[Foundation-l] Fwd: Wikimedia Brasil + WMF

[Milos Rancic]

On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 11:51, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> On 09/02/11 12:11 PM, Florence Devouard wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> We are facing rather severe challenges right now. Let's say it straight,
>> Wikimedia Foundation is simply trying to absorb/control the chapters as
>> is they were simple bureaux of the WMF locally and chapters kind of
>> disagree with WMF idea that centralization is a good move for the
>> mouvement...
>>
>> I can not begin to imagine how unconfortable a representant of WMF would
>> be if he were on the board of a chapter. Would he be loyal to the
>> chapter ? Would he be loyal to the WMF ? How fair would that be to ask
>> *anyone* to be put in such type of situation ? And which would be the
>> impact to the public ? (in particular to other funding organizations ?)
>> And how much chance is there that WMF could actually shoot itself in the
>> foot in doing this ?
>>
>>
> Maintaining an arm's length relationship between chapters and WMF and a
> legal denial by chapters of responsibility for project contents has
> certainly been a strategy that has protected chapters from liability in
> foreign courts. Neither would WMF be responsible for difficulties that
> chapters may create of their own accord.  That strategy has worked well
> until now.
>
> When we moved away from a funding model that depended on Jimmy and his
> Bomis Corporation the key objective was to have a structure capable of
> maintaining Wikipedia that did not depend on the fortunes of one man. It
> also became the owner of the trademarks.  That's all fine, but things
> have changed since then, and those changes are not implicit in the
> message of the vision, the mission, or the values.  These are key
> documents, and we do wise to look at them from time to time as a reality
> check.
>
> Professionalization has crept into the vocabulary even though we are all
> amateurs, and we must never pretend that we are anything but amateurs.
> That apparent weakness can also be our strength.  That strength is what
> makes us a viable top-10 website with a much lower budget that the
> others in that club.
>
> How does a strategy of growth fit with the key documents? There is
> nothing in there about a large central organization.  Reaching out to
> the Global South, and promoting gender equality in our activities are
> both commendable ventures, but success will ultimately be measured in
> the self-reliance of the disadvantaged groups. I see more benefit in
> Wikimedia Israel's outreach into Cameroon than in some massive injection
> of head-office think across a swath of third-world nations.
>
> In the movement roles discussion it borders on the offensive when an
> organization arrogates upon itself the term "movement".  When I reflect
> upon it the Wikimedia Movement is an amorphous entity that includes the
> WMF and its associated structures, but it also includes individuals with
> whom we may never have had contact and who nevertheless propagate our
> contents elsewhere.
>
> More responsibility should be devolving to the chapters, including
> outreach. This could also apply to a series of US sub-national
> chapters.  This could allow the Foundation to go back to its core
> objectives.  The organization itself is not the objective.

Just a bit of different perspective: I could make a list of chapters,
besides WM RS, which would be happy to get a representative from WMF
(but from any other bigger chapter, as well) in their Board, if that
means that the representative would really do something.

For a number of chapters it is not a matter of having influence from
any other entity, but a matter of getting one person capable to help
chapter.