[Foundation-l] A local chapter without Wikimedians

[Michael Bimmler]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:29 PM, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I believe under the Chapters Agreement the WMF and the chapters have to
> notify each other if there are substantial changes planned in their bylaws,
> but not of all changes [in my interpretation].
>
> "7.2. The Chapter shall be required to advise the Foundation of any planned
> or actual change in the bylaws or status of the Chapter which might affect
> the Foundation or the continued existence or effectiveness of this contract.
>
> 7.3. The Foundation shall be required to advise the Chapter of any planned
> or actual change in the bylaws or status of the Foundation which might
> affect the Chapter or the continued existence or effectiveness of this
> agreement."
>

Indeed, but this is really worded quite narrowly and, to my knowledge,
ChapCom never received such an advisory yet (neither did individual
chapters from the Foundation). What I suggest is that generally, all
chapters-to-be (between chapcom approval and board approval) as well
as chapters-existing submit their changes for notice. more on that
below.


> I know, speed should not be an issue, but seeing
> as all members of the ChapCom need to vote on the bylaws any re-vote would
> significantly extend the approval time, and [following the proposed
> procedure] postpone the registration of the chapter with the authorities,
> and this in time would have a detrimental effect on the community [who have
> to wait a loger time before they can actually start working on chapter
> business])


That's not quite true: ChapCom doesn't need to take a new vote.  What
we always vote on is a "recommendation to the board that they approve
as local chapter". We never "approve the bylaws" or "recommend
approval of the bylaws", but obviously, bylaws are one of the main
factors here.
So, when we receive notice of a bylaws change, we can ask on the
chapcom list whether anyone has objections to the changes.
If no one speaks up, nothing happens, no vote - no resolution, no time list.
If someone speaks up, we'll have to have a vote on whether we
*recommend to the board that the chapter status be removed* (or, if
our original recommendation is still pending, whether we revoke our
recommendation).

But in all the cases we agree to, we do NOT need a new vote, which
will very much decrease the time we need on it ...

> I would not object if it was explicitly stated on the ChapCom's page on meta
> that the ChapCom should be notified of changes to the bylaws even after they
> have approved a version of it, on the other hand it should be clearly stated
> as well what authorisation the ChapCom would have to revoke their
> approval (before and after the Board's resolution of actual approval) after
> such a notification, if they do not like it.

ChapCom only makes recommendations. Both in the approval of chapters
and in the "de-"approval of chapters.


-- 
Michael Bimmler
mbimmler at gmail.com