Wiki Northeast

The Philosopher of the Wiki-Conference

2009-09-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

R. Stuart Geiger has a great blog post out on our recent Wiki-Conference New York.

He really gets all the weird and wonderful things we tried to do, which is amazing.

And good luck to WikiConference Bay Area!

Jimmy Wales Video at Wiki-Conference New York

2009-08-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

A big thanks to the 100 or so attendees who joined us at Wiki-Conference New York, which we organized recently with Wikimedia New York City and Free Culture @ NYU at NYU Law School.

Our first video out is of Jimmy Wales' Keynote, where he touched on the general state of Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, as well as the Biographies of Living Persons problem and Ann Coulter's surprising concerns, and also fielded several interesting questions from the audience.

Many more videos of the other presentations should be on the way, including our other Keynote, which went further into the BLP issue.

See the Opening Remarks and Keynote here:

Video of Jimmy Wales Keynote at Wiki-Conference New York

Organizers in China

2009-07-31T02:55:00.000-07:00

Chapcom has just received word this morning that some interested volunteers are starting to organize a new chapter in China. This is very exciting news and I hope sincerely that this group is successful in their attempts and will be able to submit an application soon.

Information is slim at the moment, I will post more as I learn it

Wikimedia Finland

2009-07-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

This morning the ChapCom has received an official application from a group of organizers in Finland. I haven't had a chance to read over the bylaws just yet, but if everything goes well we could have a WMF Finland chapter by the end of the year.

WM Ukraine, Denmark, Portugal

2009-07-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

There hasn't been a lot of chapcom-related news recently because there hasn't been a lot of chapcom-related activity.

However, we've received word this morning that the WMF Board has approved applications from WM Ukraine, WM Portugal, and WM Denmark. Three new chapters, quite exciting!

The application from WM Macedonia is still slowly making it's way through the pipeline, and I'll try to get news about that as soon as there is anything to report.

Wiki-Conference New York in July

2009-06-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

The 1st Wiki-Conference New York will be held over the weekend of July 25-26 2009 (confirmed!) at New York University, and hosted by Free Culture @ NYU and Wikimedia New York City.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will be giving a keynote, and we will also have a second keynote speaker TBA.

Since this is an unconference, participants are encouraged to give your own ideas for topic sessions!

This is also a great opportunity for people who aren't so wiki-savvy to get a fun introduction. All are most certainly welcome.

Oh yeah, and we're having the Central Park picnic again too!

Register here:

http://bit.ly/wikiny

Wiki-Conference New York

2009-06-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

The folks at WM NYC are planning a mini-conference this summer, Wiki-Conference New York. Similar in spirit, but smaller in scale then Wikimania, it will serve as a great alternative for people like myself who can't make the trip to Buenos Aires, and can't take a whole week off for a big conference. Dates aren't set yet, but the planning is going ahead at full steam.

I'll post more details as they get nailed down, but if you're going to be in the New York area this summer, it would be a cool event to attend. I hope to see a lot of other Wikimedians there.

Wikimedia Canada Bylaws

2009-06-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

The first draft of the Canada group's bylaws have been posted on meta. This is a pretty big step, and I am sincerely hopeful that we will see a Canadian chapter formed and approved sometime in 2009.

Wikimedia Ukraine

2009-05-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

Short update today. The chapcom has received notification today that that group in Ukraine has had their first general meeting and elected a board of directors.

As a short disclaimer, the Ukraine group has not yet been approved as a chapter by the WMF board and has not signed the chapters agreement, so they are not yet a "chapter". When and if that status changes, I will write about it here.

Wikimedia Macedonia

2009-05-12T04:47:00.001-07:00

I've just received word that the organizers from Macedonia have completed their bylaws and submitted them to the Chapters Committee for approval. Assuming the Chapcom approves the bylaws as-is, we could end up with a Macedonia chapter in the not-too-distant future.

Wikimedia UK Board Meeting

2009-05-11T14:40:00.001-07:00

The next WM UK online board meeting will held tomorrow on IRC. Here's the announcement from the mailing list:

The next board meeting is tomorrow evening; Tuesday 12 May 2009,
8.30-10.30BST, in the #wikimedia-uk-board channel on
irc.freenode.net, with discussion in #wikimedia-uk. The draft agenda
is at:

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2009-05-12/Agenda

Board members: please confirm whether you'll be present or not on the agenda page.

As they have done in previous meetings, they will be hosting two channels: One that is for board members only and one that will be open for all community members to participate. I think this is a particularly good system so that the board can get business done in an open and timely manner, and the community still has a forum to voice their opinions/concerns.

Trip to Norfolk VA

2009-05-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a trip down to Norfolk Virgina to meet some people that I'm doing some Wikimedia-related work with. I'll be in town on May 30th and 31st, although we will be doing some planning work for most of the time. Are there any Wikimedians in the area that would be interested in meeting up while I'm in town?

Wikimedia India Planning Meeting

2009-05-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

Just got the first news back this morning about the Wikimedia India Planning meeting. Apparently it was a good success, and the team looks like they have a solid plan in place going forward.

Information is scarce right now, and I'll report more as I have it.

I want to post a big "Thank You" to Achal Prabhala for organizing this whole thing in person, something the ChapCom could probably not have done by itself. I also want to thank the rest of the WMF staff members who have been making an Indian chapter such a high priority.

Here's hoping that all this good momentum finally produces a strong and active Indian Chapter!

Wikimedia Chapters Agreement

2009-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

We've received word today from Mike Godwin, chief legal council of the WMF, that the first draft of the new Wikimedia Chapters agreement is nearing completion, and parts have been posted on the internal wiki to solicit feedback from the existing chapters.

I haven't read the new agreement yet myself (I will soon) and I probably don't feel comfortable talking about the details until we get closer to an "official" version of it, but I can say that from what I've heard it's going to be a huge step forward in the way the WMF and the chapters interact. I hear tell that the document is longer and more legally precise, which is going to help immensely with many of the common questions and uncertaintys that were present in the old "classic" chapters agreement.

I don't currently know how the new agreement is to be rolled out, whether existing chapters will have to sign the new agreement or not. Again, I haven't read it and probably won't give out any details till it's time.

So things are moving forward in the world of WMF chapters, and that's always a good thing.

Wikimedia UK Pictures

2009-04-27T06:01:00.001-07:00

Short update to my post from yesterday about WM UK. Apparently some pictures of the meeting have been posted on Flickr. Very cool stuff, and it's good to see so many people getting involved.

As a general note: If you have chapters-related news that you want me to post here on this blog, please send it to me and I'll be happy to post it.

Wikimedia UK in 2009

2009-04-26T17:18:00.001-07:00

Just received word that Wikimedia UK has elected a new board of directors:

Zeyi He
Thomas Holden
Michael Peel
Joseph Seddon
Andrew Turvey
Steve Virgin
Paul Williams

There has been some bad news this week too with their legal situation, apparently there have been some setbacks in becoming a registered charity. Hopefully it's just a small delay however, and I'll post more details as I get them.

Wikipedia Invades La Plata Natural History Museum

2009-04-25T06:01:00.000-07:00

Heard a press release today about Wikimedia Argentina participating in a photo scavenger hunt, similar to the "Wiki Loves Art" event that WM NYC has done in the past. More evidence that the activity is really a great idea, and there is so much potential for Wikimedia chapters to get involved with local museums to benefit the open-content movement.

Wikimedia Argentina is the same group that's working hard to organize Wikimania 2009, so they're a busy little group. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of events and activities they organize in the future.

Wikimedia Portugal

2009-04-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

We've received notice today that Wikimedia Portugal has posted an English-language translation of their new bylaws on Meta, and have submitted them to Chapcom for initial review. I'll post more information about this as the situation progresses.

WM Denmark

2009-04-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier today the Chapcom received bylaws from a new group in Denmark. Check out their bylaws on Meta. We're waiting on some more information from them before we start a formal review. I'll post more information as we have it.

Wikimedia Ukraine

2009-04-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

I've just received word that a new group from Ukraine has posted their bylaws on Meta. The Chapcom has just gotten them, so I can't say what the committee will say, but it's possible that we could have a new WM Ukraine chapter in 2009.

Wikimedia Macau

2009-03-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

Just saw a note on Meta, but it looks like things are moving forward in Macau. Chapcom hasn't heard anything from them yet, but if things are progressing so quickly, I'm sure we'll be hearing from them soon.

Global Chapters Updates

2009-03-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

Some assorted mini-updates:

We've received some communication from a new group in Macedonia who appear to be well on their way to forming a new chapter. I'll post more updates about this group as I get them.
Good progress is being made in India. Sue Gardner has made the formation of an Indian chapter a major priority, and has been putting a lot of time and energy into it's creation. Advisory board member Achal Prabhala has gotten involved as a serious facilitator for the new group, and has been doing amazing work getting the ball rolling. Hopefully we have more news to report on this in the coming weeks.
Wikimedia Indonesia is growing and is going public soon with a press conference. I'll get more details about this soon.
A few other groups have been in contact with the chapcom, but it's too early for me to talk about any of them yet. Suffice it to say that we could have a pretty good year in terms of adding new chapters if even half of the communications we've received turn into something real.

Philadelphia Committee Meeting Recap

2009-03-16T07:23:00.001-07:00

Last night was the seventh Philadelphia meetup. The word "meetup" is actually a misnomer because it wasn't the normal social meet-and-eat get together that the previous Philly meetups had been. The name for these kinds of events will probably be "Philadelphia Committee Meetings" in the future, and the word "meetup" can stay reserved for the informal social gatherings that so many of us have come to enjoy.

Last night we had a small group, just 5 Wikimedians for the bulk of the meeting and only 4 at the dinner portion. Despite small numbers, we were very productive and managed to lay out a general gameplan for the future. The goal seems to be that we want to hold some kind of major event every 2-3 months, and punctuate those with more regular but smaller events as well (meetups, Wiki Acadamies, etc).

Our first event is going to be a local take on the popular "Wikis Take Manhattan" that WM-NYC has done. Our version, Wikis Take Philadelphia, is tenatively scheduled for May 16th. We're still in early planning stages, but we are hoping to be able to plan an awesome event in the next two months. We're looking for volunteers to help execute it, teams to participate in it, and friends to help get the word out. I'll post more details about the event as we do more planning.

We're also looking for other activity opportunities, and like-minded organizations in the city that we can parner with to execute bigger events. If you know any people or groups that fit this bill, I would love to hear from you!

Philadelphia Meetup

2009-03-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend, there will be a meetup in Philadelphia for interested Wikimedians. Details are located at Wikipedia. The meetup will start on March 15th at 3PM at Drexel University.

This isn't just a normal meetup, it's the first meetup of Philadelphia Wikimedians as part of the new Wikimedia New York chapter. The Philadelphia area is part of the NYC chapter, and there is the potential for us to create our own regional committee to get Philadelphians involved in the chapter's activities. This is quite a cool opportunity, and I look forward to seeing a lot of our local friends attend.

In other chapters news, there has been some scattered talk about a Mexico chapter forming, and a few communications have even come in to the Chapcom. If you are from Mexico and know anything about this effort or have any thoughts about it, I would love to hear from you. Send me an email or leave a comment here on this blog with any information.

Chapcom Blogging, and News

2009-03-01T06:46:00.001-08:00

The issue of creating and maintaining a blog has been mentioned to the Chapcom, and some of the members there seem pretty agreeable to the idea. I don't know if it's going to happen, but it would be a great way to open the committee up to outside inspection and increase communication bandwidth between us and the rest of Wikimedia.

Some other committee members have mentioned that I could share some news on this blog, so long as I make it clear what information is my personal opinions and which is supported by the entire committee. To start off this new found freedom, Here is a (partial) list of countries and groups that myself or the Chapcom has heard from recently. If you live in one of these areas, please send me a message to let me know about it. Also, if you're working on creating a new chapter, but aren't listed here, send a message to me or to the Chapcom to let us know about you.

Catalan language region (portions of Spain, France, Italy and Andorra). I've talked about this group before, and will likely have more to say about them in the future.
Mexico
Canada
India

I've heard rumors about a few other groups existing, but no firm confirmations of that. If you are working to create a new chapter and your group is not listed here, please contact me or the Chapcom ASAP! Seriously, you want us to get involved as early as possible so we can help, support, and guide you.

Wikimedia Canada

2009-02-05T06:53:00.001-08:00

Lots of mailing-list discussion about Wikimedia Canada in the last two days. They had been in an organizational lull for a few weeks, but it seems they are starting to wake up from that. Any Wikimedians who are in Canada should join Wikimediaca-l and participate in the discussion. Maybe 2009 will be the year we get a Canadian chapter? I hope so.

Wikimedia New York City

2009-01-15T06:48:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce (and frankly a little surprised that I'm the first) that Wikimedia New York City has been approved by the WMF board and is now an official chapter. This is the first subnational chapter created since the Board put out a missive last year specifically allowing such chapters to be created. A working group was created to deal with any potential issues that might pop up with the new type of chapter, but so far no such issues have manifested themselves.

The new paradigm of subnational chapters has already spurred renewed interest from dormant groups such as organizers in India. Organizers in India had tried previously to put together a national chapter but failed for a number of logistical reasons. Now, organizers seem to be putting together state- and city-based groups instead and (from what information I hear through the grapevine) are having good success with it. I'd be interested to hear if other groups are having more success, motivation, and momentum in organizing new chapters now that subnational chapters are possible?

Wikimedia New York City is the first US chapter, although hopefully it won't be the last. For those who are not aware, the bylaws of WMNYC extend it's geographical boundaries beyond the city limits: they specifically mention covering the rest of New York state, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania as well. Any Wikimedians in those areas, including people who had previously expressed interest in a PA chapter, should really consider joining WMNYC and getting involved in their activities. I'll be sure to post information as I receive it about meetings and activities held by this new chapter.

9 Chapter Goals For '09

2009-01-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

If we achieve 8 out of 9 of these things, we'll have a pretty damn good 2009. Any less, and we're utter failures.

1. Incorporate Wikimedia New York City, after WMF approval.

2. Wikipedia Loves Art museum photography event in February is a smashing success.

3. Form regional committees of Wikimedia New York City in areas like New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

4. Wikis Take Manhattan street photography event in the Fall is a smashing success (again).

5. Teach Wikipedia classes at the New York Public Library.

6. Bring an important reference work into copylefted Wikimedia content.

7. Take one small step to the day when every cultural institution will have a "Wiki Department".

8. Further our alliance with local Free Culture groups.

9. Host a "Wiki-Conference New York" for 100-200 people in the Summer, in conjunction with our 3rd annual WikNYC Picnic.

The Year in Allies

2008-12-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

"Wikimedia has friends". This is I think the most important lesson we've learned at our Wikimedia NYC chapter-in-formation over the past year.

Us Wikimedians are an eclectic and disparate bunch, but when we organize on a local level, some interesting possibilities open up; e.g. Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 1, Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 2 (Wikis Take Manhattan), and Wikipedia Loves Art. This is not so much because of great efforts on our part, but rather that our ordinary experience as Wikimedians gives us the skill-set to enable outside parties to contribute to the projects in unique and exciting ways. As community gatekeepers, we hold the key for institutions who need only a helping local hand to get started in this work.

All Wikimedians should be conscious they are part of a broader movement, the Free Culture movement, itself a kissing cousin to the Free Software movement. And we're not a peripheral part of this movement either, but we are almost certainly the most successful Free Culture project in existence. This is in spite of, or maybe even because of, the fact that the great majority of our workaday contributors are not yet activists on these issues.

This is a movement of many faces, including of course Creative Commons, but the standout for us at Wikimedia NYC has been Students for Free Culture, with their particular enthusiasm and numbers of activists. We have worked with the Free Culture chapters at Columbia and NYU, but there are chapters all over, and likely in your city as well. These dedicated student activists with their weekly meetings are determined to get things done, and to do it all in fun and creative ways. And they are great friends of Wikimedia.

Forming a working relationship with your local Free Culture chapter is a great way to jump-start your local Wikimedia activities. These clubs have always been gracious and open to me and other local Wikimedians, and they have always considered our proposals. These students have an admirable industriousness, and they are always actively looking for new projects. If you engage with them seriously, they are likely to embrace your project and will be glad to work together with you closely, almost as a virtual Wikimedia chapter. Indeed, they are more effective than us Wikimedians on many counts, hard-working, anxious to engage with the broader world, and better activists generally.

I cannot praise these good people enough. And indeed, with Wikimedia NYC we have consciously tried to adapt their activist model for our own chapter-in-formation.

And engaging with groups like the Free Culture clubs can be an important step in laying the groundwork for working with more institutional actors. With our work with great folks at The Open Planning Project, we found ourselves engaged with a group that is halfway in the Free Culture movement, but that also has a broader focus as a non-profit. And recently we've taken a further step toward the establishment in working with the fabulous Brooklyn Museum, a big institution with a progressive heart, that is now making its first steps into the Free Culture world.

(And, if you have problems contacting your local Free Culture chapter, don't be discouraged; usually with a little detective work you can get clued into the right person's e-mail)

Chapters in 2009

2008-12-19T14:54:00.001-08:00

Chapcom has received it's first sub-national chapter application (from New York City), although a final decision is probably not expected until the new year. The WMF board's next meeting in in January, and they are expected to decide on the application from the UK, and maybe the application from NYC if the chapcom can make a decision on it by then.

The UK's application is a little bit tricky because the resolution would require that the old defunct UK chapter be un-recognized first, and then the new chapter be recognized. I don't want to make any guesses about how the board is going to deal with this issue, but the Chapcom approved the measure so it' probably can't be a total wash.

2009 could be the year of sub-national chapters, and already I've heard interest from a number of groups who think that sub-national is the way to go. I'm hearing about renewed interest from India, where an effort to create national chapter was all but abandoned in 2007. I've heard from some people in Canada who say that sub-national chapters might be the way forward for them too, since their efforts at a national chapter have since stalled out.

Are there any other groups I haven't heard about that are pursuing a sub-national chapter?

Wikimedia New York City makes a move

2008-12-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

I'd like to update you folks on our Wikimedia New York City group, an applicant chapter hopeful to be accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation in representing and coordinating the efforts of contributors and volunteers from the Greater New York metropolitan area, a region home to some 19 million souls, or approximately 7% of the total population of the United States.

We've just filed our application with the Chapters Committee, and this presents some special issues, as we are the first sub-national group (excepting perhaps Hong Kong) to seek to organize as Wikimedians at this level, as well as the first applicant chapter of any sort in the United States. We hope that we can work with the members of the Chapters Committee, as well as Andrew, Erik, and Kat on the sub-national chapters working group, to come to answers for the unanticipated questions that may arise during this process.

The occasion for application is the completion of the draft of our bylaws, and the concurrent organization of an interim board for our group.

I thought I should also give a little background on our group, and what our activities have been. I think it is important that have not been merely biding our time waiting on the Chapters Committee to help us (though that help is greatly appreciated), but have made genuine efforts to reach out to our local community and prove ourselves as an organization. We have done this outreach though a series of events, including bimonthly Wikimedian meetings at Columbia University, but importantly also in several events reaching out to non-Wikimedians, and in budding contacts with fellow local cultural groups and institutions.

In particular, we have been strengthened by our partnerships with the Free Culture Columbia and Free Culture NYU student groups, as well as the local non-profit The Open Planning Project, in organizing the photo scavenger hunts "Wikipedia Takes Manhattan" and "Wikis Take Manhattan" (see video) in April and October of 2008, and we hope to hold similar events in future.

We are also currently partnering with the Brooklyn Museum, a leading local art museum with a distinctly progressive view on the world, in our successor "Wikipedia Loves Art" photo event, scheduled for February 2009, and which is now also being extended to museums in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and London. We also have many other project ideas on our plate, and it is my hope that with our joining the international club of Wikimedia chapters we can move on to bigger and better things yet.

Chapters November Update

2008-11-18T16:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick update about the current world of chapters.

The new Wikimedia UK group is really moving along well now, and are making great progress. They have weekly meetings on Tuesday at 20:30UTC in #wikimedia-uk and #wikimedia-uk-board on freenode. They've been in close contact with Chapcom, and are on their way to becoming a chapter soon.
The group in New York city is doing really well also and had a large meeting last weekend that, unfortunately, I was not able to attend. Kat did, however, and gave them lots of new information and answered a few questions. The ardent observer will notice that the current draft of their bylaws includes not only the state of New York, but also New Jersey and Connecticut as well. Looks like this could be shaping up to be a true "Wiki Northeast", especially if they grew any larger. There are fledgling groups both here in Philadelphia and in Boston who might do well to be added to this larger whole.
Chapcom added a few new members a while back, among them Michael Bimmler (formerly an advisor to the committee) and PrivateMusings. PrivateMusings was added to the chapter as a "communications advisor", in hopes that he could increase our communications with the outside world and manage some of our processes. Both of these two have been doing amazing work, streamlining our processes and helping to keep the committee organized. These aren't the only new additions we've added lately, but there has been a lot of confusion and delay in getting our other appointees confirmed, so these two are the only ones who have had a chance to do anything with the committee. Anyway, things are looking up!

That's all I have for now, but I'm trying to get into a more regular blogging schedule here so I'll dig deeper for news if I have to.

Two new chapters

2008-10-08T05:19:00.000-07:00

Business between the Chapcom and the Board have been a little bit slower lately, because the chapcom liason to the board, Frieda, has recently resigned. I haven't heard yet about whether there will be a replacement for this position (which I hope there is). I also haven't heard yet whether any of the new Chapcom members have been approved by the board. Prior to getting this approval, I'm not going to announce here who all has been added to the chapcom.

We have heard news that two new chapters have been approved: Indonesia and Brazil. Congratulations to organizers of both chapters! We at chapcom aren't resting on our laurels though, we have two other chapter applications in the pipeline right now. Also, we know the board was supposed to have talked about the whole concept of subnational/regional chapters, and I don't know how those talks turned out either.

I guess what I'm saying, the short version, is: Congrats to Indonesia and Brazil, and we need to wait to hear some kind of announcement from the board to know what else is going on.

Delphine, Goodbye and Hello

2008-09-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

Foundation-l received a message today that Delphine, the Chapters Coordinator for the WMF is stepping down from her position. In her three years, she's overseen an explosive growth in the number of chapters there are.

She's not leaving us entirely, however. She is going to remain an active WMF volunteer and a member of the chapcom. In her message she talked a lot about a "reboot" of the chapters situation, and I'm very interested to hear all the ideas she has. I've been feeding her a lot of my ideas (I'm a radical liberal when it comes to chapters), but she's been in a position where she couldn't always feed hers back. Now, I'm hoping that we can get some real creative energy and enthusiasm together to make cool things happen.

One thing that I've been pushing for personally, sometimes alone in the dark, is the idea of a more freeform idea of what a Chapter can be. Heretofore, Chapters have been tied to Nations, you could have a Wikimedia Italia for instance, but not a Wikimedia New York. For many years, this is what seemed to come naturally to groups, and it's what the Chapcom/Board have been suggesting. Now, however, things seem to be changing.

People in the USA are organizing at a local community level. We have an overarching presence in the USA in the form of the WMF board, what people are increasingly interested in doing is on-the-ground activism. People are actually wanting to walk into a library, or university, or government building and say "I'm from the WMF, I want to partner with you to bring open content to the people". People want to collect donations, not only of money, but of time, talent, and content. Local groups that can meet each other face-to-face and can walk down the street to conduct business in person are the kinds of groups that are forming, be they the wikiwednesdays in Portland, or the Wiki takes Manhattan in NYC.

The USA isn't the only example either. Organization in Canada has cooled off substantially from where it was three months ago, and even the people who most ardently supported a national chapter then are talking about provincial and even metropolitan chapters now. It's hard to organize with people over email and phone and IRC, it's much easier to generate enthusiasm when you can meet people face-to-face. Those aren't my words either, but are words that i've heard from several people on the wikimedia-ca mailing list.

In a different region of the world, Delphine and I both heard some very impressive and convincing arguments from Catalonians who are spread out across several countries in southern Europe. They're talking about forming a chapter through 4 or 5 countries, two of which already have national chapters in place that would be overlapped! How do we reconcile the idea of a national chapter when it forces together people who are separated by geographical and lingusitic barriers, but deny chapters status to groups who are very close regionally and all speak the same language?

The board, we have all heard, is looking to discuss the idea of regional and sub-national chapters at their next meeting, and I sincerely hope that they think on it long and hard. If wikis have taught us nothing about volunteerism, it's that people can't be forced to do something they don't want to do, and that people are going to pursue things that maybe we hadn't intended. If people want to organize in a particular way, and if that way is natural and efficient for them, that's the way they're going to do it. If we tell the Canadians "it will be a national chapter or no chapter at all", then I them for the foreseeable future that it will be no chapter at all. If we tell the catalonians that they must join Wikimedia France or Wikimedia Italia, or they must somehow overcome the problems facing a Wikimedia Spain, it is likely that all the Catalonians will not participate and will return home dejected and disenfranchised. If we tell the Americans that all their organizational efforts have been wrong, and that they are completely barred from those two seats the board promised the chapters could select, there will be hell to pay.

It's going to be interesting to see what all Delphine really has to say about all these issues, and what ideas she has for how a "reboot" will occur. I doubt she'll agree with me on everything, disagreement is the price radicals like myself have to pay. However, I can tell you that things will change, even if slowly and incrementally. Let's all hope that change is for the better.

Chapters-Related News

2008-09-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

A few news items to point out to people:

Chapcom has decided on it's new members from the pool of applicants. I won't say anything here because the WMF board still has to approve our appointments, and I'm trying to get personal confirmation from all acceptees that they still want to be part of the committee.
Delphine has posted that she's stepping down as the WMF's chapters coordinator, but she's staying on as a member (in what specific capacity I have not yet heard) of the chapters committee.
We have Chapters applications in the pipeline for Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and Norway. Hopefully at least some of these applications will be decided upon and sent to the board for confirmation within the next few days. We like to send them to the board in batches, so we are waiting on a few details to get more of them ready for confirmation.
The NYC group is moving ahead at full speed. I have offered for Pharos to post an update here about it when he is ready, and I'm looking forward to that very much, as I'm sure many other US wikimedians are too.

That's all for now, I'll post more news updates as I get them.

Lots of Chapters news today

2008-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

For people who were paying attention to foundation-l, chapterscommittee-l or wikimediauk-l today, there was a huge amount of activity. Again, I know this isn't strictly USA-related, but it's chapters news, and there isn't much new from the USA right now.

One of the remaining 4 directors of WMF UK resigned this morning, prompting Alison Wheeler, the director, to call for the disolution of the ailing chapter. Lots of mailing list activity over this issue (some of it is misfortunately negative). Already, there is talk of creating a new chapter to take it's place. If you're from the UK and would like to get involved, this might be the best time to do it.
A new chapter is in development in Brazil. We've heard from them that they are serious about becoming a chapter and are interested in starting to move forward with the process.
The ChapCom is still accepting applications from people who want to join. We're looking for both members and advisors, so we can take applications from people with busy schedules. We're looking for people who are hopefully multilingual, globally-minded, energetic, and interesting in playing a fundamental role in the coordination of Wikimedian volunteers. If this sounds like you or somebody you know, send an application to the chaptercommittee-l@lists.wikimedia.org.

Some chapters-related news

2008-08-22T15:01:00.001-07:00

This post isn't strictly on-topic, but news has been scarce in the area of USA chapter development so I am trying to fill in the gaps with other related news.

First and foremost, the Chapters committee is looking for new applicants to fill it's ranks. We are looking to fill spots for both members and advisers. We don't have a set quota of seats to fill, but at the moment we are probably looking to fill more seats then we have received applications. Ideal candidates will have some interest in existing chapters and in the development of new chapters. We would like people who are multilingual to help in communications, but we really need people who have some level of english fluency to communicate with the committee.

If you're going to send in an application, we would like to hear a little bit about you. Where do you live? What languages do you speak/read/understand? What are your opinions on chapters as they currently are? What do you think we can do with chapters in the future? What is your level of participation in WMF projects and, if any, the open content movement at large? Send an email to chaptercommittee-l@lists.wikimedia.org with the answers to these questions, if you're interested.

In other news, yesterday we had a second meeting with organizers from the Catalan group. As a recap, the Catalan language is spoken in a large area of Europe that includes parts of Spain, France, Italy, and Andorra. The Catalonians want to create their own chapter, but this would obviously overlap with existing chapters in France and Italy, and a chapter in development in Spain. I need to go over chat logs again to make sure I know all the details (I was working at the time and could only pay partial attention) but it looks like things are moving ahead slowly and cautiously. In the worst case, they create a non-profit organization but are never recognized as an official chapter. In the best case, we find some agreement between all parties involved and we get a new Catalonia chapter (or "metachapter", or some other term that shows they are recognized but not a traditional "Chapter"). It will be interesting to see where things go with this.

Catalan Organizers

2008-08-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting meeting yesterday around 1pm (evening for most participants) on IRC's #Wikimedia-chapters. It wasn't a private meeting as anybody could attend, but it wasn't advertised either. It's not directly related to USA-organizational efforts, but it's chapters-related and it might influence the USA situation in a tangential way. Delphine and I attended for the chapcom, although Delphine did most of the talking.

Some volunteers have been looking into organizing speakers of the Catalan language. Catalan is spoken in parts of Spain, France, and Italy, and is the official language of Andorra. Organizers, who come from all of these countries are proposing to create the first transnational Wikimedia Chapter.

This raises a couple problems, notably due to the overlapping with existing chapters in France and Italy, and another proposed chapter in Spain. The organizers were, however, very well prepared for the meeting and had a number of specific plans and ideas in mind that would indeed require some sort of legal framework like that required of our chapters. Questions and ideas were exchanged on both sides of the table, and we're taking a week for both sides to think things over. We're having another meeting next Wednesday at 1pm EST (5 pm UTC) to continue the discussion and see where we could be moving from here.

Short update, I have not disappeared completely

2008-07-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a slow couple of weeks recently, and I wish there were more to write about (and more opportunities to do the writing!). Hopefully, with Wikimania out of the way things will get back up to speed.

I have not heard anything recently about USA organization efforts. I'm sure things are happening, but I haven't had my ear close to the grapevine. If anybody has USA-chapter-related news, I would love to hear about it.

I've been in touch with Johnny and Cbrown. We're all a little bit busy lately, but we want to get back on track for a PA organization. It's certainly not preferred, but if the chapters issue isn't suitably resolved by the time we're ready, I think we're willing to move forward anyway and forgo (or forestall) becoming an official chapter. It's been over a year now that this idea has been on the table, and I think everybody is getting a little tired of waiting. If anybody is in PA (preferrably in the Philly area, to support face-to-face meetups) get in touch and help us with the organization effort.

The chapters committee has been getting a little busy lately. We've gotten a few requests from chapters-to-be, some of which are very interesting and controversial. I'll post more information about this when there is more to be posted. Also, there has been a little bit of a shakeup because some keen observers noticed that some chapcom member terms have ended. What, if anything, is to come from this milestone is yet to be determined. Delphine posted a note about possibly entertaining applications to foundation-l, and I do hope some qualified people apply. I personally would like to see some fresh blood added to the committee, but I can't really talk about it any more here.

Again, if anybody knows anything about the progress of organizers in the USA, I would love to hear it.

Wikimedia DC Chapter discussed at meetup

2008-05-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

At the recent DC #4 Wikimeetup, which was attended by around 20 people, we briefly discussed, and formally announced, the creation of a working group for the Wikimedia DC Chapter. While discussion was limited and brief, we identified some of the bigger issues that we will have to work through in the next weeks: 1) How will the chapter organize itself internally? 2) How will the chapter organize itself legally? 3) How will the chapter work with the other surrounding chapters in the northeast region?

These are difficult questions and there are no easy or ready answers for them. However the working group is committed to working our way through them and coming to the best possible result for our constituency. To that end, I invite all readers to visit our site, WP:DC on en.wp or Wikimedia DC on meta and offer your opinions.

-(posted on behalf of) Dan Rosenthal
Wikimedia DC Working Group coordinator

It Hits The Fan!

2008-05-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

The issue of USA chapters has hit the scene in a big way. This week, the WMF Board of trustees announced a reorganization plan that described how seats on the board are to be filled. Most importantly for our purposes, two seats on the board are to be reserved for members to be selected by the chapters. The exact mechanism by which the chapters are going to select candidates for these seats is not yet known. However, this raises a very important and relevant question: What about the people in the USA? What about this community, which is arguably one of the largest and oldest groups in the entire WMF? Are these people to be completely disenfranchised because they don't have any chapters? Florence sent a very important email to foundation-l about the USA topic specifically. Here is an excerpt:

It does not mean that we yet know what these chapters would do
it simply means that on the principle, we'll be happy to approve a USA
chapter ... or USA chapters, or USA chocolate cake, or something, that
will make it possible for USA citizens to get involved at board
membership level.

Hear that everybody? The board would be happy to accept, in principle, a US chapter or "chapters". This is good, because "chapters" is what we have forming right now. We have people talking about organizing in PA, NY, OR, and CA. This discussion has even revealed that a new group has started organizing in Washington DC. I've even extended an invitation to Swatjester, one of the people organizing that group, to become an author on this blog to help get them some more exposure! I have even heard, through the grapevine, about people organizing in other states: MA, TN, AZ. I would love to hear more about other organizational efforts, leave a comment or send me an email if you have any information about these.

I've been in touch with Delphine, and I've also been hard at work trying to draft a proposal on the issue that the chapcom can present to the board for approval. Our intended proposal will be very open-ended to help encourage thinking and discussion. It should help put the final puzzle piece in place, and finally open the floodgates for US chapter creation.

On a side note, I now regret renaming this blog to "Wiki Northeast" because I would love to extend it to include the entire US organizational effort. However, renaming is a total pain, so "Wiki Northeast" is what we are stuck with. However, I am more then willing to talk about organizational efforts in other US regions as well.

I am looking to recruit more authors and guest authors for this blog. Applicants must be an active participant in some kind of organization effort for a USA-based chapter. If you or somebody you know is actively organizing and would like a little soapbox to talk about it, please send me an email. If you don't want to become an author, you can email me news updates short stories, or one-time posts, and I can put them on the blog for you. I would really love to hear from the people "on the ground" about how things are going. I look forward to posting more updates on these topics as things progress.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan: Our First Outreach Project

2008-04-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

Team "New York Dolls": Our 2nd-place winners

I'm glad to announce the results of Wikipedia Takes Manhattan, our first real outreach project at the nascent Wikimedia New York City, held with great help and sponsorship from Free Culture Columbia and Free Culture NYU.

In the first event of its kind anywhere, we held a photographic scavenger hunt for places around our city needing photos for their Wikipedia articles.

The idea was to reach out to Columbia and NYU students, while taking Wikimedia and free content "to the streets" (literally, in this case) in creating a gallery of local sights. This was a project we pursued in lieu of a Wikipedia Academy for now, while hopefully building the way for bigger and better things to come.

We have tentative plans for a "Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 2" in the Fall, and hopefully a local Wikipedia Academy as well. Already, there are ideas for a Wikipedia Takes The City-type contest brewing on the Dutch Wikipedia, under the name "Photohunt 2008".

Judson Memorial Church designed by Stanford White, one of our 92 successfully photographed targets.

This really was a great adventure for the participants, as you can plainly see from the incredibly cool gallery on Commons, which shows all the sights the different teams visited over the course of the day.

And I was really impressed by the enthusiastic energy on display, with several of our teams going all the way out to the far Bronx or Queens for those distance-based bonus points we offered.

A member of Team "New York Dolls" told us how this unique itinerary really let her appreciate the Upper West Side, where she'd lived for years as a student, but had never had an opportunity to really get to know the area. I've always been a fan of learning with your feet as well as your fingers, and if her pictures encourage more people in exploring their own neighborhoods (and sharing their discoveries), I think we'll have put the world of free knowledge up a notch in more ways than one.

Hard at work uploading. Barnstars and prizes up front.

But the extraordinary thing about this event I want to communicate to fellow Wikimedians is this: it was not primarily organized by Wikipedians/Wikimedians. Sure, we compiled the list and set up the mechanisms online. But the outreach to the students, the printing of instruction packets, the iPod shuffle prizes, the uploading party and its 15 pizzas, all this was done by our amazing friends at the Free Culture student clubs (mostly Columbia, but both were great).

There is really so much more we can do when we work with like-minded people, and for an organizer to just (for example) make a decision to start attending meetings of groups in your area can be incredibly productive. As a start, I'd recommend you check out Free Culture clubs around the US (and more on cooperating with local groups in later posts).

And a good time was had by all.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan! Event this Friday.

2008-04-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

Important note: You MUST MUST MUST register here by Thursday 8 PM EST, if there is any possibility you plan on participating or coming to the party that night.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan (see link for full schedule) is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles covering the wondrous sights on the island of Manhattan.

This event is being held Rain or Shine.

The goal is to take as many photos as possible for Wikipedia articles that currently don't have any pictures.

We're doing this event with the sponsorship of Free Culture Columbia, with cooperation from Free Culture NYU.

Wikinortheast Blog

2008-03-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Many people undoubtedly saw the excellent previous post by Pharos, about the benefit of big discussion tables at Wikimeetups. This is one of what I hope to be many posts about on-the-ground wiki activism.

The USA currently does not have a chapter like so many other countries do. There have been some other attempts in the past to create such a chapter, but none of those attempts have reached the necessary critical momentum. There have been some efforts to create state-based chapters as well. This is easier in many respects, I think, because when you're local you can get together offline and build up enthusiasm in a real way. There was one such effort in PA to create a chapter, although that is currently dormant. There is also a very impressive effort happening in New York, and we've all heard a lot about their efforts.

I've also heard some very encouraging things from other people as well, especially from some of my newly-created contacts in Oregon. In Portland, several wikimedians have been participating in a "WikiWednesday", a monthly informal meetup.

Pharos, one of the prime movers in the NY group, came to me with the suggestion of expanding my PA blog to cover the NY volunteers and others from the region. So, I turned this little blog into a group blog that people can use to talk about wiki activism from the Northeast region in the USA. If other people are interested in joining this blog and trying to build up some enthusiasm, leave us a comment about who you are and what you are doing. I'm not going to strictly define "northeast", so consider the boundaries to be extremely fuzzy.

Big Table Required: How to turn a Meetup into a Meeting

2008-03-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

Many cities in the US have had occasional meetups, but these are often held erratically, and usually without agenda. We've had some notable successes with organizing in New York City recently, and our group even seems set on becoming the first Wikimedia "affiliate chapter" in the United States.

How did we do it? A big table. With: people sitting around it, engaged in discussion. Without: A banquet and drinks setting (unfortunately).

The important thing is to have a clear space where you can hold real group discussion, pursue content projects and educational outreach with other local groups, and open a mini-conference where members can make presentations on their Wikimedia areas of expertise (more on this in later posts).

All you need is someone WP:BOLD enough to organize. You just need to set a date (and stick to it), advertise like hell, write a preliminary agenda, and find the right space. It's not very hard to get ahold of a space with a big table, and it shouldn't have to cost anything to reserve a room. Our first big table meeting was in November at a public library. Our meetings in January and March were in a room at Columbia University, arranged by one of our members who is affiliated there. We've been holding a meeting once every two months, and I would recommend that for other groups as well.

While Wikimedia has been incredibly open to the contributions of volunteers online, there has been relatively little scope for real-life volunteer activities, because of the small footprint of the Foundation on-the-ground. There has been constant talk of a nationwide "US chapter" online for years, but very little progress.

I believe that the solution is not a theoretical bureaucracy of American Wikimedians on Meta or IRC, but rather a diversity of local chapters capable of engaging in real-life meetings and activities on a regular basis. And that extends not just to New Yorkers, but to Wikimedians in all major metropolitan areas, who can all have something to contribute through on-the-ground activities. Indeed, the whole point of this blog is to show that it can be done in other cities too.

And the good news is: You can still have that banquet and drinks setting. We still do, every time, because social settings are a large part of what people come to meetups for. But we do it after the afternoon meeting, when we can take our evening stroll together, and set out for a neighborhood restaurant and some well-deserved laid back wiki-chat.

Renaming And Merging

2008-03-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

Pharos, one of the leading members of the Wikimedia NY effort and somebody who has been doing some very exciting things recently, has contacted me about joining efforts with this blog. The NY group has been picking up steam in a time when the PA group seems to be losing it. They've also been forging valuable partnerships with other like-minded organizations, and that's something that's invaluable to any group.

This will be the last post for the blog http://wmfpa.blogspot.com. After this, the blog will be moved to http://wikinortheast.blogspot.com to reflect it's new scope. I'm also going to be adding Pharos (and anybody else who has something relevant to say) as an editor. This is an exciting time for everybody, and this change will do a lot of good.

Philadelphia Meetup 6

2007-12-16T19:18:00.001-08:00

I just heard word tonight that the sixth Philadelphia Wikimeetup is in the planning stages, and is scheduled to be sometime in january/february. I couldn't make it to the last one, and would love to come prepared to this next one with fliers or something about the chapter. At the moment there are only about 3 people who are really "involved" with the chapter, and I would love to get more people involved in these early planning stages. People who are in the Philadelphia area (or who could get here with a reasonable amount of travel) should definitely try to attend.

I'm also really looking forward to talking with Delphine about the whole US chapters issue, since there are still more questions then there are answers. I'm sure I'll have more to say about this issue in the coming weeks, so I'll not spoil the fun now.

Getting the Ball Rolling (Slowly)

2007-12-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

Interest in Wikimedia PA has been decreasing lately, can't blame anybody because we have been moving along at a snail's pace. I know that I've been busy with the fall semester, and many other people have been busy as well. Also, there is still the ambiguity of how, exactly, the Chapcom and the WMF want to handle local USA chapters (or if they want to allow them at all). If we push forward, we would set the standard for all other possible USA chapters, so everybody wants to get this right. Of course, there is a "New York City" chapter in the works as well, so if they beat us to the punch we could wind up being "Wikimedia Philadelphia" instead.

The few people who are active in WMF PA have made some final changes to our bylaws and now they are essentially "feature complete". There is always going to be room for spit and polish, but the "spirit" of them is right where we want it to be. If the Chapcom doesn't send us a cease-and-desist soon, will will probably be ready to submit our bylaws for approval by early 2008.

We are also working on setting up a "preparatory board", or some other official point of contact with the chapter while the chapter gets going. How we want to do this, and who would be on such a board (not that we have many possible candidates) is all up in the air, but expect to hear more about this in the near-ish future.

Site policy: Finalized

2007-07-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Shortly after getting our own website, there started a few inevitable discussions about the site's policy. Bastique provided some amazing advice: what if we did something that no other WMF project had ever done? What if we actually based our site policy on the common sense of the users? At the urging of Bastique, we have written our site's policy and approved it by the "community" (which is admittedly only 3 or 4 people). I will include the text of our policy here, in it's entirety:

Exercise common sense.
Vandalism, Spam, Nonsense, off-topic discussion: We know it when we see it. We delete it when we know it.

Wouldn't it be nice if this caught on?

Lower Merion Conservatory

2007-07-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

There are two distinct types of outreach programs that our chapter can engage in: Attracting readers, and attracting contributors. Both of these two tasks are difficult in their own right.

Johnny and I are heading down to the Lower Merion Conservatory eventually (we need to make a proper appointment) to talk to the people there about some open-content projects, especially Wikiversity's amazing [[Bloom Clock]]. For readers who are not familiar with the bloom clock project, it's a visual guidebook to flowering plants by region and time of year. While the scope of the bloom clock will eventually include areas all over the globe, currently the project only encompasses south eastern pennsylvania. To use the bloom clock, you figure out which month it is, scroll down the list to find that month, and then click on the color of the flower you want to find. For each color, there will be a large graphical list of all the flowers that have been seen already in that area, of that color.

Participation in the bloom clock is easy: When you see a particular flower, log onto Wikiversity, find that flower, and sign your name. Your signature includes a timestamp, which serves to give a time to a sighting of that particular flower. In essence, the bloom clock is a collection of "evidence" about what plants are blooming at which times.

The value of such a project, especially in terms of a local nature conservatory, could be enormous. Groups of volunteers could be adding data to the project, and groups of students and visitors could look at the visual lists to help identify the plants that they find at the conservatory. It's our hope that we can help to convince the volunteers at Lower Merion Conservatory of these arguments.

Oh, and if we could get some more interest in the [[Wikimanual of Gardening]] Wikibook, or even Wikipedia's [[Portal:Gardening]] at the same time, that would be a nice bonus.

Website Administration

2007-07-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

We have our fancy new website, and already a few issues have been brought to the table about how to run it.

During a discussion on the uses of userboxes and categories for keeping track of our members, somebody cited "WP:CREEP", which prompted me to exclaim "This is not wikipedia!" Some users have even tried to upload encyclopedia articles about pennsylvania, which prompted a modification of [[MediaWiki:Newarticletext]], [[MediaWiki:Edittools]], and [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]] to explain in large red bold letters that "this is not wikipedia!" It's my hope that people get that point now, and that we wont need to be explaining it for the rest of our chapter's existence. On a philosophical note, if it is this hard for our little website to distinguish itself from Wikipedia, how hard must it be for the poor sister projects to do the same? Kudos to projects that have actually made a name for themselves from under the shadow of Wikipedia.

The current draft of our bylaws (which has gotten some good reviews and probably won't be changed much) specifies that there will be an "executive council" that will handle the "everyday administration of the chapter". It's my interpretation (and it's sad that I wrote the current bylaws and am having to interpret them) that the executive council will also handle the administration of the website. This would include the appointment or removal of admins on the website, and the specification of website policy. Because of the focused-nature of this website, we don't need much policy, but there are always going to be people asking defiantly "Where does it say that I can't?"

Once we get an executive council set up, we will be able to appoint people to administer the website, the mailinglist, the IRC chatroom, etc. This will help to get other users involved in the workings of the chapter, and will also help to make the process less chaotic then it currently is.

New Website!

2007-07-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to put up a short post today about the new website for Wikimedia Pennsylvania. The url is:

http://pa.us.wikimedia.org

It's a flurry of activity trying to get all the necessary pages set up, and getting user accounts created and all that fun stuff. I've never seen the creation of a new wiki before, and a fresh, un-edited wiki truely is a beautiful sight to behold. It's like raw potential to become something, anything, great.

We'll be posting more information as it comes up, both here on the blog and there on the website. Hopefully we are getting nearer to a point when we can submit our bylaws to the ChapCom and become an official chapter!!

Philadelphia Wikimeetup

2007-07-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

This evening there was a wikimeetup in Philadelphia, and though there were few people in attendance (there were about 20 people or so, and I've never been to another wikimeetup so I have nothing to compare it to) I would say it was an excellent success. We introduced ourselves all around, took some good pictures, and made the crucial announcement about the new chapter.

The response was generally very positive, and even the few people who were more cautious about the idea seemed interested in the concept. It's very clear that our chapter is not "traditional" in the sense of the previous chapters. Since we are just a state, and we are generally english-speaking, we aren't going to serve as any sort of informal embassy or point of contact for the WMF.

What we can do, however, is to provide a collaborative framework for outreach: We can attract new contributors, we can attract new readers, and we can do it at the community level. This is what seems to have people most excited.

The response from people at the meetup was very positive, and the response we've been getting from other people in the previous days and weeks has been positive as well. I'm excited because we are making real progress and attracting real members, and we have the chance to do some real good with it.

"Wikimedia Pennsylvania" Redux

2007-07-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

I posted a short message a while back about how the name of the chapter had been changed from being "Wikimedia Philadelphia" to "Wikimedia Pennsylvania", at the behest of the ChapCom. I received a very thoughtful reply from Kelly Martin about the post, and with permission I'm going to reproduce it here:

----------

I did some rather extensive clustering analysis of US population and travel distances some time ago, and as a result of those analyses and other reasons I strongly advise against mandating a state-level chapter organization for WMF (sub)chapters in the US. It makes far more sense to allow regional chapters to grow organically without regard to state boundaries or other political subdivisions. The only time state-level organization makes sense for US subdivisions is when the entity will have close relationships with state government (such as a political lobby), and I can't see this happening with WMF chapters. Plus calling it Wikimedia Pennsylvania is exclusionary to Delawarians (it would be like asking Swiss to join Wikimedia Germany because it "close") and will also strongly act to discourage Pittsburgians from forming their own chapter, forcing them instead to drive all the way to Philly, or to Cleveland for Wikimedia Ohio (which is actually more likely to end up in Columbus).

This particular "policy" clearly evinces the lack of understanding of the United States and its denizens by Wikimedia's chapter czar.

If you want a less restrictive name than "Wikimedia Philadelphia", perhaps you should try "Wikimedia United States, Mid-Atlantic Region" or something of that nature.

----------

There are a number of points to consider with this, both pro and con. I would first like to point out that all previous chapters are being based off political boundaries, not organic social ones. Consider the case of the upcoming Wikimedia Canada chapter, where following a country boundary makes significantly less sense then having chapters for individual provinces. In fact the only other planned chapter that doesnt follow a national boarder is the Wikimedia Hong Kong, and it could be easily argued that Hong Kong has enough cultural and political autonomy that it isn't a far stretch from the rule.

One of the driving forces behind our chapter, and the reason why Johnny and myself are so interested in a chapter at all is because we want to do community outreach. We want to actually load up some people into a van, drive to a school or university or other group, and work with students and teachers and community members. It was this idea of a close-knit community program that initially had us interested in a community chapter: Philadelphia. Being "Wikimedia Philadelphia" had the advantage of specificity: It describes exactly where the chapter is centered, and where it is legally incorporated. However, it has the disadvantage that many people who would be interested in joining a local chapter are not exactly in the Philadelphia region. "Wikimedia Delaware Valley" would perhaps have been a little better, but then it's ambiguous where the chapter is headquartered.

As the chapter gets too large, we lose the ability for our members to congregate, and to work in close physical proximity when such work is required. People from California are likely to be working on very different community outreach projects then are people from Pennsylvania. Beyond that, there is very little chance for collaboration between the two groups, except for the occasional encouragement over long-distance communication lines.

As the area gets larger, the ability for members to come together, for work projects or annual meetings, or whatever, decreases. Even if we did a "Mid-Atlantic Region" chapter, it would be difficult for all the members to participate equally. There would also be an impetus for the center of activity to be pulled away from the geographical center. For instance, more users from New York would want the meetings and activities to be held in New York, and users from the Baltimore-Washington area would want to pull focus down to that location. What we end up with is members who are either disenfranchised (not being able to attend events that are occurring at the opposite end of our geographical area), or else we end up with multiple discordant efforts (some people in newyork, some in baltimore, some in philadelphia, etc).

Even "Wikimedia Pennsylvania" has the problems that it includes Philadelphia and Pittsburg (which are separated enough to make much collaboration infeasable) while at the same time essentially excluding people who really can belong in it: Trenton, Camden, Wilmington, etc. However, we have tried to overcome this hurdle by not placing residential restrictions on members.

There is probably a lot more to say about this issue, but i'll cut the discussion off here. At the moment, we've done so much set-up work under the name "Wikimedia Pennsylvania" that any change would be difficult. Some of the people who are working hardest on the idea really see "Pennsylvania" as being a good compromise between big and small, so that's what we are going to run with.

Signs of Interest

2007-07-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

Even though we haven't made any public announcements yet, there is a surprisingly large amount of support already for the new Wikimedia Pennsylvania chapter. A few people have expressed an interest in helping with the effort, and several other people have also expressed an interest in joining the chapter.

In the current draft of the bylaws we don't specify an geographical limits on membership. This means that people who are not in pennsylvania or the surrounding area will be able to join and participate. This will make us an interesting surrogate chapter until other state chapters get rolling. Since our chapter's focus will be on grass-roots efforts, it will be possible for people anywhere in the world to get out in their community and do things for the chapter.

We're trying to set up a meeting (at least an informal one) with some lawyers to talk about our chapter and the bylaws. It's a very exciting time for us, and things are really going to start moving quickly after the wikimeetup on saturday.

Chapter Logo

2007-06-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded a first draft of the chapter's logo. I tried to follow the instructions on the logo guidelines page, but I'm just too lousy with Inkscape to make all the details happen correctly. The logo can be found here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimediapennsylvania-logo.svg

And it can also be seen on the Wikimedia Pennsylvania project page:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Pennsylvania

Just having the logo up gives me both a sense of pride and a feeling of relief. We are really doing it.

New Name: WMF Pennsylvania

2007-06-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

At the request of Notafish, I've changed the name of the proposal to "Wikimedia Pennsylvania", instead of the more local "Wikimedia Philadelphia". The idea, I assume, is to pave the way for state chapters, instead of a strange and disordered mix of state- and city-based chapters.

The new chapter page is located here now:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Pennsylvania

We are still working on the Bylaws, more information on those will certainly be forthcoming.

Bylaws: Structure

2007-06-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

I have posted a very first draft of the chapter's bylaws on meta. You can find those bylaws here:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Philadelphia/Bylaws

My purpose with this draft was basically to get a lot of ideas on paper, although it's a dreadful mess and needs much work. One of the issues over which there has already been some argument is the issue of the chapter's structure. I envision a two-part structure as such:

A "General Assembly", which consists of all the members.
An "Executive Council", which consists of a small number of members.

If the chapter meets en masse only once or twice each year, the majority of the chapter's members should be tasked with making the big decisions of the chapter: setting the dues, electing next year's executive council, and any other big issues which require chapter input. In order to facilitate the General Assembly in making decisions, I envision a number of "Representative Councils", ad hoc committees which are tasked with informing and guiding the general assembly. A representative council is, essentially, a group of experts from among the General Assembly, which can efficiently debate an issue, and provide the results to the Chapter for discussion and vote.

A representative council is selected by the executive council in times of need. If there are important issues to discuss at an annual (or bi-annual) meeting, the executive will select the representative council in advance, and then the results will be presented at the meeting (or in advance) in order that the general assembly may act on that information without delay.

This is, of course, just a first draft. We can expect there to be some changes to this structure as time goes on, but I'm pretty proud of the first attempt.

Bylaws

2007-06-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

This post marks what is likely to be the first in a series of installements. To create a new WMF chapter, we must first write up a set of bylaws, which the WMF chapters committee will then read over and accept (or reject). The necessity of the bylaws has been made quite clear, as they are mentioned numerous times in the various explanation and FAQ pages concerning new chapter creation. What has not been made as clear (at least not to me, with my mental impairment concerning all things legalese) is what precisely a chapter's bylaws should discuss. To make matters worse, none of the existing chapters are primarily english-speaking, and it has been difficult for me to find any examples of existing bylaws in english.

However, to the best of my knowledge, the bylaws should cover some of the following issues:

Organization of the chapter, including how officials are elected
Membership, including how to become a member, dues, penalties for not paying dues
Purpose of the organization and primary goals
Declaration of non-profit status
Mechanism for future amendment of the bylaws

The one good example that I have found on meta are the bylaws for the Hong Kong chapter. These bylaws are very formal, and satisfy the needs of a very large and business-like chapter. The entire chapter forms a "membership assembly", which contains all members of the chapter. From this assembly are elected a number of representatives, known as the "Representative Counsel". Also elected from the membership assembly is an "Executive Council", that handles the day-by-day business of the chapter.

While I'm not entirely sure that our chapter bylaws need to be quite so formal, It certainly can't hurt to provide for a future period of unimaginable success. However, I also want to be completely prepared for a situation where membership is very low, and is incapable of sustaining a hierarchy governing system. There is certainly a lot to think about, and I would like to try and get a draft together by next week at the latest.

Legwork

2007-06-20T15:09:00.001-07:00

I've gotten in touch with Cary Bass, who has in turn put me in touch with Notafish. Hopefully, If things go alright, we should have a chapter up and running before too long. In about three weeks there is going to be a "Wikimeetup" in philadelphia, and I think Johnny and myself are planning to advertise the idea of a local chapter to the local Wikimedians. If we can get some initial support for the idea, We can move to advertising more online, such as going through [[Category:Wikipedians from Philadelphia]], or even advertising at [[Category:WikiProject Philadelphia members]].

On Wikibooks, my home wiki, the users don't tend to announce where they live, although I have learned of a few members from around my area.

Besides attracting existing Wikimedians to our chapter, it's really our primary goal to reach out into the community and get new people involved. There are a few ideas floating around right now as to how to accomplish this, all of which have some promise.

Introduction

2007-06-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

This blog is going to be a discussion area for the creation of a new Wikimedia Foundation Chapter in Philadelphia. The goal of this chapter will be community outreach and promotion of the WMF. We are at a very early stage of planning for this project, but hopefully it will gain some momentum in the near future.