Wikimedia Israel/Questions raised

These are some of the answers from the chapters committee. Other questions will be answered separately.

Questions raised

Trademarks and logos

Are Wikimedia Foundation's logos and trademarks protected in Israel? If not, we should hurry up and register the Amuta, as the name "Wikimedia Israel" could be "hijacked". Once the name is registered, another Amuta with a similar name would be rejected.

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Who can join the chapter

Who could join the chapter? Will membership be limited to Israeli residents? Should we prevent the membership of corporations? Could the chapter reject a membership request even if it meets the basic criteria?

It's up to you, who may join the chapter. We recommend to make as less restrictions as possible. In general everybody who shares the vision and wants to support the mission of Wikimedia should be able to join.

None of the existing chapters has membership restriction regarding the state of residence. Actually there are people with a chapter in their country, who are member of a different chapter. Some people are even member of more than one chapter. In practice these cases will be rare, but there might be good reasons for individuals to do so.

There is nothing against corporations becoming a member of a chapter. Perhaps it would be wise to restrict their influence. Some chapters decided that corporations can't become regular members (no voting rights).

It seems to be common practice to have a clause in the bylaws that allows the organisation to reject a membership application.

Chapter supporter status

Should we have an additional status of "chapter-supporter" rather than a full member? This might be a solution to underage Wikipedians or Wikipedians who wishes to keep their anonymity to some extent.

Yes, this is a very good idea. This said, it is not so much whether you "should", as the Foundation is not here to dictate what kind of members you want to have, but whether you "could". Whatever your legal system allows you to do should be explored to ensure the widest support , both from wikimedians and outside people.

Limiting the language scope

Can we limit the goals of the chapter to promoting activities related to Wikimedia's projects in the official languages of Israel? The number of languages spoken in Israel is around 30, 10 of them are widely spoken, but there are only 2 official languages (Hebrew and Arabic). A local chapter might not be able to handle demands to support activities in any language spoken in Israel.

Technically it's possible to limit your activities to some languages. But we don't see any reason to do so. Even if you won't say a word about languages in your bylaws, it's only logical that most (if not all) your activities are related to the official or widely spoken languages. But you never know... Thinking about hardware to speed up the Wikimedia projects in Israel, do you want to limit them to local languages?

Financial support

Does Wikimedia Foundation offer financial support, if needed, to the first steps of the chapter's establishment?

Yes, if you can convince the chapters committee that you really need it.

Site notice

Can we use the Hebrew Wikipedia's sitenotice or another similar platform for fundraising or other notices concerning the chapter?

This question is under discussion. It seems likely that this will be possible, but we are trying to come up with the best overall solution. There are many wikipedias which do not address just one territory (and chapter=territory) so this has to be thought up very carefully.

Separation chapter/WMF

While the Foundation-chapter agreement explicitly states that the parties are separate entities, the Israeli law might see the local chapter as the proper address for sending lawsuits against the Foundation, or for other legal purposes, for the very reasons that it uses its logos and keeps constant communication with it. Is the Foundation aware of that, and what is the policy towards proper conduct in such cases?

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