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

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/9/13 Austin Hair <adhair at gmail.com>:
> 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.

If you are offended by statements of fact, that is your problem.

> 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.

Last time I checked, being a non-profit (and a charity if possible)
*was* a requirement to be a Wikimedia chapter. The WMF does have
experience of running a charity.