[Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?

[Christophe Henner]

Hey Bence,

Thanks for creating this thread and allow us to "tackle" that "issue"
(though I don't believe it really is an issue)

On 19 February 2013 14:42, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'll separate this out as I think it is a really interesting conversation,
> and as I have heard the two arguments below repeated numerous times, it
> might be useful to think about it and the future shape of things a bit
> more.
>
> I think the fundamental question is how legitimate can an interest group
> (chapters in this case) be if it's membership is significantly smaller than
> its potential membership (at least 30% of editors come from countries with
> well established chapters in afaik good standing with their local
> community)?
>

Short answer, yes they are part of the community.

Disclaimer, I'm board member of Wikimedia France for 6 years I guess now,
so I'm not really neutral on that point :)

So let me develop that thought now.

I would even add that chapters should, and perhaps are, be key part of our
community. Online communities tend to "die" slowly over the time. The main
reason is that "virtual" bonds are much easier to forget than "physical"
ones. I mean it's easier stop sending email to someone than stopping to see
someone.

Chapters, in my opinion, have 2 main duties :
1/ Push forward are goals
2/ Bring offline the online community

The second one is key and instrumental to the good health of the community.
I have no hard data on that, but I feel that people that do meet regularly
and do projects together (organizing WLM, Wikipedia takes a city, meetup
with beers, etc.) tned to stick longer in the project. And even if at some
point they stop editing (because of work, studies, etc) they eventually
come back because they don't severe bonds with people they've seen
regularly irl.

Part of this can happen without a chapter, but a chapter can increase that,
ease that. And in doing so, increasing the retention of old editor and help
new editors to join in.

Yes, chapter as such do not edit the projects directly. But does this mean
they're not part of the community? I don't think so. They're a different
part of the community, but still are a part of the community.

So should the Chapters seats be considered asa "Community seats" ? I'd say
that the term is wrong.

We have the "editing community seats", the "meta" community seats and the
appointed seats. Perhaps we should differentiate the two sides of the
community.

(I have virtually not edited massively for years, and people says to me (as
a joke) that I'm not really part of the community... well I believe that
even if I do not edit I'm part of the Wikimedia community)

So please, let me be part of the Wikimedia community ^_^

PS: I do not speak of membership because it is not really relevant in the
end, as the important thing in the inpact the chapter have, not how many
members it has