Within this context, if as Pine mentions, an especially strong community
organizer leaves the chapter, or if there is a huge shift in leadership,
the chapter could go through a lot of growing pains, good or bad.
How exactly does the Affiliates committee support this issue? What specific
support is available to chapters who are transitioning or having problems?
It seems like renaming something from X to Y is not doing much to provide
solutions.
- Erika
*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrillLyle>*
On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 1:50 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
How is that damage ameliorated by, as you
suggest, re-classifying
a chapter as a user group?
I feel that this is a separate issue. There should be no privilege attached
to
already being a chapter. It is unfair to apply one set of criteria to
existing
chapters, and a much tighter set of criteria to aspiring chapters. Chapter
status should be linked with a substantial level of current or recent
activity
in Wikimedia.
Chapter activity levels may decrease for many reasons, some of which
are beyond their control, such as if a fire breaks out in their office, or
if an
especially strong community organizer leaves the country. If such things
happen and the activity level or membership level of the organization
decrease, it is reasonable (if not desirable) to have the organization,
which
now would resemble a user group rather than a chapter, actually be
categorized as a user group until the organization recovers. I would call
this
"truth in advertising". It's not comfortable, but it is the reality, and
it
would give the group a strong incentive to re-energize itself and return
its
levels of membership and activity to the levels that it once had, rather
than
allowing it to keep the privileges of chapter status with few of the
responsibilities and expectations.