[Foundation-l] A local chapter without Wikimedians

Mon Nov 24 16:03:49 UTC 2008

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> The question is, if the characterization of the Wikimedia Brasil is accurate
> (i.e. comprised mainly of non-editors, hostile to editors, authoritarian to
> the extent of banning discussion of chapter composition and goals, etc.)
> what can be done? The answer may be nothing at all, and its possible (in
> light if Jimmy's email) that there is a misunderstanding at the source of
> this problem.

Sorry for going off-topic. Nathan's characterization might almost be
too optimistic about the situation. First off, we don't have enough
information about anything: We don't know whether one member is being
disenfranchised, or if a whole class of users is being
disenfranchised. If people are truly being harassed, we don't know
what the actual motivations of that harassment are. We don't know if
low levels of Wikimedian involvement is indicative of a negative
attitude towards them, or a membership apathy on their part. Whenever
there are two sides to a story, neither of them are usually the
complete truth. In short, we can't make any kind of a decision here
because we don't have enough information.

Beyond that, there is no requirement that a chapter must contain a
certain percentage of wikimedians, or that they not be authoritarian
in nature, or that they treat their wikimedian members in any
particular way. These are judgement calls that can be made when they
are warranted, but not strict requirements in any sense. If
non-wikimedians are more numerous and more active then wikimedians are
in the chapter, they will be able to exercise more influence over the
chapter's operations, possibly acting contra to the way the
wikimedians would like things to go. Is this situation necessarily a
"bad" thing for a chapter?

If it is bad, at least in this case, there isn't much that can be
done. The disenfranchised Wikimedians could organize their own chapter
group and petition the Chapcom/Foundation to remove chapters status
from the old group and give it to the new, but that is going to be
very difficult and time-consuming, and I don't recommend that as a
primary course of action in any case. Chapcom isn't going to recommend
a group loses it's chapter status to the Foundation just because some
of it's members cannot get along. If the chapter truly doesn't
represent the interests of the foundation, we could remove their
status as a chapter but that won't have much of an effect, especially
if most of their members are already not wikimedians and if they
choose to fight the issue legally.

--Andrew Whitworth