Talk:World Federation of Independent Scouts

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Membership list?[edit]

Is it possible to include some more informations in the membership list? I'd like to know something more, eg membership numbers, foundation, admission to WFIS...

BTW, WFIS seems to have a number of provisional or prospect members (see http://www.wfis-sa.org/miembros.html and http://www.wfis-europe.org/wordpress/?page_id=35&language=en). Shouldn't we mention them in the list? It's about a third of the overall membership.

And what about the national federations like Mexico or Canada? If I understand http://www.na.wfis.org.mx/members.htm correctly, in these countries the federations hold WFIS membership and the federations themselves decide the admission of new members. Is this correct? The Spanish federation [1] seems to have an different status, it's members seem to hold individual membership. And there is also an Italian federation applying for membership... --jergen (talk) 12:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some of that information would be interesting - but I cannot find any online source for it at this time, leading me to employ the same listings as on other association pages. If sources can be found, it would be great to see this detail added.

This is still a work-in-progress. Provisional members can probably be added later, but there are also other associations, especially in Africa, where I have no information at all even though they are full members.

The Federations are interesting in that both the Federation and the Associations in some cases both appear on the list as members. I'm trying to clarify that at the moment. I'll be adding things as I find them, and will be trying to develop this page, but it won't be a one-stop quick-fix. DiverScout (talk) 15:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Membership numbers[edit]

Jergen has reverted an edit to the above made by an unknown editor as unreferenced. What was teh source for the number that we have reverted to as I am not aware that WFIS publish their role. DiverScout (talk) 22:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if there ever was a source, the number 30,000 was introduced by User:Kintetsubuffalo when he started the article. He may have taken it from [2]. --jergen (talk) 12:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Not sure how valid, or old, that figure is though. Still, unless WFIS decide to publish the numbers I guess it will do! DiverScout (talk) 16:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, found a WFIS World Council presentation online which quotes 198,482 members worldwide. Link:http://www.gevitoria.com.br/World_Federation_of_Independent_Scouts_Report2011.pdf --Porlhews (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The new numbers don't feel very likely, but they are currently the best we can get. Very little is know about independent Scouting in Asia, and The Scouts/Guide Organisation of India has the feeling of a large and mainly paid structure with a few members. --jergen (talk) 07:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why any more unlikely than other figures posted by, say, WOSM and WAGGS? DiverScout (talk) 17:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WOSM and WAGGS normally doesn't include prospected members and provide a full list of member organisations. --Egel _Reaction? 19:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, right. Though, I guess, they seldom have prospective members due to their one NSA rule. Does the WFIS figure say it includes prospectives then? DiverScout (talk) 19:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At least the number of associations (81) includes the prospectives. For example all African member associations are prospectives [3] . --Egel _Reaction? 20:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The main reason for my feeling about the numbers is "Asia". About 75 % of the members are claimed for Asia (which would match with WOSM), but this does not show up in the structures of WFIS; IMO there should be at least one committee member from Asia, if this region is really that strong. And none (!) of the claimed ten or so organizations in Southeast Asia can be found outside of the regional website or some cloned lists.

But I have also some problems with "South America" - AFAIK the whole region was shut down following the founding of the Carribean region and the scission of the WOIS, so that all former members have to reapply for membership (something like this is also mentioned on the regional website). --jergen (talk) 08:06, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, the PDF mentioned above is no longer reachable. So we have no source which can be verified currently. It's not on the web archive either.

--Lou Crazy (talk) 22:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I forgot: 82.185.105.200 is an IP in Italy (near Rome, it seems). He vandalized this and the italian page with the joke about 2 million WFIS members. He didn't touch pages in other languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lou Crazy (talk • contribs) 22:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Lou Crazy, I didn't vandalize anything the current number of people enrolled in WFIS is around 2 millions. Recentely an Indian Association with 630.000 people has been accepted as WFIS member.

Probably there are no official sources yet, but if it is not possible to write two million, It is not also possible declare other numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.39.187.8 (talk) 11:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There was a valid source for the current number, but there aren't any sources for your claims. That's quite a difference. And: Even if your claim about an Indian organization with 630.000 members is correct, another 1.2 million members are missing.

The membership structure of WFIS is very vague. AFAICS, full members exist only in Europe and the Americas. Most member organzations are "prospect members"(whatever this means). I'm not sure if we should include them. WOSM and WAGGGS don't include potential members in their numbers. --jergen (talk) 12:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

jergen, I would like to add a reliable source to the WFIS membership numbers on the italian language version of this page. However, of course, that requires a valid source, and the source mentioned in this english language page (WFIS World Council Report 2010) is now unreachable. Did anyone save a copy of that PDF file?

--Lou Crazy (talk) 03:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy. Perhaps User:Egel or User:Porlhews; both inserted some content based on that PDF. --jergen (talk) 08:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I too don't have a copy. --Egel _Reaction? 11:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if the source to WFIS members is unreachable probably we wish cancel any numbers. I think the problem is that WFIS members are associations not people. Anyway we could mention that the people enrolled in 2010 were 200.000. There is not avaible any other official information for 2012. Capoclan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.185.105.200 (talk) 15:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The information as was listed had a reliable source at the time of posting. The deletion of that source material does not mean that it needs (or ought) to be removed under Wikipedia policy as the deletion of the third-party source after the event does not negate notability. The new figures, however, should only be added once a similar source is available. In reply to the suggestion on "prospect members" not being included as WOSM/WAGGS do not include theirs, as this is an entry on WFIS - and they are counted by that organisation - these should be included in my opinion. DiverScout (talk) 23:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ IP/Capoclan: Please read WP:COI. --jergen (talk) 10:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This information must relate to published figures. DiverScout (talk) 17:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A statement relating to growth does not actually equate to numbers and whilst the statement of figutres, being non-public-domain, cannot be employed the FACT that WFIS has grown (seemingly to the irritation of someone) is appropriate for comment. I will revert the deletion again this weekend unless I can be persuaded otherwise. DiverScout (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless we have any reliable source that the membership numbers of WFIS are growing this should not be added. An increase in the number of member associations has no direct correlation with an assumed increase in the number of individuals represented by these associations. And it would be got to have a third party source even for the growth in associations.

Unfortunately, we don't have any publications on the current membership statistics of WFIS. The membership report published in 2011 (perhaps erronously?) was the only information on the membership I've see for years. WFIS is - in my eyes - far more reluctant with informations on its membership, its policies and its structures than any other world Scouting body. Maybe because it is run mainly by volunteers using their time for Scouting. --jergen (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I do not correlate growth solely with membership numbers, and do not see that this ought to be the case. WFIS has grown, even if just in terms of associations with an assumed magic percentage reduction in the size of each member organisation in order to keep the numbers down ;) . That fact is recorded in the history of this page, so is not really a matter of contention.

Where the membership figures of 2.5 million are concerned, there is little that can be done about adding that until and unless WFIS decide to change their policy with regard to not being interested in publishing membership figures. This seems unlikely considering that the view appears to be that once this happens people may start playing a numbers game rather than just concentrating on quality of program. Also, I would agree that the totally voluntary nature of this branch of the family might make managing such a set of figures challenging.

However I'm still convinced that the basis statement I added in place of the census figures is totally appropriate for the page, whilst the implied suggestion that this organisation is remaining small and not developing is a POV that ought not to be. DiverScout (talk) 19:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really convinced that WFIS is growing - in member associations as well as in individuals. But we need reliable sources. Unfortunately, even the regional WFIS websites are unstable. Currently, only the Europe and the Americas regions seem to be active; the websites of WFIS Asia and WFIS South East Asia were last updated in 2012 and the website for WFIS Africa is gone.

BTW: The website of the World Federation of Scouts & Guides (est. 2013-12-25) mirrors the content of WFIS Asia. Is this another spin off like the WOIS? --jergen (talk) 11:35, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]