[Foundation-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch chapter - some background and more

Tue Apr 25 12:29:30 UTC 2006

On 25-apr-2006, at 13:13, Delphine Ménard wrote:

> A Vereniging is a member organisation, much on the model of all other
> Wikimedia Chapters. Its board is elected by the general assembly, made
> up of members who pay their fees to be part of the organisation.

Correct. Therefore a large group of users was in favor of a vereniging.

> Note
> that members *have* to be part of the Wikimedia projects to be members
> of the organisation. Which, if anything, puts the power in the hands
> of *the community*.

No, *anybody* can be a member of the Dutch vereniging.
You don't have to be a contributor to one of the projects.

> A Stichting is a Foundation, much on the model of our Wikimedia
> Foundation. It has a board that is appointed. One of the members of
> this board is appointed by the Verijniging. The reason given for the
> founding of this Stichting is that in NL, sponsors, and particularly
> governement or other big non-profit organisation, are less enclined
> handing out large sums of money to member organisations, as their
> "stability" is not as important as that of Stichting.

Well, that is the POV of RonaldB, but of course it is nonsense.
We have a very large and respected vereniging of car-owners here,  
called ANWB, plus a vereniging for municipalities (VNG), and on the  
other hand we have very obscure stichtingen as well.

> As I understand it, the Vereniging will be the primary point of entry
> for any deals with sponsors that may come to Wikimedia Nederland,

I don't think so.

> the Stichting will be used as a "buffer" for great-scale projects
> involving lots of money, potentially employing people etc..

No, the stichting will engage in *all* kinds of projects.
Not necessarily tied to the Wikimedia Foundation.

> Chapters, whatever their form, color or shape, are not responsible for
> the content of Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia projects. Never. Ever.

Well, RonaldB wanted to change that, and probably still wants to.

> At best, they will increase the pool of editors through promotion for
> the projects.

Neither the Dutch vereniging nor the stichting is devoted to the  
projects solely.
Primarily they are to promote the acquisition and release of free and/ 
or free accessible information in any manner, be it within or without  
the Florida based Foundation.

[...]

> Pretending the contrary is mixing oil and water. It simply does not
> work.

You can pretty well mix oil and water.  ;-) It is called an emulsion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emulsion

> As far as the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation is
> concerned, the bylaws of both the Vereniging and the Stichting are
> very clear, and leave no room for interpretation as to whether either
> is ever going to take over the Wikimedia projects. They are not.

The bylaws of the vereniging explicitly states they won't.
The bylaws of the stichting don't. They simply state the stichting  
will pursue its objectives by all legal means.

> *Backing down* from the founding process and *then* criticizing,

As I have pointed out before, I was forced to back down because the  
next meeting would be for board-members only.

> is,
> in my opinion, definitely not constructive. There is a wiki, it is
> open, there is an organisation, you can become a member.

You can become a member of a toothless and pennyless vereniging,  
while the stichting has the power and the money.

> The best you
> can start with is making sure you have a voice in the Vereniging to
> change things from the inside.

You can't. The vereniging has no power whatsoever.
It can't control the stichting. (It has only one representative there.)
On the other hand the stichting could easily pay for some sockpuppets  
who would then control the vereniging.

+++ Muijz

Met vriendelijke groet,
Erik van den Muijzenberg, medewerker Wikipedia
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Wikipedia is een online encyclopedie in het vrije domein.
De Nederlandstalige versie bevat meer dan 150 duizend
artikelen. U vindt deze op: http://nl.wikipedia.org/