[Foundation-l] A new proposal regarding US chapters

[Anthony]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>  I can see an argument for US chapters not need a legal organization at
>  all (just use the Foundation for this),

I've yet to see a reasonable proposal from the Foundation as to how
that would work.  Does the Foundation intend to take on the liability
for the real world actions of volunteers around the country?  If
someone gets injured at a New York City chapter meeting due to the
negligence of the meeting organizers, is the WMF gonna cover the
medical bills?

>  and I can see an argument for
>  each of them having their own legal organization (this seems better to
>  me),

It's certainly better.  But there's a lot of paperwork involved.

>  but I can't see having one non-Foundation organization for multiple
>  chapters.
>

Well, fortunately, this isn't something for you to decide.  If the
chapters are going to have their own legal organizations, and the WMF
(via Mike Godwin) insists that they are not "considered to be part of
WMF in any respect", then it's for the chapters to decide how to
organize themselves.