Chapters Committee/Resolutions/Advice about a potential Wikimedia Chapter in Catalonia - April 2010

Background edit

  • The people behind a potential Wikimedia Català chapter already have started an association, called Associació d'Amics de la Viquipèdia (Associations of friends of Wikipedia), which they intended as a placeholder until the chapters committee and the Wikimedia Foundation board gave their approval for a full-fledged chapter.
  • Support in the Catalan community, as far as we can judge, is extremely important and present. Thus the chapters committee can attest that the requirement that a chapter needs to be anchored in the editing community of Wikimedia projects has been fulfilled.
  • The "application" of Wikimedia Catala is complete and detailled.
  • Associació d'Amics de la Viquipèdia is based in Andorra. But few of the people in this association actually reside in Andorra.
  • The bylaws proposed by Associació d'Amics de la Viquipèdia fulfill most requirement for a chapter. It bars their focus on language, culture and territories already covered by other chapters namely:Wikimédia France and Wikimedia Italia.
  • 70-80% of the members are from Spain and the rest seems to stem from France and Andorra.

Discussion edit

The discussion among members of the chapters committee with other chapters representatives, board members and anyone who has been interested in the matter of wikimedia Catala as well as with the people from Associació d'Amics de la Viquipèdia has been long and thorough. The chapters committee met with the Catalans and various emails were exchanged in which several points of view were advanced. The reality of the Catalan case is that in the state of guidelines and requirements for wikimedia chapters, the case of a chapter which geographical boundary overlaps with that of a chapter which focus is clearly on one language and one culture rather than on all wikimedia projects is not addressed by any practical solution. Considering the state of things as they are today, the chapters committee came to the following decisions:

Decision of the chapters committee edit

Since the requirements for the establishment of a chapter are not fulfilled, specifically, the organization is not geographically based/anchored in a legal jurisdiction that is identical to the declared scope of their activities, the Chapters Committee does not recommend that Associació d'Amics de la Viquipèdia be approved as a Wikimedia chapter.

The chapters committee encourages the Catalan organization to pursue collaboration with Wikimedia organizations and is willing to provide support in that effort.

  Resolution passed at unanimity during the Chapters committee meeting in Berlin, at the Chapters meeting, on April 15th 2010. Decision sent to the board on May 21st 2010.