Chapters Committee/Members rationale
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The initial committee was organised by Łukasz Garczewski and Delphine Ménard and this rationale was presented to the board as support of the resolution asking for approval of the committee.
Rationale initial members of the Chapter committee[edit]
- Austin has always shown interest in the creation of a US chapter. His helping organize Wikimania in 2005 gave him a broad understanding of Foundation issues, as well as international Wikimedia issues. We've also chosen him for his technical skills which might prove in handy in setting up the tools for a working committee.
- Hari has been a constant contact for any enquiries about an Indian Chapter and is a long-time recognized Wikimedian. He is currently organizing a Kannada Press Conference about Wikipedia and has at heart the furthering of Wikimedia goals. Although the Indian Chapter has not taken off in any significant way yet, we believe he would be an asset with a different cultural background, to the Chapters committee.
- Nathan is relatively new to Wikimedia projects and already he's showing interest in chapter-related matters. He proposed the creation of an Australian Chapter and contributed largely to the further development of that idea. We view this as a "be bold" approach to chapter creation and thought such an active person would be a valuable addition to this committee.
- Łukasz is the president of Wikimedia Polska and as such, has an active record of asking good questions and giving interesting answers. Wikimedia Polska being the first "non-Western-European" chapter, we thought his input would give us an interesting overview of different ways of doing things. He is of course, interested in the Foundation matters as a whole.
- As local chapter coordinator until now, Delphine has a great deal of experience in this committee's area of interest, including assisting in and overseeing the creation of new chapters and managing day-to-day inter-Chapter/Foundation-Chapter communication.
We have also decided, to keep the committee to a working number, to cap for now the committee per se to these five people. However, we have asked two persons to act as advisors (ie. participate in the elaboration of resolutions and discussions):
- Andrew is a long time user in the English Wikipedia, professor at the University of Hong-kong, he has been involved in preliminary talks about the creation of a Chinese chapter and has a broad understanding of Foundation and international affairs of Wikimedia.
- Arne is the vice president of Wikimedia Deutschland and has very strong opinions about how chapters should be run. He has been involved since the beginning in the most successful chapter to this day. We thought his experience in the field would help the committee.