[Foundation-l] Board resolutions (chapters)

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
> To clarify, I'm not sure that "absolutely could not work together" is
> the best description of the criteria. Our culture is built on
> collaboration and cooperation, and I expect that all chapters should be
> able to work together when the occasion calls for it. So the question is
> to me is whether there's value in having two different organizations,
> enough to justify the overhead of building the second one.

I agree with you on this point, but I don't think it's for us (board,
chapcom, etc) to decide whether the additional overhead is called for.
Obviously we should make all the information and caveats known to all
applicant groups before they are approved to become a chapter, but
they really have to be relied upon to make the final decisions
concerning themselves.

> Suppose we had a Wikimedia Istanbul, and hypothetically its members on
> either side of the Bosporus don't want to work together, that wouldn't
> be a reason to allow a separate chapter. But if it somehow actually
> mattered whether people were in Europe or in Asia, then that might be a
> reason to have two chapters there.

Chapters may want to focus on local works. The Istanbul chapter may
want to focus it's attention on activities that happen in and around
Istanbul only. People from Ankara could join the chapter but would be
excluded from it's activities because of distance. As much as we might
like the Istanbul chapter to expand it's focus to cover the entire
country, they might find themselves unwilling or unable to do so. Do
we then keep the people of Ankara from forming a second chapter in
Turkey because of it?

WMNYC has focused it's energy towards on-the-ground and in-person
activities like "Wikipedia Loves Art", or "Wikis Take Manhattan".
People who are too far away will not be able to participate in these
activities. You could say that they could be a national group and
organize other events in other cities. But then you would have
separate groups within the chapter organizing and participating in
separate activities with no meaningful interaction between them. If a
smaller regional chapter can pay more attention to it's members,
foster better cooperation, and support more outreach activities by
virtue of being able to focus on a smaller geographical area, I think
that's a major benefit to consider.

--Andrew Whitworth