[Foundation-l] Chapters

Tue Aug 30 08:03:36 UTC 2011

On 08/29/11 1:55 AM, Lodewijk wrote:
> John is unfortunately right. The (currently not publicly available as I
> understand) draft includes clauses that require every chapter that receives
> a grant to abide all US law, including but not exclusively US anti terrorism
> laws and trade bans (unless a court has ruled that... etc). This puts imho
> chapters in an awkward position - being forced to follow laws they cannot
> reasonably know about unless they hire expensive expertise.

It's the essence of imperialism.  It is also conceivable that such a 
clause could be invalid in some countries. Certainly chapters faced with 
such a clause will need independent legal advice within their own 
countries.  In many ways the presence of different laws in some 
countries should be used to our an advantage. This also fails to address 
the  consequences of a chapter's refusal to abide by a US law that was 
not directly specified in the agreement.
>
> It may be a logical consequence for the WMF giving out these grants (I don't
> know but wouldn't be surprised if i.e. Ford Foundation has similar
> requirements), but it clearly is a nasty side effect of the choice of the
> board to no longer allow chapters to fundraise.

How can they stop chapters from fundraising? They can certainly stop 
chapters from participating in the WMF's fundraising campaign, but they 
will still have no control over a chapter's own fundraising programmes.
>
> Because although it is claimed differently (and although Thomas seems to
> hope differently) the interpretation by the staff is clearly that no chapter
> except WMDE should fundraise - no matter how hard they work to improve.

In these circumstances hoping that something will be interpreted 
differently is not good enough.
>
> The exact reason for this seems to be vague to me. I really do hope the
> board will step forth and makes clear what their reasoning was and is - and
> doesn't hide behind staff (board members who already did so are being
> appreciated, but I'm still missing important voices). Is the reason really
> transparency? Is it about transferring money? Because that is important, but
> (sometimes easily) fixable. Or is the reasoning you don't like the projects
> the chapters work on? Because *then* we should have a discussion about that,
> and not hide behind non-reasons.
>

I agree.  The directors need to be more pro-active with their points of 
view. They need to be trying for a negotiated settlement.  They need to 
recognize that the people most concerned with this turn of events are 
ones who have been consistent strong volunteer supporters of Wikimedia 
for many years.

Ray