Hi Ziko,
I believe the only "official" rationale is in the 2012 Board resolution: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Resolutions/Recognizing_Models_of_Affili...
and the thinking behind this is documented here, also from 2011-12. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles_project
I do not know of any serious discussion on the subject until 2019, when a you may know the Roles and Responsibilities strategy working group looked at this and similar issues, and came to the conclusion that we should move away from the idea of "WMF and affiliates" to a more distributed approach with a network of equal entities filling different roles, and more structures to support and coordinate between them. (There are some similarities between that and what the Wikimedians in Russia seem to be moving towards organically, which is interesting.)
Chris
On Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 12:50 PM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, people, but I would like to read an official statement of the WMF (committee) what is the reason or rationale behind this policy to accept WM user groups in countries where you already have a chapter. Does anybody have a link? Kind regards Ziko
Am Sa., 5. Okt. 2019 um 19:16 Uhr schrieb Paulo Santos Perneta < paulosperneta@gmail.com>:
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
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe