[Foundation-l] "Expertise" board seats: the NomCom invites your feedback

[Dan Rosenthal]

I hate doing so, but I addressed things inline.


On Nov 2, 2008, at 4:32 PM, Michael Bimmler wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Dan Rosenthal  
> <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
>> (Note, I said approvals and development. The lack of involvement by
>> ChapCom in the active development of chapters is even more concerning
>> than the lack of transparency in the approvals process.)
>>
>
> And surely, because you're involved with every chapter and/or on the
> ChapCom mailinglist, you are able to make that judgment. (Yes, You
> have been involved with DC. That's a special case, see below).

That's a terrible argument and you know it. I don't need to be  
intimately involved with every chapter or on ChapCom's mailing list to  
know that things are not as they should be. You ought to know better  
than that.

>
>
>
>> Well for one thing, when I first started questioning the idea of why
>> there were no US chapters either nationally or subnationally (this  
>> was
>> before the Pennsylvania chapter started) i was told that it simply
>> wasn't going to happen, that the Chapters Committee could not decide
>> what they wanted to do, and that in fact there was direct opposition
>> on the committee towards certain countries or regions forming  
>> chapters.
>>
>
> This is untrue. The issue of sub-national chapters has been discussed
> for a long time intra-ChapCom (because it is not a light issue which
> can be decided about in a couple days, sorry). We have also solicited
> board input for quite some time, but the board was for a long time not
> really willing to make principal decisions on this matter. This has
> now changed and a general framework has, for the first time, been
> developed. which is good and which also means that we can now really
> work on the approval of sub-national chapters.

Nobody suggested a couple days. How long has it been discussed for  
intra-ChapCom? Years now? Are you seriously suggesting that the  
ChapCom has been doing EVERYTHING in it's power to pursue more chapters?

As for untrue, I know what I was told. Whether they were correct or  
not is less important than the fact that this is a public perception  
problem of the ChapCom (and yes, privatemusings may help fix it, but  
some of the damage is done already).


>
>
>> Currently there are only 18 chapters (excluding UK). There should be
>> far more, and I seriously suspect the Chapters Committee is the  
>> problem.
>>
>
> How so? Could it not also be that the Chapter groups themselves are
> somewhat less than active? Back when we founded WmCH, yes, I
> considered ChapCom to be a "barrier" too and a slowly rising one,
> alas. But now that I believe to know both sides, I think that ChapCom
> has become much faster and more organised, not least also due to the
> great work by our new communications advisor (and general reminder
> person) Peter / privatemusings.

I suggest as much below in my post. I'm not saying that ChapCom is not  
better now than it was in the past. But there certainly have been  
problems with it.


>
>
>> WM Venezuela still drafting bylaws since November 2006
>
> Well, yes. With all due respect, what do you expect us to do? We can't
> draft bylaws *for the chapters*, for this, we'd need to know all the
> legislations of the world, which we don't. We can only afterwards look
> at the scope/aim/goal part of the bylaws but they really have to
> figure all the practical proceduralities themselves.

Sure you can. Why can't you help the chapters draft their bylaws for  
the general things that do not require specific legal knowledge of  
that particular country? Surely ChapCom has a relatively standard  
framework that they can provide for the chapters to modify as they  
need.  If not, that's a failure on the committee's part for not being  
proactive enough.

>
>
>> WM Canada has been "finishing up by-laws" since March.
>
> Yes. I happen to be on the wikimedia-canada list and, from what I see
> there, not all too much is going on. See, there is a limited amount of
> things Chapcom can do: We're always happy to help with advice, and
> yes, we might need to get more proactive, but we can't "replace a
> community". Either people are there and willing to do this or they
> aren0t.

Nobody's suggesting replacing an community. But what has ChapCom done  
to proactively find out where the WMF Canada chapter is currently at,  
what help they need, what ChapCom can do to speed things up etc?

>
>
>> WM Hrvatske (Croatia I assume? The page says something about Zagreb)
>> has been translating bylaws since December last year.
>
> We can't help much here, not speaking Croatian. If they have serious
> problems, I believe the WMF would consider a request for the funding
> of professional translations.

Has ChapCom made such a request? What efforts have they made to ask  
members of the proposed chapter (in whatever language a connection can  
be made in) how they can be helped, and find out if the WMF can fund  
such translations?

>
>
>> WM India still in bylaws discussion since November of last year.
> as above.

As above myself.

>
>
>> WM Norge listed as awaiting approval since July.
>
> The ChapCom has already been voting on this, but the vote had been
> stalled, as somehow, our new membership resolution had not been
> considered by the board and therefore, we suspended voting until
> knowing who was actually entitled to vote and who not. This has now
> been cleared, we expect that the board can vote on Norge at its next
> meeting.

Precisely how long does it take for ChapCom to vote?


>
>
>> WM Portugal listed as "bylaws ready, discussing how to constitute"
>> since March.
>
> This strikes me as odd, similarly to Thomas. But we're glad to provide
> help if approached, but in many cases, we don't even have email
> address etc. from people so it's much easier for us, if they write a
> mail to *our non-filtered mailinglist* chapterscommittee-l at
> wikimedia punto org

This didn't strike anyone as odd at all since March? Is nobody keeping  
an eye out for these things?


>
>
>> WM NYC still figuring things out since Jan. 07,
>> WM Penn. still listed as figuring stuff out since June 07.
>> WM DC has not heard a peep from the chapters committee since May.
>>
>
> as explained above - sub-national chapters had been not individually
> considered until the general framework was set. We now have this and
> there is also a sub-national chapters working group, so I expect this
> to be dealt with speedily.


I view it as a failure that it took so long for even a general  
framework to have been set.


>
>
>> Nine chapters languishing in development for an unacceptable length  
>> of
>> time. This is not to say that the chapters themselves hold no
>> responsibility, but I've seen no evidence of the Chapters Committee
>> proactively reaching out to say "What can we do to help you guys get
>> moving". I suspect if they did, we'd have quite a few more chapters.
>>
>
> I'm not sure whether this is really the major issue here. We can't
> guide every chapter in a step-by-step procedure "Now you do this, now
> you do that, now you do that". On the one hand, there are too many
> local specialities, which rather require input from lawyers or
> law-savvy people from these jurisdictions (ahem, Wikimedia UK, I
> wouldn't know how ChapCom could have helped much there, we know zero
> about UK Company Law...), on the other hand, it *must* be possible. I
> have seen many chapters form without any "real-time guidance" by
> ChapCom (in fact, I co-established one in that manner) and it *does*
> work. It needs an active community, a few people who really want to
> invest time in doing tedious things like writing bylaws and
> translating them, it requires local meetups etc. etc. But, as much as
> we enjoy giving advice, we cannot be "facilitators" for every local
> group, I can't write bylaws for WM Venezuela and I can't organise a
> pub-wikimeet for Wikimedia Canada (random examples, no offence).

So if you can only give very limited advice, and if you can't actively  
help, what exactly do you do?

>
>
>> A couple of Wikimeetups ago, I discussed with some people what their
>> interests in developing a chapter were. Quite a few people expressed
>> no interest, either because they believed the Chapters Committee was
>> unable or unwilling to help, or because they simply believed that it
>> was impossible for them to get a chapter approved and they didn't  
>> want
>> to waste the effort.
>
> Well, maybe you should have a look at how many chapters were approved
> in the last 9 months. Quite a few, I daresay. And this, although
> ChapCom takes its role seriously and actually considers all bylaws in
> depth before submitting an official recognition to the board.

Six or seven? That's hardly "Quite a few". All it does is establish  
that now things are somewhat better now than they were the year before.


>
>
>
>> The fact that people even think that sort of
>> thing speaks for itself that the Chapters Committee has failed on  
>> some
>> level.
>
> On a PR level, possibly. That's why I am very glad that we have
> privatemusings with us now.

Good. That's a step in the right direction.

>
>
>>
>> The Local Chapter FAQ has a "Do not translate until ChapCom has had  
>> an
>> opportunity to update it" message since Feb. 2006.
>>
>
> Ouch. I'm sure many people have noted this now and we'll have a look  
> at this.
>
>> The Chapter Creation Guide has not been updated in over a year.
>> In over two years of existence, the line that says "The details of
>> this process are given in the [[Chapter approval process]] document."
>> are STILL a red link. So prospective chapters have ZERO idea of what
>> the approval process is.
>>
>
> Why, that's not good, I agree. But it can't be that bad, because we
> still do get mails which simply say "Dear ChapCom, this <permalink>
> are the English translations of our bylaws, please review and comment
> and then approve, if you may". And this is exactly how it should be
> done. If you want to, you can write two sentences to that effect on
> meta to make it a bluelink. Else, we'll see that we can do it as soon
> as someone finds time. But it's a wiki.

Writing two sentences is not a solution to a lack of a "chapter  
approval process" document. That can only come from ChapCom or the  
foundation themselves as they are the ones who approve things. Two  
years of no public guidelines is unacceptable.

>
>
>
>> These are just some of the criticisms of the chapters process.
>>
>
> I tried to address them as detailedly as possibly (although we might
> want to make a new thread for further discussion of it), hope this
> helps.
>
> Michael
>


You have helped a lot.

-Dan