[Foundation-l] A local chapter without Wikimedians

[Michael Bimmler]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Béria Lima <berialima at gmail.com> wrote:

> Someone said for we change the bylaws to protect Wikimedia Brasil. We try
> that, but every time when we tried... We have been silenced with the
> argument: "The Wikimedia approved the bylaws of the way that is"
>

Let me just make this clear: Wikimedia Brasil is absolutely free to
change its bylaws as much and as often as it wants. However, it would
be good practice to submit the proposed changes (before the vote!) to
ChapCom and we will give notice if we intend to "veto" them (I mean,
obviously we can't veto them in a legal sense but we can put the
chapter on notice that if the chapter *does* make the changes, we
might have to review their chapter status). Mind you, ChapCom is
unlikely to veto procedural rearrangements like "The budget needs to
be approved by 2/3 vote" instead of simple majority vote, but if a
chapter changes its main aim to "support the independence of province
X", we will presumably want to interfere. This does NOT mean that
chapters cannot change their bylaws.

But good point actually, I think we're not actively soliciting notices
of bylaws changes at the moment. I'll bring this up...

Michael