[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Kosovo Chapter? Re: Fwd: SFK100 Press Release

[Thomas Dalton]

On 27 September 2010 10:14, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> I doubt very much that political considerations should be part of the set up
> of a chapter. Asking the Serbian chapter for an opinion is fine. Giving them
> a vote on this is not. Given that Kosovo is a separate jurisdiction means
> that it fulfils the basic requirement. Given that Hong Kong and New York
> have chapters the case for Kosovo to have a chapter is at least as strong if
> not stronger.

I don't think we can avoid political considerations. Either we
consider Kosovo independant, in which case it can have a chapter
without the approval of the Serbian chapter, or we consider it part of
Serbia, in which case they are proposing the creation of a
sub-national chapter within the jurisdiction of an existing chapter
and the Chapters Agreement between the WMF and WMRS gives WMRS at
least the right to be consulted if not veto power (when WMUK was
negotiating our chapters agreement, we got it changed from
consultation to consent, I don't know what WMRS's agreement says).

If WMRS gives consent, then it doesn't really matter (although, my
standing objection to sub-national chapters could apply, but at the
moment we do allow them so we should do so consistantly). If WMRS
refuses to give consent (even if their agreement only gives them the
right to be consulted, I would advise against consulting them and then
disregarding their views) then we need to actually decide where we
fall on the whole Kosovan independance issue. I, for one, don't want
to decide where I fall on that issue, but I would be inclined to say
that we should go with UN membership as the final arbiter of country
status (and Kosovo is not yet a UN member). UN membership is not a
perfect arbiter, but it is simple and far more neutral than any other
option I can think of.

If the Kosovans are willing to wait, it would be make our lives much
easier if we wait until the international community makes up their
minds, but that could take a while (it's been 2.5 years already).