On 4/18/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:

I think I speak for most of the Dutch Wikipedians if I say:

• Neither the Dutch Wikimedia Foundation (Stichting Wikimedia

Nederland) nor the Dutch Wikimedia Association (Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland) has the right to influence the content and procedures of the Dutch Wikipedia

• The board of neither has any formal special position on the Dutch Wikipedia
• At least the Dutch Wikimedia Foundation should not be allowed to

speak in name of the Dutch Wikipedia

• The Wikimedia Foundation is hereby requested not to give the Dutch

Wikimedia Foundation the status of chapter or any similar status

I don't mean to dredge up grievances, but I'm just wondering where all this is coming from. Have either of these two organisations _attempted_ to obtain some formalised special role? Even if the Dutch Wikimedia Foundation were a "chapter" (whatever that means) why would such status give it any rights over [[:nl]]?

Is there any precedent, anywhere, for "Wikimedia Foundation/Association for country X" having a formalised special role at "Wikipedia for language Y", where country X is strongly associated with language Y?

I certainly hope not. At the very least, this would breach the linguistic/national separation we're tried hard to maintain. The only mildly plausible argument I could ever see made would be for legal issues specific to a country, but even these wouldn't be specific to a language. The hate speech laws in Germany, for example, would apply as much to contributors to [[:en]] as they would to [[de:]].

Steve