Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Stephen LaPorte]

Hello Pine,

Although we cannot commit to a systematic 14-day response time for all
inquiries, I do think that would be reasonable for routine inquiries,
depending on the amount of collaboration outside of the legal department.
As mentioned, AffCom is independent from the legal department, so I cannot
make a commitment for them, but AffCom has made a few recent changes that
aim to improve the process for user groups overall. I think that the legal
team does respond well within 14 days for the vast majority of inquiries
that we receive, and we will reemphasize the importance of this point with
our attorneys at our next biweekly legal meeting.

The legal team does not publish our quarterly goals because we do not want
to show our strategy to adverse parties, such as cases where we litigate to
defend WMF or to support the defense of users. That said, our public goals
are linked to standard ongoing workflows, much of which you can find in the
WMF's FDC proposal (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/Wikimedia_Foundation/Proposal_form/Ongoing_work_areas#Legal
).

Best,
Stephen

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Nemo, Cascadia Wikimedians' current discussions with Affcom and WMF
> Legal are about some wording on the Affiliation Agreement document. We have
> not discussed becoming a chapter in any great detail, and as you note the
> WMF Board created a longevity requirement. We have had informal meetings in
> Cascadia for such a long time that I wonder if the WMF Board would consider
> a waiver in our case, but so far I think being a user group will be
> adequate for our needs in the near future.
>
> Hi Asaf, thanks for the info. I have previously heard comments from other
> affiliates about Affcom taking a long time to make decisions, but until now
> investigating that has been low on my priority stack.
>
> Pine
>
> ___
> Affiliations Committee mailing list
> aff...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affcom
>
>


-- 
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation

*NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Pine W]

Hi Nemo, Cascadia Wikimedians' current discussions with Affcom and WMF
Legal are about some wording on the Affiliation Agreement document. We have
not discussed becoming a chapter in any great detail, and as you note the
WMF Board created a longevity requirement. We have had informal meetings in
Cascadia for such a long time that I wonder if the WMF Board would consider
a waiver in our case, but so far I think being a user group will be
adequate for our needs in the near future.

Hi Asaf, thanks for the info. I have previously heard comments from other
affiliates about Affcom taking a long time to make decisions, but until now
investigating that has been low on my priority stack.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Asaf Bartov]

On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 1:05 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> 3. I don't hear of a need for more staff support for Affcom from the most
> recent Grantmaking quarterly review [1], so I am not sure if and when
> this is going to happen. This may be a point that Asaf can address.
>

The idea of providing some staff support for the committee's work has been
discussed with AffCom, but with no conclusion so far.  It is therefore too
soon for WMF to announce or allocate any such resources.

However, it does not seem to me that staff support would address the
primary difficulty for the committee to respond in a more timely manner.
That would have to do with the generally low participation by most of its
members, an issue to be addressed by the committee itself (or the board),
and to be partly ameliorated, no doubt, by the upcoming addition of new
members.

As you noted, the AffCom work is pretty thankless, and very few community
members take an interest in the committee's work, even from the outside,
and this is to its detriment.  Even you, as a volunteer with exceptionally
broad interests in governance and movement topics, only took an active
interest when your own group needed AffCom's approval.

   A.
-- 
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Pine W, 11/10/2014 22:05:

4. We in Cascadia Wikimedians (and I imagine other thematic organizations)
have our own timelines that we need to deal with,  and needing to wait
indefinitely for Affcom and Legal to make decisions [...]


a) Be aware it's impossible to understant what you're talking about. 
[[Cascadian Wikimedians]] states you are already a user group and I see 
a row in 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters#Chapters_in_discussion_phase 
, so I guess you're talking of recognition as a chapter. However, given 
that you don't seem to be keeping your row in this table up to date, I'm 
having difficulties understand.



makes planning
difficult on our end. Also, we are losing organizational momentum while we
wait. Momentum is important for the creation of organizations, and possibly
for their survival. It would be a disappointment to have groups such as
ours lose volunteer interest and partnership opportunities because of
delays such as those that we are experiencing.


b) All very true. however, assuming guess (a) is correct, let me remind 
the WMF board has established that becoming a chapter must now be at 
very least a 2 years marathon. I suggest that you don't hold your breath 
and keep plenty of water reserves, otherwise rather than exhaustion 
you'll risk collapses and heart attacks.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Bence Damokos]

Hi Pine,

We are actively following the case of Cascadia Wikimedians to see whether
we can facilitate the signing of the user group agreement between the user
group and WMFLegal (the group's recognition has been approved by AffCom in
September -- apologies in any delays you have experienced up to that
point).

Also, thank you for your helpful suggestions in general.
Without repeating Lodewijk's letter, I feel it important to point out that
despite a few hiccups, and a higher than usual turnover in volunteers,
AffCom has been very active this year in seeking and responding to
feedback, communicating and improving our processes (including the launch
of the liaison programme, a Twitter feed, simplified user group
recognition). There are still ways to go, and the changing processes,
services and expectations do bring new challenges, andoccassional mistakes
as we have to relearn the way we do things, and adjust to an
increasing/changing workload.

Please do e-mail the AffCom list directly to ask for an update, or to ping
us with regard to your specific application. The high reply time you
experience is an outlier, and there might be an easily to solve
misunderstanding that could be cleared up through the regular channels.

Best regards,
Bence
(personal view)



On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 10:05 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Lodewijk,
>
> Let me make a few points:
>
> 1. I appreciate that Affcom is working to make its outputs more timely,
> especially for user group decisions.
>
> 2. I hear you say that you are under-resourced with volunteers and staff
> support. I appreciate that serving on Affcom is probably one of the more
> thankless jobs in the Wikimedia movement, and I understand that there is
> a Wikimedia-wide shortage of volunteers, particularly volunteers who do
> their jobs skillfully, who avoid conflicts of interest, and who volunteer
> in less visible roles in order to keep the Wikimedia movement functioning.
>
> 3. I don't hear of a need for more staff support for Affcom from the most
> recent Grantmaking quarterly review [1], so I am not sure if and when
> this is going to happen. This may be a point that Asaf can address.
>
> 4. We in Cascadia Wikimedians (and I imagine other thematic
> organizations) have our own timelines that we need to deal with, and
> needing to wait indefinitely for Affcom and Legal to make decisions makes
> planning difficult on our end. Also, we are losing organizational momentum
> while we wait. Momentum is important for the creation of organizations, and
> possibly for their survival. It would be a disappointment to have groups
> such as ours lose volunteer interest and partnership opportunities because
> of delays such as those that we are experiencing.
>
> 5. Prior to this discussion on Wikimedia-l, I sent emails to the liaisons
> and/or Affcom and/or Legal that went unanswered. Regarding our most
> recent subjects of discussion, we did not even hear a simple "we'll get
> back to you by early next week" until taking this matter to Wikimedia-l
> and Geoff. In the meantime during the past few weeks, I have received
> multiple communications from Cascadians asking what is happening, and I
> can only tell them that we are still waiting for Affcom and WMF Legal.
>
> 6. From my perspective as a "client" of Affcom, I continue to believe
> that a 14-day timeline is reasonable for most decisions or for further
> substantive questions to be asked. There may need to be process tweaks in
> order to make that happen, for example Affcom members may be given fixed
> deadlines by which to vote in consensus processes. Perhaps this is a
> discussion that Affcom should have with Asaf once it has onboarded new
> members with fresh energy and ideas, and perhaps Affcom could ask Anna
> Stillwell for ideas as well. There are trade-offs to be made between the
> comprehensiveness of internal discussions and timely outcomes for those
> discussions, and from recent experience I would say that more weight should
> be given to the value of timely outcomes, in addition to more transparency
> and frequent communication.
>
> 7. I appreciate that you are giving attention to this matter and that
> Affcom is making efforts to improve the situation that will achieve
> benefits over the next few months. I hope that Affcom will provide
> updates to the community and affiliates.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Pine
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF
> _Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Grantmaking
> /September_2014
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 2:55 AM, Lodewijk 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Pine,
>>
>> I think nobody wants to say that questions should take longer to get
>> answered - we all would like your inquiries to be answered sooner rather
>> than later. To accomplish this, the Committee has made changes in its
>> workflow several times in the past year, to especially make user group
>> applications less time consuming. Previously, decisions on User Groups had
>> to be taken by a formal committee 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Pine W]

Hi Lodewijk,

Let me make a few points:

1. I appreciate that Affcom is working to make its outputs more timely,
especially for user group decisions.

2. I hear you say that you are under-resourced with volunteers and staff
support. I appreciate that serving on Affcom is probably one of the more
thankless jobs in the Wikimedia movement, and I understand that there is a
Wikimedia-wide shortage of volunteers, particularly volunteers who do their
jobs skillfully, who avoid conflicts of interest, and who volunteer in less
visible roles in order to keep the Wikimedia movement functioning.

3. I don't hear of a need for more staff support for Affcom from the most
recent Grantmaking quarterly review [1], so I am not sure if and when this
is going to happen. This may be a point that Asaf can address.

4. We in Cascadia Wikimedians (and I imagine other thematic organizations)
have our own timelines that we need to deal with, and needing to wait
indefinitely for Affcom and Legal to make decisions makes planning
difficult on our end. Also, we are losing organizational momentum while we
wait. Momentum is important for the creation of organizations, and possibly
for their survival. It would be a disappointment to have groups such as
ours lose volunteer interest and partnership opportunities because of
delays such as those that we are experiencing.

5. Prior to this discussion on Wikimedia-l, I sent emails to the liaisons
and/or Affcom and/or Legal that went unanswered. Regarding our most recent
subjects of discussion, we did not even hear a simple "we'll get back to
you by early next week" until taking this matter to Wikimedia-l and Geoff.
In the meantime during the past few weeks, I have received multiple
communications from Cascadians asking what is happening, and I can only
tell them that we are still waiting for Affcom and WMF Legal.

6. From my perspective as a "client" of Affcom, I continue to believe that
a 14-day timeline is reasonable for most decisions or for further
substantive questions to be asked. There may need to be process tweaks in
order to make that happen, for example Affcom members may be given fixed
deadlines by which to vote in consensus processes. Perhaps this is a
discussion that Affcom should have with Asaf once it has onboarded new
members with fresh energy and ideas, and perhaps Affcom could ask Anna
Stillwell for ideas as well. There are trade-offs to be made between the
comprehensiveness of internal discussions and timely outcomes for those
discussions, and from recent experience I would say that more weight should
be given to the value of timely outcomes, in addition to more transparency
and frequent communication.

7. I appreciate that you are giving attention to this matter and that Affcom
is making efforts to improve the situation that will achieve benefits over
the next few months. I hope that Affcom will provide updates to the
community and affiliates.

Thank you,

Pine

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF
_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Grantmaking
/September_2014








On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 2:55 AM, Lodewijk 
wrote:

> Hi Pine,
>
> I think nobody wants to say that questions should take longer to get
> answered - we all would like your inquiries to be answered sooner rather
> than later. To accomplish this, the Committee has made changes in its
> workflow several times in the past year, to especially make user group
> applications less time consuming. Previously, decisions on User Groups had
> to be taken by a formal committee vote, after a period of consensus
> building. Recently this process has been delegated mostly to the liaisons,
> who have some liberty to decide on behalf of the Committee.
>
> However, I also feel a need to mention that it is unreasonable to compare
> two such very different committees and expect similar response times
> because of it. While I am not familiar with how discussions in the
> IEG-committee go, I can say that the AffCom often has ''in camera''
> discussions, which are not visible to the outside world. We're working hard
> to come to a good *Committee decision* rather than a simple up/down vote of
> individuals. We need to combine our experiences and skills rather than make
> a choice all for ourselves. Unfortunately we don't have frequent meetings,
> so these discussions mostly drag on via email - something to improve.
> Especially when a new type of application (or an application with a new
> component) comes in, that requires some discussion among the Committee
> members - this unfortunately takes time.
>
> This combined with the fact that there is little staff support (something
> being worked on to improve as well) and that the number of members has been
> low for some time (selections currently ongoing), I can confidently say
> that the situation can be expected to improve over the coming months even
> further. Will that solve all problems, and get all response times as we
> would like to see them? Probably not. But

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Lodewijk]

Hi Pine,

I think nobody wants to say that questions should take longer to get
answered - we all would like your inquiries to be answered sooner rather
than later. To accomplish this, the Committee has made changes in its
workflow several times in the past year, to especially make user group
applications less time consuming. Previously, decisions on User Groups had
to be taken by a formal committee vote, after a period of consensus
building. Recently this process has been delegated mostly to the liaisons,
who have some liberty to decide on behalf of the Committee.

However, I also feel a need to mention that it is unreasonable to compare
two such very different committees and expect similar response times
because of it. While I am not familiar with how discussions in the
IEG-committee go, I can say that the AffCom often has ''in camera''
discussions, which are not visible to the outside world. We're working hard
to come to a good *Committee decision* rather than a simple up/down vote of
individuals. We need to combine our experiences and skills rather than make
a choice all for ourselves. Unfortunately we don't have frequent meetings,
so these discussions mostly drag on via email - something to improve.
Especially when a new type of application (or an application with a new
component) comes in, that requires some discussion among the Committee
members - this unfortunately takes time.

This combined with the fact that there is little staff support (something
being worked on to improve as well) and that the number of members has been
low for some time (selections currently ongoing), I can confidently say
that the situation can be expected to improve over the coming months even
further. Will that solve all problems, and get all response times as we
would like to see them? Probably not. But improvement would already be a
big win, I'd say.

A last, general word of advice: if you don't get a reply to your question a
week after your email, feel free to poke again. Please do it genty, but
feel free. No need to get agressive, angry or insulted because it takes
long. It might well be that your liaison is busy at work, or even that it
ended up in their spam filter. A friendly reminder goes a long way.

Best regards,

Lodewijk
(outgoing AffCom member, not speaking on behalf of anyone else)

2014-10-11 10:23 GMT+02:00 Pine W :

> Thank you for that information, Asaf, Kirill, and James.
>
> James: my point still stands that somehow at IEGCom we are able to respond
> substantively to almost 100% if inquiries within 7 days. It seems to me
> that if we can do this at IEGCom, then asking Legal and Affcom to commit to
> substantively responding to all inquiries within 14 days is reasonable.
> There may be an exceptional case from time to time, but explanations for
> delays and regular updates should still be forthcoming. Users generally
> shouldn't need to go to Geoff or Wikimedia-l to get progress, nor should
> there be multiple weeks of silence from Affcom and/or Legal, especially
> when updates have been requested during that time.
>
> I would like to ask that the communication and timeliness issues discussed
> in this thread be addressed thoroughly, and that the specific actions taken
> be made transparent.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Pine
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Asaf Bartov 
> wrote:
>
>> That's correct. And for completeness, I am the primary staff liaison to
>> AffCom, with Stephen LaPorte providing support on legal matters.
>>
>>A.
>> On Oct 10, 2014 3:40 PM, "Kirill Lokshin" 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi Kirill, my understanding is that Affcom functions under the Legal
>> >> department, much like the Individual Engagement Grants Committee
>> functions
>> >> under the Grantmaking department. Is that so, and if not, which
>> department
>> >> is responsible for Affcom?
>> >>
>> >
>> > Hi Pine,
>> >
>> > That's not the case.  AffCom reports directly to the Board of Trustees
>> [1]
>> > rather than to any staff department.
>> >
>> > Kirill
>> >
>> > [1]
>> >
>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Affiliations_Committee_Charter
>> >
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Affiliations Committee mailing list
>> > aff...@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affcom
>> >
>> >
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>> 
>>
>
>
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>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Pine W]

Thank you for that information, Asaf, Kirill, and James.

James: my point still stands that somehow at IEGCom we are able to respond
substantively to almost 100% if inquiries within 7 days. It seems to me
that if we can do this at IEGCom, then asking Legal and Affcom to commit to
substantively responding to all inquiries within 14 days is reasonable.
There may be an exceptional case from time to time, but explanations for
delays and regular updates should still be forthcoming. Users generally
shouldn't need to go to Geoff or Wikimedia-l to get progress, nor should
there be multiple weeks of silence from Affcom and/or Legal, especially
when updates have been requested during that time.

I would like to ask that the communication and timeliness issues discussed
in this thread be addressed thoroughly, and that the specific actions taken
be made transparent.

Thank you,

Pine



On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Asaf Bartov  wrote:

> That's correct. And for completeness, I am the primary staff liaison to
> AffCom, with Stephen LaPorte providing support on legal matters.
>
>A.
> On Oct 10, 2014 3:40 PM, "Kirill Lokshin" 
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Pine W  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Kirill, my understanding is that Affcom functions under the Legal
> >> department, much like the Individual Engagement Grants Committee
> functions
> >> under the Grantmaking department. Is that so, and if not, which
> department
> >> is responsible for Affcom?
> >>
> >
> > Hi Pine,
> >
> > That's not the case.  AffCom reports directly to the Board of Trustees
> [1]
> > rather than to any staff department.
> >
> > Kirill
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Affiliations_Committee_Charter
> >
> >
> > ___
> > Affiliations Committee mailing list
> > aff...@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affcom
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Asaf Bartov]

That's correct. And for completeness, I am the primary staff liaison to
AffCom, with Stephen LaPorte providing support on legal matters.

   A.
On Oct 10, 2014 3:40 PM, "Kirill Lokshin"  wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
>> Hi Kirill, my understanding is that Affcom functions under the Legal
>> department, much like the Individual Engagement Grants Committee functions
>> under the Grantmaking department. Is that so, and if not, which department
>> is responsible for Affcom?
>>
>
> Hi Pine,
>
> That's not the case.  AffCom reports directly to the Board of Trustees [1]
> rather than to any staff department.
>
> Kirill
>
> [1]
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Affiliations_Committee_Charter
>
>
> ___
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> aff...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affcom
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [AffCom] Quarterly goals for WMF Legal

[Kirill Lokshin]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Kirill, my understanding is that Affcom functions under the Legal
> department, much like the Individual Engagement Grants Committee functions
> under the Grantmaking department. Is that so, and if not, which department
> is responsible for Affcom?
>

Hi Pine,

That's not the case.  AffCom reports directly to the Board of Trustees [1]
rather than to any staff department.

Kirill

[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Affiliations_Committee_Charter
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