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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Neither New York nor Hong Kong are independent. So this is not an argument.
It is completely beside the point what is the point is that Kosovo is
administratively a separate area. it has its own issues..
Thanks,
      GerardM


On 27 September 2010 19:13, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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).
>
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