Talk:Wikimedia Australia/Statement of Purpose

Responsibilities vs Affiliated

The wording of this part to me is a concern;

The organisation shall take the responsibilities of a Local Chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (Florida, USA)....

I think that by saying taking responsibilities we are saying that where an issue arises The Foundation could be seen as able to over rule us or make changes that require us to do things thus removing our independence.

What I think it should say is;

The organisation shall be an affiliated Local Chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (Florida, USA)....

Outside of this I dont have any concerns. Gnangarra 08:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

While technically the responsibilities of a Chapter are not the responsibilities of the Foundation, I agree with the second wording to avoid any ambiguity. Technically, the only responsibility of a Chapter is to promote the goals of the Foundation, but the wording could be construed differently. Confusing Manifestation 11:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I too prefer Gnangarra's "affiliated" wording. -- All the best, Nickj 01:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I updated that. pfctdayelise 07:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Promotion

I notice that this line is ambiguous:

• ... by encouraging the creation, collection and distribution of Free Cultural Works in a non-profit way

It could mean, for example, that we only encourage non-profit distribution. I assume, the intended meaning is that the encouragement itself is non-profit. But do we really need to squeeze "non-profit" into this sentence? (or at all? isn't it implicit?)

• facilitating educational and social events that encourage contributions to, and use of, Free Cultural Works and Wikis.

This sounds like it's focused too heavily on a Wikimania-style event. We should include any type of promotion or education, not just "events". Also "creation" seems to leave out much of what Wikipedia editors do, like edit, develop, and discuss. "Contribute" is good, but also sounds it like it means "financially" if it's not clarified.

I've went to fix these issues, but ended up rewriting much of the whole thing. I haven't finished though, so I'll leave it at that for now. Pengo 15:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

To remove the financial "contributions" aspect, instead of "encourage contributions to, and use of, Free Cultural Works and Wikis" could maybe have "encourage use, sharing, and participation in the collaborative creation of Free Cultural Works via Wikis". Though then we're back to "creation" again, but hopefully the "collaborative" bit makes the point is that it's an ongoing process involving the input of numerous people, so that hopefully covers the "edit, develop, and discuss" part. -- All the best, Nickj 01:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Re 'non profit', I reworded it. I think the point is that our distribution etc of free content should be ultimately not-for-profit. (Small profit may be a nice side effect, but it is not the purpose of doing it.) That's my take.

On facilitating educational and social events that encourage contributions to, and use of, Free Cultural Works and Wikis, when I wrote this I was thinking of both Wikimania style events (which is far from "just" a social event), and training type of events, where we may do educational-type presentations about how to use a project, how it works, how to contribute, how to reference, how to do things 'the wiki way', etc etc etc.

Pengo said We should include any type of promotion or education, not just "events". -- isn't a training seminar an event? Or does event make it sound too much fun and not enough like hard work? :) Maybe a better noun could be used there, but educational *is* explicitly used... pfctdayelise 07:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Training seminars are good too, but I was thinking of more typical, boring promotion. Like, say, posters, postcards, calling people, and paid ads. I'm not saying these are things we should be doing hugely, but they should not be things we rule out. Maybe it should be a separate point, unrelated to events in particular. Pengo 10:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Other minor tweaks

Some other minor tweaks that could perhaps be made:

1. I'm not sure about the implication that we have to or should operate online systems, and in so I would prefer something a bit more general here: "the operation and the funding of online systems for creation, collection and distribution of Free Cultural Works" --> "Promotion, funding, and assistance for online systems for the creation, collection and distribution of Free Cultural Works".
2. Slightly awkward sentence, perhaps: "The main focus lies on the several Wikimedia projects." --> "The Wikimedia projects are the main focus of this".

I haven't changed the article, probably better to discuss here first. -- All the best, Nickj 01:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Your first suggestion makes the purpose statement too general. "promoting" and "assisting" could be read to indicate that any method is acceptable to achieve the purpose.

I've updated the sentence you mention in the second point. Does that help? John Vandenberg 23:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

My comments

Hello :-)

This generally sounds good to me, but I am no English speaker, so the wording and/or tone might actually benefit from someone outside re-reading it to see if they understand it (get one of your parents/sister or so to read it) because sometimes we are too "into" it to make things clear. There is one thing that I am not comfortable with, and that is the stress on the relationship with the Foundation, because it is precarious at best, wrong at worst.

Rather than attempting to cram what a chapter is in one line, I would suggest something along the following lines:

ORGINAL

The organisation shall be an affiliated Local Chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (Florida, USA). The organisation's independence is not affected by this. The Wikimedia Foundation acts as the umbrella organization for all Wikimedia Local Chapters.

SUGGESTION

The organisation shall primarily but not exclusively promote and support, directly or indirectly, the projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization incorporated in the State of Florida, USA

My rationale for this is the following:

As a rule, it is always better to affirm things than to deny them in bylaws altogether. Unless the things are very very clear (such as, the chapter shall NOT sell carrots), it is better to make sure that the things that are the truth are pointed out. In this case, rather than give bad ideas to anyone by saying "we"re not responsible, which in the end, really is just a statement and has not legal value, it is better to say "the Foundation hosts the project" which shows that in the end, the Foundation is the one hosting the projects. It might be an idea to actually add something along the lines of "Wikimedia Australia shall not take any part in the editing of the Wikimedia projects" if you really want to rule out this "connection" to the project, ie, describing something that *you* actually have a grip on. In the original sentence, in my opinion, "affiliated" and "independance shall not be affected" are contradictory, so they simply open more of a liability than not saying these things at all. Not sure I am clear here, but don't hesitate to challenge. notafish }<';> 10:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe the "affiliated" bit is important, as it notes we have been approved by the Foundation, especially given the recent Board restructure which has placed even greater focus on the role of official chapters. Daniel (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure I see the relation between board restructure and "affiliate". In any case, "affiliate" is definitely not the right word, as it implies a relationship that does not exist. The fact that the chapters will be selecting board members does not imply in any way that chapters are affiliates of the Foundation, or vice-versa. In our context, "affiliates" is a liability, as it stresses that WM AU could be under some kind of authority from the WMF, or vice versa, or that they have formal legal ties, which is not the case. Cheers notafish }<';> 14:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

While we may not have legal ties to WMF, our statement of purpose defines our morals, responsibilities and objectives. By saying we are affiliated, we willingly accept that WM-AU will be attempting to follow the lead of the WMF, wherever possible. I can see that there is room for improvement in how this is worded, but I dont want to see our statement of purpose water down our ties to the WMF.

As an example of the responsibilities of a chapter, the website run by the chapter would implicitly be run to be compliant with any of the WMF resolutions. Trademarks in general are an area where chapters have a responsibility, even if this isnt explicitly defined at present. John Vandenberg 00:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

"Creating knowledge"

I don't like the idea of "creating knowledge". (as in "...support equality of opportunity to create and use knowledge") Knowledge is not a thing to be created. Knowledge is internal, at least by many/most definitions:

expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; (OED)

I think we'd be better borrowing from the US's SoP, which refers to "educational content": [1]

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

Also "educational" is hardly mentioned in our SoP. Currently the SoP could be confused with an attempt to create a Free Content version of flickr or livejournal. Pengo 22:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I've adjusted the first sentence. John Vandenberg 23:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thinking about it some more, the first line is about equal opportunity to create new knowledge. The foundation of new knowledge is a firm grasp of existing (collective) knowledge. Putting the worlds collective knowledge onto a wiki ensures that people dont reinvent the wheel, and enables them to make new inventions and grapple with new concepts due to higher levels of access to existing knowledge than previously possible. I am not happy with the wording as it is, but my change didnt improve it. John Vandenberg 23:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)