[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch chapter - some background and more

[Andre Engels]

2006/4/25, Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>:

> Now. I have read in this thread many counter-truths and misleading
> statements. Let us make one thing very very clear.
>
> Chapters, whatever their form, color or shape, are not responsible for
> the content of Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia projects. Never. Ever.
> At best, they will increase the pool of editors through promotion for
> the projects. At worst, they have to relay the problems that they are
> aware of "may be problematic content" (potential legal issues) to the
> Wikimedia Foundation. That's it. There's no *editor* Wikimedia France*
> or *Wikimedia Polska* or *Wikimedia Nederland*. There are editors who
> pertain only to the projects, there are editors who pertain to both
> the project and the organisation. End of the story.

I may agree with that, and you, but what about the Vereniging and
Stichting themselves? One reason this all started up is that the
Vereniging explicitly states in their statutes that it does not have
influence on the contents of the wikis. The Stichting as far as
possible copied the statutes of the Vereniging, but this point was
apparently on purpose left out.

> *Backing down* from the founding process and *then* criticizing, is,
> in my opinion, definitely not constructive. There is a wiki, it is
> open, there is an organisation, you can become a member. The best you
> can start with is making sure you have a voice in the Vereniging to
> change things from the inside. It starts here:
> http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ledenlijst.

The criticism is mostly directed to the Stichting, not the Vereniging.
Being a member of the Vereniging will not influence the Stichting.

As for me backing down from the founding process: There was a conflict
between two members in an early stage. I offered to interfere as a
mediator. This was just starting up when the other mediator told me
that because I wrote myself on nl.wikimedia.org, I could not be
independent as a mediator, and thus could not mediate. After that I
left the whole project in disgust. It's not the kind of thing I want
to hear. Apart from that, at the time I left it was clear that a great
majority was in favour of a Vereniging. Yet some people somehow
decided to create both.


--
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels