[Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-

[Austin Hair]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 8:18 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> While that is true, it is also important to remember that most people
> setting up a chapter have next to no experience of running a
> non-profit. They don't know what is and isn't appropriate to spend
> donations on, they don't necessarily know what needs to done and just
> because they know their culture in general doesn't mean they know how
> the charity sector works in their country. The Foundation could
> provide a lot of advice on those issues. While I don't doubt that the
> Portuguese Wikimedians are acting in good faith, trust requires two
> things - good faith and competence. They are almost certainly not
> competent since they haven't had an opportunity to develop that
> competence yet, so they should not be trusted to be making the right
> decisions.

Wow, that's... pretty offensive, actually.

It's true that random dude in random country may not be an expert on
incorporating a chapter-like organization (not a "charity," because
that's not required, or even a "non-profit"), but neither is anyone
employed by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., and neither is any member of
the Chapters Committee.  There are still 170+ potential Wikimedia
chapters with zero persons experienced in doing the kind of thing
we're doing.  It's totally new ground, and to assume incompetence on
anyone's part is simply bad faith.

Now, there is room for better coordination and more oversight.  It
would, for instance, be nice if there were more coordination between
the WMF Inc. staff and the committee facilitating chapter development.
 I'd like to see more discussion on the process, but there's no need
to presume idiocy on the part of people who know their culture and
legal system better than you and I do.

Austin