[Foundation-l] WMF Chapter Development Director job posting

Mon Aug 23 15:01:21 UTC 2010

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If I understand correctly the situation, the USA community currently
interact with Wikipedia through the Foundation or the en. chapter, which
are not necessarily representative of their interests. The point of view
that a chapter should represent the USA community depends strongly of
what is a chapter. I still don't know if it is a geopolitical, a
cultural, a social or a linguistic entity...
Anyway, there's the concern that a community deprived of proper identity
and voice is easily ignored.

As for the Foundation, I'm still not sure what role people are expecting
from it. Some comments now and then make me believe that a significant
share think of it as a leading, decision-making, representing and
executing role.
Other think the foundation should only play a pragmatic, executive
auxiliary role, implementing the will and decisions of the communities,
USA community included. I believe the separation of powers to be healthy.

As for the global and international concerns...

Cultural centrism or insularism cannot be at the core of the big goal of
an universal access to knowledge: they're a certain path to failure.

The latest conflicts about censorship and NPOV have shown, IMHO, that
they cannot be solved without distinguishing the few principles aimed to
the sharing and collective building of knowledge from the cultural
values - the western ones included.

Yet, the en.wikipedia is much more developed than the others and seems
to be progressing faster. Like a sun with a few satellites orbiting.
The "motor" doesn't distribute its energy to everybody, it mainly
benefits itself because it is not decentralized. Thus, it creates a
cultural inequality and domination. I wonder if this tendency can be
smoothed.

I wonder also how this is perceived by the rest of the world. The
english and american imperialisms are strongly present in their minds.
Wikipedia should avoid to look like yet another tool of cultural domination.

Thus, to favor the emergent chapters the USA community should have its
own chapter. It should have no more power of decision than the others
and certainly not a privileged relationship with the Foundation.

The Foundation should aim to be less insular and a clear separation from
the national concerns would help.

On 23/08/2010 12:55, theo10011 wrote:
> I do agree with some of what Mr. Meijssen said in the last email but not all
> of it. Yes, there might be a bias with some of the new projects being
> undertaken in the US specifically, but outside of Europe there are very few
> chapters who would be in a position to take on university collaborated
> projects without some sort of experience and help from the foundation.
> 
> The Idea that it is expensive to undertake projects in the US compared to
> the rest of the world in illusory, the costs incurred in lets say the UK or
> Germany might be higher than the US, simply because of the foundation is
> located across the Atlantic, their would be much higher travel cost and more
> paperwork involved when dealing with large institutions, not to mention a
> language barrier which might be prohibitive in the rest of the EU.
> 
> With that said I do agree with Mr. Meijssen that the foundation might mix
> national and international priorities at some occasions. A wider
> representation using one of the EU chapters could easily be achieved
> especially in the case of the recent university projects.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Salmaan
> 
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:49 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
>> wrote:
> 
>> Hoi,
>> The USA is a sizeable country. But it is not unique in that. Russia is
>> certainly bigger and India is certainly more populous. Both Russia and
>> India
>> have one chapter.
>>
>> When the Wikimedia Foundation runs a project, it should be obvious that
>> such
>> a project can be easily understood from its perspective. For me the WMF is
>> a
>> worldwide organisation and consequently its actions should be acceptable
>> from that perspective. When the WMF runs a "pilot" project like the current
>> public policy project, it should therefore conform with its global
>> perspective. Given that it is about SUBJECT MATTER whose appreciation
>> differs from country to country it is weird that no "foreign" universities
>> are part of this project. It is also easy to argue that from a cost point
>> of
>> view, this project requires less funding when it is run in many other
>> countries. The fact that it is run only in the USA also has NPOV
>> implications.
>>
>> The issue is that when there is an USA chapter and this project was run by
>> the chapter, such reservations would not be as potent. Mixing national and
>> international priorities is not appropriate.
>> Thanks,
>>       GerardM
>>
>> On 23 August 2010 08:56, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have to chime in to echo that the size of the USA and the fact that it
>> is
>>> populated throughout is an issue for a general USA chapter.  I attended a
>>> meetup in Nashville, Tennessee, which had people from five states and it
>>> was
>>> a seven hour drive for me, and I was in a state next to it.  Going to DC
>> in
>>> January was equally interesting, I had to fly in to visit and that's not
>>> even half a country away.  The US is a different creature, I have no
>> advice
>>> on chapter organization here.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ~Keegan
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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>>>
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