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

[Chris Keating]

>
>
> 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.
>

Yes, this is a co-operative assistance group. And equally, if there weren't
any other needs to fill, then  it could be only such a group. But there are.


> In what way will this new organization be able to "de-chapter" an
> organization,


It won't (and just to be clear, I didn't suggest it would).


> 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.


There are different sorts of oversight and accountability. The WMF does not
currently have the capacity (and nor really the inclination) to go through
chapters' procedures or programme plans saying things like "so why is this
aspect of your plan such a high priority? Is there a community process
behind this? Have you seen how Y did a similar programme, do you think it's
worth speaking to them about it?".

So in terms of this kind of "soft" oversight, which I would describe as a
constructive challenge to the Chapter executive bodies, the Chapters
Council would do things that no-one currently does.

It may also end up playing a role in the "hard" oversight functions
alongside the Foundation, local regulators, and external auditors. It's not
impossible that a Chapter Council led peer-review would help give the
Foundation greater confidence in the workings of a chapter - the Foundation
does not appear keen to spend more time and effort scrutinising chapters
than it currently does, so this may well be welcome to the Foundation.



> 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.


Yes, though minus your loaded language, and restricted to areas where there
is a reasonable degree of agreement.

>From my point of view this will be very helpful. It's certainly more useful
for communication than diffuse angry thoughts.


> 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.


This will strengthen those direct links by separating the "politics" of the
relationship between a Chapter and the Foundation from the communication
about operational matters.

Btw, nice turn of phrase with "ChapAss", I can see you thought about that
one! :-)


> ... 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 look at it as a cost-effective way of building our global outreach
capacity, personally, but your mileage may vary.

Chris
Wikimedia UK board (speaking personally)