[Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The territofy for the Dutch chapter ends officially at the border between
Belgium and the Netherlands. There is no Belgium chapter and given their
politics it is unlikely that there will be one. The projects in the Dutch
language include many Belgians and they are welcome to become a member of
the Dutch "vereniging".

Ting, it is nice that you do not see what countries have to do with
chapters. One of the main points of chapters is that they represent the
Wikimedia Foundation in a limited fashion and, that they take care of issues
that need to be taken care off on a local level. They are things like
fundraising and looking for a tax exempt status for gifts etc.  When a
chapter is nothing but a society, there is less need for an official
connection with the WMF. The people in New York can have their own society,
there is no need for them being a chapter and take care by necessity of
these needs.

If you say that a chapter is only a society and that this is all that
counts, I do not understand why it is not permitted to have chapters
covering the same space. Why not have an Amsterdam chapter if the people
from Amsterdam think it a good idea ??
Thanks,
      GerardM

2009/1/20 Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de>

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > Is it like in "Animal farm" that all countries are equal but some are
> more
> > equal then others? By calling NY a sub chapter, it is inherent that there
> is
> > room for a USA chapter. Each chapter has one vote as I understand it or
> will
> > each subchapter have one as well ??
> >
> > Originally the notion of a chapter was very much that it was along the
> lines
> > of legislatures. This no longer seems to be relevant or am I missing
> > something?
> > Thanks,
> >       GerardM
> >
> > 2009/1/20 Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de>
> >
> >
> >> Gerard Meijssen schrieb:
> >>
> >>> Hoi,
> >>> So in essence by having a New York chapter, it became impossible to
> have
> >>>
> >> an
> >>
> >>> USA chapter? Or do we need to propose an Amsterdam sub chapter that
> will
> >>>
> >> get
> >>
> >>> all the trimmings like New York? The argument that the USA is so big is
> >>>
> >> not
> >>
> >>> that strong either, we could have a Moscow sub chapter or one for
> Bombay.
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>       GerardM
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Yes, having a New York chapter pretty ruled out the possibility of
> >> establishing a USA chapter. But then, the USA chapter was discussed for
> >> quite long time and it is quite unprobably that it would become true in
> >> the near future. There are also suggestions that the WM-NYC could serve
> >> as a seed and gradually expand its covering area at sometime to become a
> >> WM-USA. But that's all speculations. We will see how everything
> develops.
> >>
> >> Again, from the view of fundation WM-NYC is not a "sub chapter" but a
> >> wholevalue chapter. Its area doesn't covers a nation, but that doesn't
> >> make it less or more than the chapters whose area cover a country. And
> >> sub-national or cross-national chapters also may be established
> >> somewhere else than USA, right.
> >>
> >> As far as I know, there are already two organizations in the
> >> Netherlands, why would you want to create an Amsterdam chapter and what
> >> is the beneficial of it? Or is the question just theoretical?
> >>
> >> Greetings
> >> Ting
> >>
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> No, here is nothing with equal or not equal. See, I see the WikiMedia
> and its chapters as partners, as companions. WikiMedia as well as its
> chapters are organisations that developed out of the community and work
> with the community. A chapter may or may not have the same area as a
> country. There are many reason that it may have happend as such or not.
>
> As of the voting you mentioned. Voting for what? The only thing I am
> aware of that probably would be voted is the selection of the chapters
> appointed board of trustees seat. I know that the chapters are working
> on this very hard, but I am not sure if they would actually vote on this
> matter. Sometime ago I read in one of the mailing lists that the
> chapters should work collaboratively with each other and create a
> consenses, not by battling with each other by voting for or against this
> or that candidate. I like this idea. But as I have said, the chapters
> are working on this and I am sure that they will present a good result.
>
> But, looking in the future. There may be at some point that there would
> be concern that say the Netherlands has only one chapter and one ballote
> while the USA may have let's say five chapters and five ballots. We had
> discussed this issue on our october board meeting and we think that if
> at some day this concern is raised, we can still decide to change the mode.
>
> To be honours, I don't see what has nations and countries to do with our
> chapters? There may be practical reasons for identical with the boundary
> of a country or not. I don't like to see it the way USA against the
> Netherlands or Taiwan against China. We have no need to incoporate this
> madness into our project, have we?
>
> Greetings
> Ting
>
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