[Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)

[Florence Devouard]

Nathan wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 
>> 2009/1/20 Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de>:
>>> Not quite. One criteria is that the chapters should have well defined
>>> geographical areas and they should not overlap. So an Amsterdam chapter
>>> beside a Dutch chapter is not possible.
>> It was my understanding from the sub-national chapters document that
>> such chapters might be permitted to form anyway:
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sub-national_chapters
>> (Question: "Aren't we setting up sub-national chapters to compete for
>> funding with nation-based chapters?")
>>
>> What I'm taking your statement to mean is that when a subnational
>> chapter is formed where a national chapter could be later formed, the
>> overlap and potential harmful consequences of such overlap would have
>> to be carefully considered before national chapter is approved. Would
>> that be a fair characterization? Or are you meaning 'is not possible'
>> truly in the sense of 'will never happen'?
>>
>>
> 
> Earlier in this thread, Ting clearly stated that recognition of a
> sub-national chapter meant a national chapter could not later be formed.
> Andrew Whitworth indicated the same. Is that not the definitive answer to
> the question?
> 
> Nathan

This would be real bad, because it could exclude entire areas that do 
not drain sufficient memberships or funds to be able to really create a 
sustainable chapter.

That could be typically the case of a country with two big cities and a 
big rural area. Two chapters could be created in each city, leaving all 
wikipedians in the rural areas helpless. If such was to happen, I hope 
WMF would either accept the creation of a national chapter, or negotiate 
with the city-chapters so that they can extend membership to neighbours.

Note that this is already the case for many national chapters. In the 
French one, we host a couple of people living in Switzerland ('cause 
they are French in nationality), as well as from Belgium and Luxembourg, 
('cause these nations have no chapter).

I suspect a consensus will need to be found, so that 1) no harm is made 
to current chapter and 2) no one be excluded which would defeat the process.

As such, flexibility should be a must.

Ant