Documents from the chapters meeting

Fragment of a discussion from Village pump/en

We've got some easy icons:  Doing... and Done for example. I dropped one of them in.

~Philippe (WMF)18:31, 3 May 2010

Thanks guys! You'd know better than I would how to best organize it, so if the line between the foundation and the staff is worth removing then that definitely should be reflected. Not sure what role the chapters will have in the community health recommendations, though. It might make sense for some of the other task forces, but not really for this one. Maybe not thinking it through, though.

BTW, thanks for marking down what's being done. Again, you guys know much more than the rest of us. Feel free to jump in with further changes or criticisms.

Randomran02:50, 4 May 2010

As an aside, I hope the next evolution of strategy wiki will be to organize and activate volunteers. So being able to mark items as Doing and Done will be a critical aspect of this. Philippe has been thinking about how to structure this, and I hope others will join in. Probably Village Pump is a better place for that, although starting the conversation here is fine.

Eekim18:08, 4 May 2010

As much as us volunteers have a decent link to the community, nothing would activate the community as much as Jimbo or other "official" representatives of the foundation. But that kind of call-to-action has to be at the last step, when we're ready to take the recommendations to the end.

At the next step, it makes sense to organize and activate volunteers. But how we do it (and how much) depends on what we're trying to activate them to do.

Randomran19:18, 4 May 2010
 
 

On a basic level I see the chapters as another way for people to connect with each other and they provide alternative methods of communication for users. So, I see it as a way to address some issues related to community health. It also could be a vehicle for WMF volunteers in various wikis to organize in order to better collaborate across wiki or with outside organizations.

FloNight♥♥♥11:21, 4 May 2010

I agree with this. I think outreach in general -- both internally and externally -- is a great role for Chapters to play. The German Wikimedia Chapter gave birth to the idea of Wikipedia Academies, and they could play a great role in distributing swag as well.

Eekim18:06, 4 May 2010

I guess I'm still not clear on what it is that Chapters do. My understanding is that they were just meet-ups for active volunteers. I wasn't aware that they had more/different responsibilities than the rest of us online folks.

Randomran19:20, 4 May 2010

My understanding is that there has been growing interest in better utilizing chapters. This would be maximizing on the areas where they have been successful already, and looking for other ways that they would enhance WMF.

I suggest reading the Chapter reports for a snapshot of their activities.

FloNight♥♥♥19:57, 4 May 2010