[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch chapter

Mon Apr 24 20:21:11 UTC 2006

On 24-apr-2006, at 10:22, oscar wrote:
in 5 meetings, see
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Ontmoeten/Plaatsgevonden the  
ideas
concerning the founding of the dutch chapter took their final form.  
these
meetings have been open to everyone and have been announced well  
before they
actually took place, and were each attended by various wikians, both  
from
holland and from belgium. it was finally agreed upon by those  
present, that
2 organizations would suit the dutch situation best, and would give  
maximum
possibilities of being active and to apply for funding in holland;  
both an
association (see: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten_VWN_%28en%29  
and a
foundation, see: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten_SWN_%28en%29 were
founded - see also http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statuten/Reglement_FAQ,
translation not complete yet).

since the creation of these, negative comments have bursted from a  
limited
number of wikipedians, rather loudly advocating their mistrust in the
chapter and the people involved.

etc. etc. etc.

I am afraid Oscar is misleading the members of this list again.

1) At first GerardM wanted a Dutch foundation with raising money for  
the Florida based foundation as its sole purpose.
However, stirred by a remark by Jimbo, a lot of Dutch users wanted an  
organization that had social aspects as well and could organize  
meetings and engage in other activities, all democratically  
controlled. For that a Dutch association was better. It is more  
democratic, and would therefore suit us better, as the wiki's are  
more or less democratic too.
On the other hand RonaldB had this idea that a foundation would be  
better at raising money.

At the meeting I attended (November 11th, 2005) RonaldB kept pushing  
and pushing his idea until everybody got bored, and we finally gave  
in and decided there would be a Dutch association, as was the wish of  
a majority of users, *plus* a Dutch foundation as was the wish of  
less than a handful of users.
The foundation *would be created by the association*, ensuring a  
somewhat democratic process. Oscar was very much in favor of that.

Now this foundation apparently has no longer the sole purpose of  
raising money. It will be the main organization, together with a  
toothless and money lacking association for the social aspects. The  
interaction of the two organizations is unclear to me, but apparently  
the association will be more or less at the mercy - at least  
financially speaking - of the foundation.
As this is not what the Dutch users intended, a lot of them - not  
just a small group as Oscar is suggesting here - feel betrayed.

2) Also the meetings were not all that open. For instance: the  
meeting after the one I attended would be for the new board-members  
only. At the wish of one of them they also decided in a split-second  
that they would constitute themselves out of a group of would-be  
board-members, *without an election or other democratic process*.
As I felt me being in a board together with GerardM would probably be  
not a good idea (Muijz winks at Jimbo), I decided to quit the process  
there. Much to my surprise I later on discovered there had been  
several meetings after that one, and RonaldB had pushed there his  
idea of creating a foundation *without* any democratic procedure at all.
(And RonaldB got his undemocratic way, again.)

To me the whole affair is a classic example of board-members not  
listening to the community they are to represent. They rather feel  
the users should listen to them. (!)

Returning the complaints by simply accusing the Dutch community, only  
leads to more mistrust and more complaints - as always. And the pure  
speculations of a board member about the nature of the complaints,  
and about concerted action - as far as I am aware of there is none -  
won't stop those either.

What also did not help the process was all information being put on a  
special wiki and to be discussed solely *there*. The reason being  
that Media-NL was and should not be limited to the Pedia alone.
While this is theoretically true, it only served as an extra barrier  
between the new board and the users. The Dutch community is simply  
too small for a lot of wiki's; our WikiNews for instance is more or  
less braindead and the other projects don't flourish either. De  
facto, Wikipedia-NL is the only flourishing community here. There  
probably would have been less complaints and less mistrust had the  
Dutch board-members not so strictly adhered to their rules - even  
refusing to discuss matters at the vilage-pump of Wikipedia-NL.

+++ Muijz