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

Sun Mar 18 23:54:31 UTC 2012

We agree that regionalization is something important and different
approaches should be considered and not only the European one.
And that's why we think it is important the idea of a council, where all
chapters are equal partners and not subordinated to a single Anglo-American
concept that has prevailed to this date.
Latin American chapters have observed the development of this Chapters
Council and we have discussed this on Iberocoop. We haven't been able to
work more on the development of this council because of the language
barriers but we have appreciated the efforts of other chapters leading this
proposal. We agree with the main points of the proposal and we think it
addresses the different problems for chapters in Ibero America (I can't say
the same for the rest of the countries outside Europe because I'm not part
of them).

Osmar Valdebenito
President of Wikimedia Chile

2012/3/18 Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>

> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Chris Keating
> <chriskeatingwiki at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > >
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
>
> This is an interesting problem. Technical assistance requires expertise,
> but the type of expertise necessary for founding a chapter can be very
> specific to the particular jurisdiction and culture in which it is
> founded.  For instance - its stated on the discussion page of the proposal
> that the expertise and opinions of European chapter members (who,
> incidentally, dominate the discussion and the proposal) are less applicable
> to Brasil, which has chosen a quite different model and philosophy for its
> chapter. I'm curious how this organization (logically abbreviated as
> ChapAss, you might want to make it ChapCo instead) might address this
> problem.
>
> >
> >
> > > 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).
> >
> >
> >
> You're right, you didn't. You made the point that there is a paucity of
> tools for the WMF to provide oversight or performance assessment to the
> chapters, with "de-chaptering" as the main cudgel. That's an interesting
> point, but I'm not completely clear on how it supports creating a Chapter
> Association that will have, as its main cudgel, the option of removing a
> chapter from the association. And, of course, the WMF does have other tools
> - it can provide or withhold funding from individual chapters, a power that
> the Association will not possess.
>
>
> > > 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.
>
>
> Here's a thought. Chapter members are seeking both greater autonomy and a
> larger piece of the funding pie, under the argument of subsidiarity or
> decentralization. Implicit in this argument is the idea that a U.S. based
> non-profit controlling all the strings unbalances the distribution of
> influence in the movement and leaves diverse local talent and cultural
> expertise untapped. But you appear to merely shift the problem to Western
> Europe. The proposed charter includes no protections or guarantees, and
> indeed no mention at all, of global balance. The document is silent on the
> different needs and resources of chapters in different areas of the world,
> and provides no assurance against regional dominance. As it stands, the
> primary author of this document is a German editor of the German Wikipedia
> who proposes incorporating the entity in Berlin.
>
> It's worth noting that the European chapters are typically well managed,
> well financed and well established. The chapters most in need of the
> assistance and representation offered by the association would appear to be
> in other parts of the world. While several non-EU chapters have signed on
> to the chapters council idea, perhaps the draft could be modified to deal
> more explicitly with the global nature of the proposed association.  It
> might even be worthwhile to consider locating it in South America or India,
> rather than the E.U.
>
> There is also the question of due diligence. The proposal has no suggestion
> for where the entity will be incorporated, nor what sort of legal status it
> will need. These are not minor questions, and the decisions will have
> serious implications for the organizational model and it's ability to
> receive and transmit funds. The drafters have chosen to defer consideration
> of these issues until after the chapters vote to create the association,
> but given the possible consequences that is a questionable decision.
>
> More generally, I think you should re-evaluate your choice of models. The
> proposal would create a government-style model, heavy with committees and
> involved processes and embedded costs. This isn't necessarily the best way
> to address the needs that have been identified, perhaps because those needs
> could usefully be more clearly defined. To facilitate communication and
> representation, a much simpler and easier (and cheaper) solution might be a
> "Chapter Steering Committee." Composed of board members from all chapters
> and others as desired, it need not have employees, offices or fancy titles.
> Meetings (in person or otherwise) and joint statements or actions don't
> require joint bank accounts or a legal entity.
>
> Further, the role of representing the chapters to the world and to the WMF
> is not naturally tethered to the role of providing technical assistance. A
> technical resource group could easily be established by volunteers and
> funded by donations to provide insight and assistance to new or struggling
> chapters. This may not satisfy the appetite of some to create an opposing
> governing organization or fulfill fantasies of bureaucratic achievement,
> but it should get the job done with far less chance for conflict and
> dysfunction.
>
> Finally, and with apologies for tl;dr, I'd like to restate my earlier point
> - this association should be self-funding, and should not make use of any
> funds from the WMF or the WMF's annual fundraiser. You've already tied
> yourself to the WMF by allowing it to decide which organizations are and
> are not eligible to join your association. To retain meaningful
> independence and to avoid diverting donor funds from their intended use,
> the association should rely on independently raised funds from
> participating chapters.
>
> Nathan
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