[Foundation-l] Draft charter of the Wikimedia Chapters Association

[Nathan]

>
> Yes, there are lots of people that think this is a good idea.
>
> Currently, there are 3 things not happening, which are causing us problems:
>
> 1) There's not really anyone to help chapters develop. If you have a group
> of Wikipedians who want to set up a chapter,  there are lots of challenges
> but not many resources to help you do it. The resources there are are quite
> informal. And once you're going, there's not a great deal of help in offer
> to help you grow and get more active.
>

This could be much more usefully addressed with a cooperative assistance
group, rather than some sort of super-governance association. Somehow lots
of chapters managed to form themselves without the existence of an
international governing body. If technical assistance is what you are
looking to offer, develop a technical assistance group and resource that.

>
> 2) Equally, there isn't really a very good way of assessing chapters'
> performance. There is an element of formal regulation in that if a Chapter
> doesn't stick to the Chapter Agreement is could be de-chaptered. And for
> chapters with a strong membership base and good links to the project
> communities, there is a very important role for oversight by
> members/communities. But apart from the tripwire of the Chapter Agreement,
> and the important but fairly uneven scrutiny of different memberships,
> there isn't really a mechanism for review and feedback - which is actually
> part of the same problem as 1).
>
>
In what way will this new organization be able to "de-chapter" an
organization, when the chapter designation (and the attendant authorization
to use Wikimedia marks) is controlled by the WMF? Since funding coming from
the WMF - or the FDC - will still need to involve WMF oversight and
accountability, what this organization does is duplicate those
responsibilities to yet another organization.


> 3) Finally, there are problems of communication between the Wikimedia
> Foundation and the Chapters.There is no good mechanism for sounding
> Chapters' views corporately.  When the Foundation asks "What do chapters
> think about X"? they find that half-a-dozen people will argue at length on
> an email list, without necessarily being representative of anyone, and
> probably without proposing anything useful. Communication fragments, gets
> heated, and becomes unproductive quickly.
>

So your solution is to have the chapters argue amongst themselves, pursue a
bureaucratic process to arrive at a common decision, and then present that
to the WMF. This despite the fact that the WMF has, and will continue to
have, direct organizational links to each chapter. You make it sound like
the ChapAss will supplant the Foundation in its role, but that's impossible.


>
> If we can find solutions to these three problems, it will be well worth the
> investment. Obviously setting up a new body is not guaranteed to succeed,
> and there are lots of details to be worked out, many of them important -
> but it is worth doing.
>
> Chris
> (Wikimedia UK board, speaking personally)
>

Thomas Dalton says the organization will be a legal entity, and will have
to spend money on new staff, as well as travel and accommodations for
staff, representatives and others. It seems like a pretty easy case to make
that the added bureaucracy is at least an inefficient if not outright
wasteful use of donated funds. I'd like to see the WMF make it clear that
grant money from the WMF or funds otherwise diverted from the WMF to
chapters should not be used to fund the ChapAss. If this organization is to
exist, it should be funded purely by its own fundraising and the distinct
and separate fundraising activities of its member chapters.

Nathan