Perhaps also helpful would be to hear some response from Mr. Deshmukh
himself.
Rahul, I think the concerns raised here at least merit your attention, and
it's been two weeks. I encourage you to show up and discuss the concerns --
ideally, with a forthright description of what did and didn't happen around
your travel to Wikimania, and with a forward-looking perspective of what
might change to prevent such concerns in the future.
Thank you.
A.
On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 7:06 AM, Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Yohann,
>
> As I and Satdeep requested, it would be great if you share the invitation
> letter with all of us, so that we can know who invited WMIN president to
> attend the meeting.
>
> Thanks,
> Bodhisattwa
>
>
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2018, 14:58 Bodhisattwa Mandal,
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Yohann,
>>
>> Thanks for the detailed reply. Much appreciated.
>>
>> So, to summarize your mail, WMIN president got written invitation to
>> speak in the informal meeting of chairpersons during Wikimania and WMIN
>> officially requested CIS-A2K to fund him to attend the meeting without
>> depriving any Wikimedian in waiting list for scholarship and CIS-A2K funded
>> him to attend the entire Wikimania. Right? So, according to WMIN, this was
>> a valid request from WMIN to CIS-A2K, I presume, as you are defending about
>> what WMIN did.
>>
>> Assuming good faith, I am believing all your words. Still, I don't
>> understand, why only 1 volunteer in the waiting list attended the
>> conference and next 2 in the queue were not funded. I am not talking about
>> Jayanta Nath and Aliva Sahoo, they both declined, I am talking about the
>> next 2 people in the queue.
>>
>> Also, can you please share the letter of invitation, so that we know, who
>> sent the letter and everything becomes transparent.
>>
>> By the way, I never said, chairpersons meeting was any random meeting, I
>> said it was informal meeting, like stewards meeting, asian meeting etc.
>> Informal means which is not related to Wikimania official program, there is
>> a difference between random and informal.
>>
>> Echoing Manavpreet's valid query, can a Wikimedia volunteer with no
>> attachment to the chapter get similar special treatment of getting full
>> funds to attend Wikimania even if he/she doesn't get a Wikimania
>> scholarship but his/her presentation is selected and/or he/she gets
>> official invitation to speak in an informal meeting during Wikimania. Now,
>> from your answer, I hope there is no doubt about that volunteers will
>> receive such special treatment, because after all, the chapter does not
>> distinguish between board members and the volunteer community and we have a
>> prior example of WMIN president to cite. That is a great news for the
>> volunteer community as it opens up new opportunity for the communities to
>> participate in the conference. Alas! this we didn't knew earlier, we could
>> have sent more Wikimedians this year, but it's ok, the community will be
>> informed for next year and I hope, more such requests will be sent to WMIN
>> and CIS-A2K from volunteers in future. Of course, we will keep everything
>> open and transparent, unlike this time.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Bodhisattwa
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 8 Aug 2018, 12:42 Yohann Thomas, wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Bodhi
>>>
>>> I still feel, you haven't read my email word to word. I would request
>>> you to go by the 24 hr email rule (if not more).. which I personally do
>>> many times.
>>>
>>> Pardon my grammar & also my line to line reply, as I'm relying on my
>>> phone.. Since I'm traveling..
>>>
>>> I will again try to explain point wise (where ever possible) & try my
>>> best to clear all doubts.
>>>
>>> 1) Mr Rahul Deshmukh, did not visit Wikimania, on scholarship, or to
>>> simply attend a random meeting. He was invited to be one of the speakers.
>>> You can find this on the agenda of it, during Wikimania.. followed by notes
>>> which carry a description. The ‘Conflict Resolution’ theme on which he was
>>> a speaker. This is generally a very long topic, on which Wikimedia
>>> Affiliates intends to discuss and deliberate over a period of time. This
>>> theme would be subsequently carried forward in upcoming Chairpersons Meetup
>>> as well, as mentioned on the Meta.
>>>
>>> If your memory serves you right.. During the Wiki Conference India 2016,
>>> where you were also one of the organizers (& the both of us deliberated on
>>> various topics quite extensively) , several community members who had not
>>> applied for the scholarship but had later approached CIS-A2K for the same
>>> were awarded appropriately.
>>>
>>> CIS-A2K had later informed the community about this decision.
>>>
>>> In good faith, we assumed that, CIS-A2K did not inform the community
>>> without having any specific interest in the exercise. Wikimedia India would
>>> also like to place on record, that it could have initiated the process of
>>> informing on its own. Wikimedia India would like to
