Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes to current chapter and thematic organisation criteria

[Ziko van Dijk]

Dear all,

Allow me, from my personal experiences, to bring into conscience what it
means to "be" or to represent a Wikimedia affiliate, whether it is a
chapter, a thematic organization or a WM user group.

It is a great honour to be active in a Wikimedia affiliate.

Affiliates, a chapter for example, are trusted with the use of important
trademarks and logos. For many people who are unfamiliar with the movement,
a chapter is the first contact point with everything regarding "Wikipedia".
Government and other institutions cooperate with chapters. The people
responsible in a chapter have to decide on budgets and reglements and many
other things, with effect to people inside and outside the chapter.

But what if a chapter fails?

Think of a museum that wants to cooperate with "Wikipedia" in a specific
language, and approaches the chapter related. If the chapter fails to
reply, if the museum never gets an answer of any kind even after several
attempts via different communication channels - that is a catastrophe for
the reputation of the chapter, but also for the Wikipedia language version
in question.

Or think of a volunteer who wants to organize something on an international
scale, and invites other chapters (and affiliates) to join. What if her
inclusionist approach is rewarded with deafening silence because chapter
representants are inactive but too proud to admit that?

I am a member of WMNL and WMDE. But even if I were not, these organizations
and the WMF represent me and my work on Wikipedia to the outside world. I
want them to be accountable to minimum standards - I think that I deserve
that as a Wikipedia volunteer. And I want to travel to other countries and
meet museum people and hear from them: "Wikimedia? Yes, we work together
with a Wikimedia user group here, those folks do great a great job."

It cannot be surprising that I was very happy to read Carlos' mail. I'm not
sure whether we are quite there yet, and one issue remains how to
effectively support affiliates even more, and how to provide appropriate
resources. But - whether such investions make sense depends also from the
affiliate.

Kind regards
Ziko




Am Donnerstag, 25. August 2016 schrieb Delphine Ménard :

> On 24 August 2016 at 22:50, Michael Peel  > wrote:
> >
>
> > This process seems to be very harsh as written. For example, it says:
> > "an organization’s recognition may be terminated immediately
> according to the group's agreement (without Board review or appeal)"
> > There's no mention of any sort of ombudsperson, or appeal process in
> this document. Presumably this is delegated to the individual group
> agreements, but it would be good to see that explicitly mentioned in this
> process document. There are other examples elsewhere in the process that I
> won't go into here. But I think this process needs rewriting to make it
> fairer to all parties.
> >
>
> I don't think it's harsh. Experience proves that "trying to get in
> touch" and "trying to put together a plan" is a very lengthy process,
> and takes months, if not years. In short, every attempt I have seen at
> actually making sure a chapter / group was really inexistent before
> entering the last phase of derecognition has been more than thorough
> (from many emails to activating personal contacts to everything you
> can think of to get in touch with people). You do have to draw the
> line somewhere though, and at some point get "harsh" and have hard
> deadlines. An appeal process would mean having someone at the other
> end of the line. More often than not, this is not the case. I think
> it's important that we know to "terminate", because dormant entities
> often prevent new people from rekindling motivation and starting anew.
>
> Best,
>
> Delphine
>
> --
> @notafish
>
> NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get
> lost.
> Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive -
> http://blog.notanendive.org
> Photos with simple eyes: notaphoto - http://photo.notafish.org
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes to current chapter and thematic organisation criteria) + opening WUG applications for Chapter and ThOrgs

[Carlos M. Colina]

Hello Rogol,

Let me try to clarify that. When the AffCom discussed with the board 
liaisons whether we needed a new resolution at our July meeting, we 
agreed that the existing resolution [1] is already sufficient as we're 
not stepping outside of the existing framework.  These criteria are a 
first attempt to communicate more clearly what the AffCom expects in 
terms of "demonstrable programmatic results" in order for an application 
to be supported and passed on to the board for approval. Still, the idea 
is to have the AffCom work on a coordinated consultation on these 
criteria and other aspects of affiliate strategy in the upcoming 
movement consultations since at the end, all are related.


So instead of keeping Chapter and ThOrg applications on hold for longer, 
and because it's been a long while already, the Board has approved the 
Affiliations Committee to accept applications under the potential new 
criteria to test them and to remove the block on applications 
immediately -and it was about time 8-) Based on this future 
consultation, the proposed new criteria will probably be revised and 
refined to reflect the feedback received from the community before 
putting them as "official" for all Chapters and ThOrgs.


Additionally, and trying to make the discussion clearer: AFAIK the 
discussion is an essential part of the movement, but at this time, this 
is not a coordinated consultation because again, it will be part of a 
larger and coordinated movement consultation. In order that the AffCom 
can focus on reopening Chapter and ThOrg applications, everyone is 
welcome to share valuable input on the talk pages [2] [3] on Meta, as it 
will be better organized and useful for reference when the coordinates 
consultation starts in a few months from now.  In the meantime, we can 
answer questions here, or there, but still, it would be better done on 
the talk pages for transparency, clarity and easiness of interaction, 
since not everyone is on the Wikimedia-l, Affiliates-l or Chapters-L lists.


Thanks,
M.


[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2013-11#Movement_roles
[2] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/Talk:Affiliations_Committee/Thematic_Organisation_Summary_Matrix
[3] 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliations_Committee/Chapter_Summary_Matrix



El 24/08/2016 a las 04:17 p.m., Rogol Domedonfors escribió:

The pronouncement of Fri Aug 19 12:36:01 UTC 2016 states "the Board of
Trustees has instructed the Affiliations Committee to provisionally use
these three new criteria for all new applicants" and as a consequence the
Board Chair has stated, on Tue Aug 23 06:46:47 UTC 2016, "This is not a
discussion".  In the interests of transparency, please could the Community
be informed of the text of the Board Resolution that laid down these
criteria?

The Board chair has also informed us (on Tue Aug 23 12:34:37 UTC 2016) that
*"*Everything is a discussion" and "our main goal for this year is to make
sure we finally have a comprehensive movement strategy".  This is of course
excellent news, especially since dialogue between the Board and the
Community on these issues has been conspicuous by its absence [
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Archives/2016#Deep_strategy].
Exactly how and where will this engagement take place?  Perhaps
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Strategy_Alpha might be a
place to plan the mechanisms for that engagement?

"Rogol Domedonfors"
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--
"*Jülüjain wane mmakat* ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua 
junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."

Carlos M. Colina
Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | 
www.wikimedia.org.ve 

Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
Phone: +972-52-4869915
Twitter: @maor_x

El logotipo y el nombre de Wikimedia, Wikimedia Venezuela, Wikipedia, Wikimedia 
Commons, Wikimedia Incubator, Wiktionary y otros proyectos relacionados son 
marcas registradas usadas bajo permiso expreso de su titular, la Fundación 
Wikimedia, Inc., una organización sin fines de lucro. Otros nombres y marcas 
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Asociación Civil Wikimedia Venezuela (Wikimedia Venezuela) | RIF.: J-40129321-2 | Los Teques, Estado Miranda. Venezuela 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Changes to current chapter and thematic organisation criteria

[Rogol Domedonfors]

The pronouncement of Fri Aug 19 12:36:01 UTC 2016 states "the Board of
Trustees has instructed the Affiliations Committee to provisionally use
these three new criteria for all new applicants" and as a consequence the
Board Chair has stated, on Tue Aug 23 06:46:47 UTC 2016, "This is not a
discussion".  In the interests of transparency, please could the Community
be informed of the text of the Board Resolution that laid down these
criteria?

The Board chair has also informed us (on Tue Aug 23 12:34:37 UTC 2016) that
*"*Everything is a discussion" and "our main goal for this year is to make
sure we finally have a comprehensive movement strategy".  This is of course
excellent news, especially since dialogue between the Board and the
Community on these issues has been conspicuous by its absence [
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Archives/2016#Deep_strategy].
Exactly how and where will this engagement take place?  Perhaps
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Strategy_Alpha might be a
place to plan the mechanisms for that engagement?

"Rogol Domedonfors"
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