Hi Farhad,
Very interesting, thank you very much for sharing your insight. The advantages at an organizational level are quite obvious, indeed, and it's a smart way to deal with those membership limitations. I'm glad that the WMF & Wikimedia is abandoning the very rigid chapter model as the preferred one, and is evolving into more flexible and nuanced options and varieties, such as those confederations.
Best, Paulo
Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin frhd@yandex.com escreveu no dia sábado, 5/10/2019 à(s) 15:38:
Hi folks,
I can probably comment this, as a member of both Wikimedia Russia and a Tatar language-specific UG. On top of participation in Wikimedia Language Diversity initiative on meta, I am also contemplating and working towards starting a territory-specific UG for my region + an incubator UG for more language-specific UG in the languages of Russia.
Wikimedians of Russia seem to see the matreshkas of (1) "global conference
- regional conference - topic-specific conferences" & (2) WMF & affiliates
general meeting - national chapters - UGs" as natural structures, each addressing different tasks, having different priorities, whilst cooperating in various projects.
- Wikimedia Russia legal requirements (in-person quorum for
decision-making, etc.) doesn't allow us to accept into membership all members of all our regional, language or topic specific UGs. So our chapter is evolving towards a mixed confederation status, selectively welcoming some members from various groupings around Russia (which themselves can't be neither cells nor branches of WMRU).
- SPB is not purely a city, but a one of 85 provinces (read states) of the
Russian Federation (like my home Republic of Tatarstan, neighbouring Republic of Bashkortostan with its Bashkir Wiki-grandmas, or a city of Moscow).
- Once we will spin out UG MSK, we will complete transforming Wikimedia
Russia into a collective entity for join tasks, working on national-level advocacy & other projects.
- We currently have 5 existing UGs, have two more filed & at least one
more at the preparation stage - as this is a good way to engage locally or topically interested public into Wikimedia universe.
regards, farhad
-- Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
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