[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com]

On Aug 10, 2011, at 3:20 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia-inc.com> wrote:

> On 8/9/11 3:47 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:
>> It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into
>> franchises.  Which I find to be exactly backwards.
> 
> It would be, if that's what it were about.  But I can say with 
> confidence that at the board meeting, no one spoke about any ideas even 
> remotely similar to this, and I can't think of a single board member who 
> disagrees one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or 
> controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar.
> 
> No one wants that, and these changes should have no impact on that at all.

> It is important not to confuse the very narrow (and yet very critically 
> risky if not done well) of "acting as a payment processor" with the much 
> more important and interesting and difficult questions about how much 
> funding chapters should get, under what conditions, etc.
> 
>> Chapters in my
>> mind should be diverse entities. Embracing whatever is most effective
>> in their little slice of the world. I think they should be ambitious
>> in seeking out what inspires local population to embrace our
>> movement. The way to encourage innovation is to push self-direction
>> and refrain from being too judgmental so long as there is trending
>> improvement. I believe that franchises will not be well received and
>> will by and large fail. Maybe I am wrong about the direction people
>> are pushing, maybe I am right about the direction but wrong about the
>> poor outcome. I certainly can't have much of an effect on things.
> 
> I'm happy to report that you are mistaken about the direction in which 
> people are pushing. :-)  No one on the board or staff has talked about a 
> "franchise" model to my knowledge, and no one on the board or staff to 
> my knowledge would disagree with your very perceptive remarks that 
> diverse entities acting with local knowledge is the right answer for us.
> 
> The key thing to understand here: there is no desire or agenda to take 
> away power and autonomy from chapters.  But there is a strong moral duty 
> to note that financial controls, reporting requirements, transparency, 
> and evaluation of effectiveness are always at the top of our agenda.
> 

I don't care what people spoke of, nor of what they desire, nor what their agenda is. I never supposed that people were conspiring to fail.  I care what effect the actions people are proposing will result in.  I am quite confident that the result of funding chapters though a WMF grant program pushes them towards being franchises.  I might be wrong about this, as I said. But please share the underlying concepts that lead you to conclude that "these changes should have no impact on that at all", so that I might be convinced as well. Your good intentions, which I did not question, are irrelevant. 

Perhaps I did not clarify a particular point very well in my first email. Donations pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. The WMF has no idea, and is doing nothing to develop a reliable accounting, on how effectively these donations are being used.  WMF can only report some numbers as to the quanity of use in different areas, but no one @ WMF could tell me what is going on the Albanian Wikipedia.  And if by some chance they could it would be an anomaly. An evaluation of the effectiveness of program work cannot be considered part of the near-term agenda. As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before.  You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?

BirgitteSB