[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Pennsylvania

[Nicolò Zamperini]

Yep, good news! Congrat!

Nick

2007/7/10, Filip Maljkovic <dungodung at gmail.com>:
>
> Andrew Whitworth wrote:
> > I'm cross-posting this message to both the foundation-l and the
> > now-defunct wikimediaus-l lists. Many people here may already be aware
> > of the new Wikimedia Pennsylvania chapter that is in active
> > development, either from the various pages that have sprung up on meta
> > from it, from our blog on the planet, or from word of mouth.
> >
> > For those who are not aware, We are working to create a local chapter
> > for the Pennsylvania area. It will be the first state chapter, and
> > possibly the first north american chapter (unless the canadian chapter
> > can get rolling before we do). Our chapter is going to be focused
> > primarily on a grass-roots community outreach effort, in an attempt to
> > drum up both new contributors and new content consumers. Some of the
> > people we would like to target initially are public school systems
> > (including the financially-distressed Philadelphia area school
> > district, which could benefit significantly from a free textbook
> > alternative), universities, and community organizations. We would also
> > like to do some fundraising, but the extent to which we have organized
> > fundraisers is yet to be determined.
> >
> > We are instituting an open membership policy: No membership fees, and
> > no residential requirements on membership. Due to the
> > community-oriented mission of the chapter people from distant areas
> > may have a difficulty participating, but we do not intend to
> > disenfranchise anybody because of their geographical location. We are
> > hoping that this policy will help to get many people involved, will
> > help other state chapters get started, and will serve as an
> > organizational model for future state chapters.
> >
> > We have created a new mailinglist for the chapter at wikimediapa-l. We
> > have an irc chatroom on freenode (#Wikimedia-pa), and a homepage on
> > meta: [[meta:Wikimedia Philadelphia]]. People who are interested in
> > more information can turn to any of these sources. We will be
> > submitting the first draft of our bylaws to the chapters committee
> > soon (hopefully in a week or two) and are already looking at the
> > paperwork to become 503(c) (although that step will be saved for the
> > future when we see how well the chapter is working out).
> >
> > --Andrew Whitworth
> Well, this is certainly good news. Great thing going, guys. One remark,
> though: I'm not quite sure (future) US chapters should have
> abbreviations that way. When I saw wikimediapa-l, I thought of Wikimedia
> Pakistan (although, PA stands for Panama, the point is the same).
> Because of the two-letter-codes overlapping with the US TLCs, it might
> be wise to introduce something like wikimediaus-pa-l (likewise for the
> IRC channel) or anything else that would make it clear that the TLC
> isn't of a country, but of a US state.
>
> Thanks,
> Filip
>
>
>
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