[Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia Brasil + WMF

[Ilario Valdelli]

On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia-inc.com> wrote:
> On 8/28/11 1:00 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> I think that developing such a legal entity should be a high priority
>> for Brazilian Wikipedians to ensure that Wiki activities in Brazil are
>> controlled by Brazilians. At the same time I don't think there is any
>> value to having a WMF appointee on your board; such a person would find
>> it difficult to function under circumstances of perpetual conflict of
>> interest.  No other chapter has such a clause.
>
> I had never thought of this before, but now that it has been mentioned,
> I just wanted to disagree, quite respectfully because Ray is awesome of
> course, and say that I think it is a very interesting idea to have a WMF
> appointee on the boards of chapters.
>
> There should be very few cases where there is a "conflict of interest"
> since chapters and the Foundation are deeply tied together always (and
> that's a good thing).  I think having a Foundation representative on the
> board of chapters does present some possibly insurmountable logistical
> issues (who will they be?) but I actually think such an arrangement
> might be incredibly valuable for improving communication and
> *decreasing* perceived conflicts of interest.

Because there are two points:

a) the board is elected (they are representatives of the General
Assembly which is the owner of the local association)
b) in some legal systems the members of the board (and in some others
the majority of the members of the board) should have the nationality

No problem to have a representative of the WMF in the executive and no
problem to have them in the board if elected or approved by the
General Assembly following the statements of the local bylaws.

The conflict of interests is here: it's not WMF to choose or to
propose the appointee, it's the General Assembly.

Please be kind that a lot of local chapters have been accepted as
*national* chapters thanks to the bylaws which have been analyzed by
the local administration to be sure that there are no links or
dependencies with another foreign association/foundation.

The risk is that the local chapter can be rejected as national
association if the link with WMF becomes restrictive.

Ilario