[okfn-be] Collaboration with Wikipedia

Sun Jan 8 21:36:00 UTC 2012

Hi Wouter,

Good to see that conversation is ongoing. Let me first shortly introduce
myself: I'm Lodewijk Gelauff, Dutch, co-founder and  former (5y) board
member of Wikimedia Netherlands and member of the Wikimedia Foundation
chapters committee.

There are some countries indeed where Wikimedia chapters and others have
joined together in one organization. Being a CC branch organization is
however entirely different than being a Wikimedia chapter, so I guess that
cannot be really compared. While CC is primarily about getting good
licenses, and laying infrastructure, Wikimedia is more about a specific
community with their goals. Cooperation however seems to work well in many
countries. The Wikimedia Chapters in Indonesia and Serbia are also the
CC-local organization, but that is mainly secondary. Wikibilim in
Kazakhstan is not yet recognized as a Wikimedia chapter - currently still
under review of the chapters committee.

Having a joint organization as some kind of breeding chamber might or may
not work. It depends a lot on how it is being structured, and how well
everything is organized. It would certainly make some things also more
complicated. If you would choose that route, I would definitely suggest to
submit that first to the chapters committee and/or the WMF legal
department, because it might make trademark agreement etc more tricky. Also
there has to be enough 'love' between the local groups to join in one
organization. In Italy the OSM people tried to make WMIT also an
OSM-chapter, but as far as I know that never really worked out.

>From the side of Wikimedia there is unlikely a *veto* against a joint
organization, but it might be that they are somewhat sceptical and will not
recognize you as a chapter, but as an 'associated organization' or
something. Which would still allow a lot, but also more flexibility with
regards to trademark agreements etc.

I'd be happy to brainstorm some day, preferrably via online means, but I
think it is much more important to get some belgians involved rather than a
Dutchie like me :)

Best,

Lodewijk

No dia 8 de Janeiro de 2012 22:24, Gmail - Wouter <
wouter.vanden.hove at gmail.com> escreveu:

> Op 08-01-12 20:59, maarten deneckere schreef:
>
>  Wouter,
>>
>> seems we're on the same wavelength about this new organisation. However,
>> this means the okfn organisation (vzw/asbl?) will be mostly a
>> administrative organisation, that will have to control the different
>> smaller organisations.
>>
>
> OKFN-BE will be an official organisation (Belgian VZW/asbl)
> + will hopefully by very active on concrete projects.
>
> The current momentum is the biggest for all things related to "open data".
> So in practice, most focus will be on this topic, but this is just because
> most people
> currently subscribed on this list are ""open data"-evangelists.
> But people active in Open Access, Wikipedia, are just as welcome, and can
> work in parallel.
>
>
> If enough people  in OKFN-BE are active in Wikimedia-projects, they can
> decide to form a new organisation like Wikimedia BE  (or Wikimedia
> Flanders, ...). If that is the case, that will be an independent
> organisation, or it could just stay a working group within OKFN-BE.
> This is what the wikimedia-people should discuss among themselves.
> It also depends on the requirements of the parent organisation to become
> their local chapter (like keeping the organisation's name/logo)
>
> For example,  in Kazachstan (now how did I get that example?)
> the same organisation is both Creative Commons Partner and the Wikimedia
> chapter:
> http://wikibilim.kz/
> http://wikibilim.kz/view-**content/19/.html<http://wikibilim.kz/view-content/19/.html>
> http://wikibilim.kz/view-**content/2/-.html<http://wikibilim.kz/view-content/2/-.html>
>
> So it seems possible that a single organisation acts as a local chapter
> for different parent organisations.
> In the end it all depends on the number of people willing to take up any
> responsibility.
>
>
> Greets
> Wouter
>
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