Wikimedia South Africa/WMCON2012
Wikimedia South Africa was represented at the 2012 Wikimedia Conference in Berlin by David Richfield and Lourie Pieterse.
State of the chapters[edit]
The State of the Chapters presentations were given over all three days. Chapters in all states of development gave presentations. Focus was mainly on projects, with some notes on media coverage. The challenges of new and small chapters were mentioned, including fatigue of founder members and funding issues. Wikimedia South Africa presentation, set up by David and Lourie and presented by David is available in both PDF and video format. The summaries of each of the chapters of day 1, 2 and 3 are available online.
Fundraising and funds dissemination[edit]
This was a hot topic of the conference, especially on day 1 and 2. The board members had a question and answer session with the chapter representatives in which they explained their position, including that they will move forward towards setting up a funds dissemination committee, and that payment processing will almost certainly not be extended to other chapters, and that they don't see it as the way forward for the movement. Their reaction to the question about it reducing chapter autonomy was that getting fund through fundraisers on Wikimedia servers gives an illusion of autonomy, as that could in theory also be taken away.
The point that had been noted in the overview of the Paris finance discussion was made again that the WMF generally has no problem with chapters fundraising on their own outside of the WM project websites.
Lots of time was spent debating the wording of the draft Chapters Association charter, and a draft was agreed on. In the absence of an actual board, which is still to be voted on, Tomer Ashur (WMIL) was selected as the interim Chapters Council Secretary general. The agreement to found the association was split into two sections: a statement of intention to join the association, which was signed by twenty-six chapters, and a statement of support for the foundation, which was signed by another seven, including WM South Africa. We signed this one because it was not yet clear how the funding would work, and what our level of commitment would be. We will have the option to join after the constitution is finalized. Many of the larger chapters also made financial support available for the establishment of the association.
Chapter-selected board seats[edit]
The discussion on chapter-selected board seats was attended by 22 chapters. These discussions are continued on the chapter's mailing list.
Wiki Loves Monuments[edit]
Good support is available from chapters who have gone through the process before; notes are available at the Meta documentation page for the topic. We also had discussions with both Asaf and other chapters about supporting WMZA in this project should we need any help.
Train the Trainer[edit]
In side discussions with Asaf, the Train the Trainer event was revisited, and we agreed that it should continue ASAP. David will prepare training materials, and we will set dates. Lourie agreed to help if the events are to be over weekends.
Minority languages[edit]
The atmosphere during this discussion was very tense, as the participants mostly disagreed about the language model used. The discussions were based on the fact that the mission of the WMF is to provide free access to knowledge, and not help with language preservation. Details can be seen on the minutes page. We also had side discussions with Asaf about the model used for South Africa and a possible reevaluation of this model.
Chapter launch[edit]
The launch of WMZA was also discussed with Asaf in detail. He said that the WMF is more than happy to help us out with financial and material support to make this event happen. We should come back to him with the details regarding our ideas for the launch, whereafter he will wire the money to one of us directly should we not have a bank account set up.