[Foundation-l] Chapters as intermediaries between WMF and communities (was Re: Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation)

[Sebastian Moleski]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:01 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/8/28 Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com>:
> > I keep reading such statements and I'm having to admit: I have more and
> more
> > problems following your logic. Let's take this apart:
>
> I think any response I can give will basically boil down to:
>
> "[D]emocracy is the worst form of government except all those other
> forms that have been tried from time to time." (Winston Churchill)
>

That's unfortunate. I was hoping for more.

I will also correct one slight mistake in what you say - the
> Foundation's duty is to do what is best for the Foundation's goals,
> not for the Foundation itself. If the goals of the Foundation and the
> chapters are the same (which they pretty much are, it is one of the
> requirements to be a chapter) then their interests should completely
> align.
>

The fact that two orrganization share goals does not mean that their
interests align completely. Not all of the goals of the foundation are goals
of a chapter and vice versa. And even when they are the same, they may go
about them in different ways. There are, for example, hundreds of
organizations worldwide trying to save the environment, promote world peace,
eradicate poverty, spread education, etc. Overlapping goals, overlapping
interests, but no uniformity or unity. It's great that there are so many
different groups with similar goals trying different things and not agreeing
on everything. I'd like to see that same sort of pluralism within the
"Wikimedia universe" as well. I think it's helpful to have that because (1)
no one and no organization here has all the right answers (if they even
exist) and (2) having different groups autonously trying different things is
more likely to lead to finding out what works best. None of that is possible
if there's some sort of direct mandate through all institutions.

Best regards,

Sebastian