[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

[Robert Horning]

Daniel Mayer wrote:
> --- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>   
>> On Jul 10, 2007, at 8:35 AM, Dmcdevit wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Indeed, out of curiosity, what is the reason for a sub-country chapter
>>> at all, in contrast to most others? This might be obvious, but it
>>> doesn't seem anyone has said it yet.
>>>       
>> One reason is that the United States is a really really really big  
>> country.  France is the largest country in the EU.  It's a little  
>> smaller than Texas, so if France were an American state (an amusing  
>> and unlikely thought) it would be the 3rd largest.
>>
>> Having a "local chapter" including both New York City, Chicago, and  
>> Los Angeles doesn't feel very "local".
>>     
>
> Any US-wide chapter would be divided into regions and have local clubs for metro areas. I really
> don't see the point in duplicating overhead when a single legal structure could benefit an entire
> nation. 
>
> -- mav 
>
>   

Which ultimately means that we don't need a U.S. chapter of the WMF.... 
since the WMF provides that legal organization.  This is one of many 
reasons why there is no Wikimedia-USA right now, and why it keeps 
getting shot down each time it gets tried.

There is a desire to try and organize some projects and goals along a 
more local basis, and trying to organize the whole of the USA at once 
has just been far too difficult to get going to do anything shy of 
trying to simply replace the whole WMF anyway.  It really is that big of 
a deal.

In terms of the relationship between these local metro area based 
chapters and the WMF, that is something which may or may not have to be 
dealt with through an additional level of bureaucracy if the time ever 
gets to having a dozen or hundred different chapters based in the USA.

 From a legalistic viewpoint, I wonder here if at least trying to get 
this going in the first place that these chapters could be organized by 
having them chartered through the WMF itself rather than having to go 
through the formal process of trying to incorporate as a non-profit 
corporation in each local area where they are located at.  This does 
increase legal liability for the WMF if this happens, and has some other 
drawbacks, but it allows a much more informal process to occur that 
would allow new regional chapters like this to be created quickly and 
cut out quite a bit of the red tape normally associated with 
incorporation.  It would also allow Wikimedia-Penn to use the 501(c)3 
tax exempt number right away as long as the WMF board accepts the 
charter and organization.   But it also puts quite a bit more control on 
the part of the board in terms of how the activities of the group would 
be operated.  A seperate organization would allow greater autonomy, as 
it has done with the national chapters in Europe.

-- Robert Horning