[Wikipedia-l] A chapter system is much better (was: foundation of a German registered association)

[Daniel Mayer]

Lars wrote:
>..
>I strongly recommend that you all look at how the German chapter 
>of ISOC (which is an "e.V.", see www.isoc.de) has solved this.  I 
>assume they have a working model already, that could be copied.  
>In fact, the ISOC chapter model could be copied for more countries 
>than Germany, if Wikipedians want to form local chapters in their area.

I agree - we should look into that. I also agree that a chapter system would 
be the best way to go. Then, if needed, we could have an affiliate in Europe 
that would coordinate national or lower level chapters in Europe (or we could 
just have chapters). 

Their "Primer for Creating a Local ISOC Chapter" 
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/application/primer.shtml also mentions 
incorporation as one of the final steps of chapter formation and how the ISOC 
needs to sign-off on that (before that it mentions that the ISOC needs to 
approve the chapter's bylaws). So a chapter so formed (assuming it was 
incorporated as a tax-exempt non-profit) would have tax-deductible status and 
would firmly be part of the Wikimedia Foundation. 

IMO, creating "sister" organizations is a bad idea for the reasons Jimbo gave.  
Plenty of organizations are international in nature so we should put our 
efforts into making Wikimedia into an international organization. 

Please everybody be patient though - the bylaws were only recently adopted and 
for all practical purposes the foundation is still just Jimbo. So until we 
have a full board of trustees things will continue to move slowly - Jimbo is 
only one person. 

I would suggest then for people to start to think about who they want to be on 
the board. I assume we will be having elections for that in the next month or 
so. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)