On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Nathan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
