[Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)

[Austin Hair]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> Austin Hair wrote:
>> Every chapter has unique
>> considerations specific to its social and political circumstances—be
>> it Taiwan, Serbia, Hong Kong, or New York City—but, as far as we're
>> concerned, there's no such thing as a second-class chapter.
>
> Speaking only for myself as one board member among many, I agree with
> Austin completely.  There can be "subnational chapters" - meaning that
> the chapter is concentrated on a region smaller than a nation-state, but
> they are not 'sub-chapters'.
>
> The New York City metropolitan area:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area
>
> has 18.8 million people.
>
> This is slightly larger than the Netherlands:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
>
> at 16.4 million.
>
> The world is not necessarily carved up geopolitically in a manner that
> would make it at all make sense to declare one nation/one chapter.
>
> It's a subtle matter with many factors that have to be thoughtfully
> balanced.

Population isn't the only factor, of course, or even the most important one.

Wikimedia France operates in a very different way from its next-door
neighbor, Wikimedia Germany.

Wikimedia Serbia is very different from Wikimedia Italy, and in fact
only recently became Wikimedia Serbia after incorporating as Wikimedia
Serbia and Croatia.

Both Taiwan and Hong Kong enjoy special relationships with the
People's Republic of China, and our chapters there have specific
concerns not entirely unlike those of our new American chapter.

Every chapter is different, but until we make chapters representative
bodies and hold elections where certain chapters receive one vote and
others receive 0.375 of a vote, we shouldn't be singling anyone out
for that distinction.

Austin