Wikimedia chapters are not only an example of what should not be seen in Wikimedia projects (an "institution[...], of any kind, [...] claiming to represent [...] individuals" [1]) they also absorb funds and hire people, pushing with more weight the goal to make money (a salaried person expects his/her salary to be increased by X % each year) which is different from what a volunteer based project should be.
They aslo are de facto put in a position where people expect them to perform decision making. It is already bad that they deprive the communities of a decision making of their own, and take volunteer seats at the WMF board of trustees, but they don't do the job. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:CC-AR-Presidency#Bad_template_for_new_files . If the chapters showed that they are helpful in doing things better than what volunteer communities alone can do, they could prove that they are useful. But I am afraid they are not doing this. If they are not present when we need them... [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content#7._Wikimedia_Projects_serve_the_Information_Needs_of_Individuals.2C_Not_Groups _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
