On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Itzik Edri itzik@infra.co.il wrote:
Hi Nathan,
Allow me to correct - WMIL is not withdrawing from international activities. For example, WMIL will probably going to be one of the leading chapters supporting WLE, and many others international projects with others chapters. Alongside participating in the ChapConf and Wikimania (although right now it seem like we can't offer scholarships to editors from Israel like recent years).
The board only asked, for a temporary period of time, from his members who are active in working groups and others committees, to understand that it's gonna be a hard year for WMIL and we need every help that they can give. Meaning that if before I dedicated my volunteering time 70% for the chapters and 30% for others international committees and for writing blog posts and updates, now I'm going to dedicated 100% of my time to help stabilize my chapter, in order to allow us soon to be "back on track" and return to our international involvement like before.
WMIL is proud to be a leading chapters as part of the Wikimedia movement - and will continue to be one like that also in the future.
Hi Itzik,
I am glad to hear this clarification of your intent. In your announcement you asked members to minimize time and effort in international involvement and said that the board would, in accordance with the request, resign from international roles. If WMIL plans to continue to encourage some types of international involvement after all, at least in specific projects, that's good. I might be confused, if I were an Israeli chapter member, on what you wanted continued and what you wanted minimized, but I am sure you will have discussions with your members on that if you haven't already.
The point remains that the Wikimedia movement has as defining characteristics its international scope and cooperative nature, and asking members to minimize participation is the most severe step against the movement that I have seen a chapter take since chapters were established. It presents very clearly how disillusioned and upset your board is with its $200,000 allocation, because I can't imagine a chapter taking such a decision without very serious deliberation on its role in the movement and the value of the international community.