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)