on the german list the "Medizins sans frontiere" (is ist "medicines without frontieres" in english?). As far as I can see, they
I mentioned them as one of several international organizations that have national chapters. The French name is Medecins Sans Frontiers (www.msf.org), the German section is www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de
One thing that can be observed is that on the top right of their German website is a bank account for donations (Spendenkonto). This is a German bank account that belongs to the German section. This could be food for thought: If a German membership association ("e.V.") for Wikipedia is founded, and it opens a bank account, can this bank account be displayed on the front de.wikipedia.org, or would that be reserved for bank accounts directly belonging to Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Florida USA? Of course, the website ultimately belongs to the American foundation, and so does the decision.
Of course, for MSF the main activity is sending doctors to work abroad in developing countries or disaster areas, and their website is just a minor expense in their budget. The German MSF website belongs to the German section, etc. In contrast, the German Wikipedia website is not owned by the German membership organization, but by the American Foundation.
Another issue is to how big a degree a German Wikipedia membership organization can be independent from the American foundation. What if two or three separate German organizations are formed? The mother foundation probably needs to appoint one of them to be the "official" one, allow them to use the Wikipedia or Wikimedia name, etc., and probably should prosecute any other organization for illegally using these names. Or perhaps my preconceived notions run away with me here. Could we live with a plurality of supporter organizations?
I was personally surprised to learn from the bylaws of the German sections of MSF (URL above) and ISOC (www.isoc.de) that the annual general assembly of members is free and sovereign to decide on modification of the bylaws. For Swedish membership organizations, it is normal that amendments to the bylaws require decisions on two separate general assembly meetings with at least a month between them.
In addition to this, for the Swedish chapter of ISOC (www.isoc.se), any amendment to the bylaws must be approved by the ISOC Vice President of Chapters. The initiative and decision to amend the bylaws must come from within the Swedish chapter, so no changes can be pushed down from above; ISOC only has a veto power. You can read an English translation of the bylaws for ISOC-SE (particularly § 7) on http://www.isoc.se/arsmote010314/engelska010301.pdf However, no veto paragraph is found in the bylaws for ISOC-DE.
I personally find the Swedish ISOC bylaws quite acceptable. If the members of the Swedish chapter would suddenly vote to change the bylaws to promote letter pidgeons instead of the Internet, then the international organization should be able to veto this change. The veto paragraph (§ 7) was introduced because ISOC required it. I have no idea about the history of the bylaws for the German chapter.
I also learned that the Wikimedia Foundation is not a "foundation" in the European sense of the word. Swedish law defines different cases for non-profit membership organizations, for-profit membership organizations (coops) and foundations. Foundations are inherently void of democracy, since they cannot have members. A typical Swedish foundation is the Nobel Foundation, formed according to the will of Alfred Nobel. In Sweden, churches, political parties, and trade unions are defined as non-profit membership organizations. Naively I had assumed that the German "e.V." was a direct equivalent of the Swedish non-profit membership organization. However, I was told that in Germany, churches, political parties, and trade unions are not at all of the "e.V." form, but organizations of other kinds, defined in separate laws.
I'm really learning a lot here. Hope these observations can be useful.