[Foundation-l] A chapters-related question

[Delphine Ménard]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 16:41, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/9 Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>:
>>> I think a formal "Association of Catalan Wikimedians", recognised by
>>> the WMF as an "affiliated organisation" and with something quite
>>> similar to the chapters agreement would work well. Calling it a
>>> chapter will cause problems, since it overlaps with other chapters,
>>> but it can be much the same thing just with a different name.
>>
>> Yes, keeping in mind that the most important thing here is, in my
>> opinion, close collaboration with the chapters that are "touched" by
>> this organisation. In cases like this, I am not sure that the
>> Wikimedia Foundation is the best partner. In any case, the
>> WMFoundation definitely should not be the "only" partner and
>> recognition should also come from the chapters potentially involved.
>
> Interesting thoughts. The WMF needs to be a partner since the WMF owns
> the relevant trademarks. The chapters certainly need to be involved,
> but I don't know if they should be involved in the recognition part
> (apart from maybe writing letters of support to the WMF). The WMF
> should probably consult them, since if one chapter is opposed it could
> cause some problems, so that should be sorted out beforehand. I'm just
> not really sure what it would mean for the chapters to "recognise"
> them.

You're right, the term "recognize" in that context is probably the
wrong term. In my initial email I meant "recognize as a long term
partner", which does not mean that those organisations can bear in any
kind of way the name Wikimedia somethingorother, but rather that the
Wikimedia Chapters involved enter a long-term partnership with them
(or a short term on specific projects for example).

It could be assimilated to the way organisations partner up to answer
EU grants for example. Each keeps their autonomy, but they all work
together towards a common goal. Call it "support" or "partnership",
not "recognition", that probably makes more sense.

Take the German initiative for Nachwachsende Rohstoffe for example.
The flagship of this initiative is an independant organisation, the
Nova Institute and Wikimedia Deutschland supported them in their
initiative and even took part in it by delegating someone to help them
follow Wikipedia guidelines, giving more credit to their initiative to
support the Wikimedia projects. That's the kind of "strong
partnership" I'm thinking about.


Delphine



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