Dear Maryana,
Your Listening Tour has been a commendable initiative to understand the
voice of the community. However, the essence of listening lies in its
responsiveness.
Over ten days ago, we raised concerns that unfortunately remain
unaddressed. This isn't a single person sentiment but a collective voice
from the Indian Wikimedia community, a voice that has grown stronger since
the recent Wiki Conference India.
We're concerned about the WMF India staff's involvement in community-led
events, notably the Wiki Conference India. While their participation is
welcome, there's a growing perception of encroachment on community-led
initiatives. The community's autonomy is being compromised, and several
experienced community members have voiced this concern on the public
mailing list.
Furthermore, we've observed that the WMF India Staff is assisting
community members in crafting emails and guiding them on how to handle this
mailing list situation. As a community, we believe in the ability of our
members to speak for themselves. Currently, it appears that only those on
the WMF payroll—either through grant salary/contract or through WMF-funded
CIS salary—are speaking on behalf of Wiki Conference India, seemingly under
the guidance of WMF Staff India. We urge WMF India Staff to step back and
allow the community to voice their concerns independently. Check the Wiki
Conference India Team on Meta. Most of them are drawing salaries from WMF
or CIS or have been previous employees in the last 5 years. Very few are
people who have always been volunteers. Many of them have also not written
WMF against their name because they say they did this conference as
volunteers. Was there no volunteer to come forward and organize? This means
WMF staff have not been able to grow the community.
We wish to understand the roles, responsibilities, and contributions of
the WMF India staff who actively participated in the Wiki Conference India.
Being paid by funds raised through volunteer-built platforms like
Wikipedia, their active participation in community spaces calls for higher
accountability.
WMF has spent so much money on Strategy 2030 but the India Conference
had no session on it why? India is not important or what? Sunday there was
a session on Strategy 2030 but it was removed without telling participants.
Why?
We would like to clarify that this is not a request for personal
information—since the identities of these staff members are already
publicly known—but a call for professional transparency, as we seek to
understand their specific roles and contributions. If these staff members
were comfortable taking to the stage and receiving credit at the
conference, they should be equally comfortable sharing the scope and impact
of their work with the community that they serve. Their willingness to be
in the public eye during the conference should extend to their professional
commitments and achievements. We're keen to know about the partnerships
they've formed over the past few years that have benefited Indian
communities, the initiatives the communications team has launched beyond
financial incentives for Instagram users, the community projects undertaken
by other staff members, negative response on fundraising and the hiring
practices aimed at empowering local user groups.
Considering the nature of these questions, we're interested in
understanding your strategy for obtaining an unbiased picture of the
situation. If the primary sources of feedback are the WMF India staff or
their superiors, it might be influenced by the very concern we raise.
This message is a reminder about the necessity of listening when the
community needs to be heard, not just when it's convenient. It's a plea for
transparency and accountability—cornerstones of our community and the
Wikimedia movement.
We understand that you might be busy, but we would appreciate at least
an acknowledgment of this email, assuring us that our concerns have been
heard and will be addressed.
We look forward to your acknowledgment and response.
On Sun, 14 May 2023 at 3:52 AM, Shyamal Bagchi <discard.media3(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
My emails are also being censored.
Why is this happening and who is doing it ?
On Tue, 9 May 2023 at 00:51, Wiki Prasad <wiki_prasad(a)mail.com> wrote:
> i say same thing, my email not posted. it is censored.
>
>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 08, 2023 at 4:48 AM
> *From:* "Jayantilal Kothari" <jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com>
> *To:* "Wikimedia India Community list" <
> wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>gt;, miskander(a)wikimedia.org
> *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Request for Transparency Regarding WMF
> Staff in India
> Hello WCI 2023 Organizing team,
>
> First of all, thank you for hosting the event. I appreciate your
> willingness to engage in discussions and provide clarifications on concerns
> related to the conference. However, I would like to remind you that this
> email thread is specifically addressed to the Wikimedia Foundation and
> Maryana Iskander.
>
> I am curious if the Maryana/WMF has requested your team or given
> authorization for you to justify or defend their actions in this matter. As
> this thread focuses on WMF's actions and decisions in relation to the
> Indian community, it is crucial to maintain separate discussions for
> separate issues to ensure productive and organized conversations. I kindly
> request that you start a separate email thread or Meta-Wiki discussion for
> addressing concerns related to the conference itself.
>
> Let's give the WMF the opportunity to address the concerns raised here
> directly. Thank you for your understanding, and once again, congratulations
> on organizing a successful event.
>
>
> On Sun, 7 May 2023 at 10:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Bodhisattwa,
>>
>> Thank you for your reply.
>>
>> While Wiki[p/m]edia started out as a pure volunteer project, it has
>> long occupied a sometimes uneasy position between some of the biggest and
>> most valuable companies on earth, who use our free content to make money,
>> and volunteers working for love. This makes culture clashes of some sort or
>> another inevitable. I don't have a solution.
>>
>> I also suspect that you have a point with the "white guilt". What
>> this means, of course, is that people are still not "seen".
>>
>> If you ever feel like writing an op-ed or report about these matters
>> for the Wikipedia Signpost
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost>, please
>> feel free to send me a mail or just drop into our Newsroom
>>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom>.
>> The Signpost hardly ever has content about India, let alone content written
>> by Indian contributors. (The issue due to be published in a few hours' time
>> is a rare exception.) It would be great to see that change.
>>
>> Best,
>> Andreas
>> (User:Jayen466)
>>
>> On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 6:55 PM Bodhisattwa <
>> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Andreas,
>>>
>>> There is no denial that money is needed in our region to run
>>> programs but there should always be a critical debate, if we are asking too
>>> much amount and for the right cause. I can't talk about others but I
come
>>> from a cross-border language community which has always shown high regards
>>> to the value of donation money and expressed concerns in the past, whenever
>>> it has felt that money asked in a grant proposal is out of proportionate.
>>> So, whenever a grant proposal comes from my language community or from the
>>> two affiliates of the region, we brainstorm for days, if not months, to
>>> understand if there remains any small chance to waste the valuable
>>> resources which are to be entrusted upon us. For example, questions
>>> naturally arises in our community that if we really need to or have the
>>> luxury to spend this huge amount of around 10 million INR just for a 3-days
>>> conference to meet and greet each other after a long time or could that
>>> amount of money be invested on local affiliates and communities so that
>>> they can sustain themselves and provide quality output for the next decade.
>>> There has always been this debate and the people who talked about the
>>> second option are quietly moving away from the movement as they were not
>>> heard properly or were targeted for their critical analysis. We strongly
>>> feel that throwing unnecessary amount of money to whatever proposal comes
>>> over from the region is detrimental to the community dynamics as these
>>> money spoils people in the communities, brings more mistrusts and
>>> corruption and changes the motivation to contribute to the open knowledge
>>> movement. Also, huge amount of money does not necessarily translate to
>>> delivery of high quality output all the time, good results can come from
>>> limited resources too, even with zero budget, if they are planned properly;
>>> there are numerous success stories in our movement of those, which are
>>> rarely acknowledged or celebrated.
>>>
>>> What we feel that there might be some 'white guilt' working in the
>>> background to reverse colonial sins from the past in the regions which
>>> might drive people from the west to approve more money in Africa and Asia
>>> without consideration of local inputs. Any voices against these western
>>> perspectives to flood local communities with huge amount of unnecessary
>>> money are marked as counter-productive, ignored, silenced and bypassed with
>>> different regulatory measures imposed upon the community until people stop
>>> criticising and get fed up of being ignored. For example, personally, I
>>> have developed apathy nowadays regarding whatever is happening around grant
>>> process western to our state border of West Bengal until they directly
>>> affects us and prefer to remain silent during their community review
>>> process.
>>>
>>> By the way, I have no objection hiring WMF staffs from the region.
>>> In fact, a number of staffs and contractors from the region are and were
>>> highly respected for their support and understanding of the local
>>> communities. But all are not beds of roses. There are multiple evidences of
>>> opacities, ignorance, agenda pushing, bossing around, corporate mentality,
>>> hijacking of community plans and projects etc. among staffs, which builds
>>> walls of mistrusts separating them with the volunteers rather than breaking
>>> them. I can't disagree to what Jayantilal implied in his statement. So,
to
>>> me, staffs are always welcome, but if they have no intention to listen and
>>> support for community needs, then we frankly don't need them around our
>>> communities to push their own agenda, we can manage ourselves.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Bodhisattwa
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023, 18:30 Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Bodhisattwa and all,
>>>>
>>>> You raise an interesting point – that the influx of money appears
>>>> to have a demotivating effect on Indian volunteers. This has also come
up
>>>> in discussion elsewhere.
>>>>
>>>> Now I have been one of those who have urged the WMF to spend more
>>>> money in India. I have always felt that actual spending on the ground
has
>>>> not matched the Foundation's fundraising messages about how money is
>>>> urgently needed to build capacity in Indian and African languages. And I
>>>> have argued that hiring staff in India, e.g., makes more sense than
hiring
>>>> staff in the US, where salary expectations may run to hundreds of
thousands
>>>> of dollars per year.
>>>>
>>>> How would you resolve these competing considerations?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Andreas (Jayen466)
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 3:21 AM Bodhisattwa <
>>>> bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Coincidentally, just yesterday afternoon, when we were having a
>>>>> meeting in Kolkata with volunteers from West Bengal and Bangladesh,
these
>>>>> concerns came up among other things. We were wondering about the
visible
>>>>> impact of the increasing number of WMF staffs in India to improve
our
>>>>> editing and reading experiences, significant partnership development
or
>>>>> strengthening the communities in the last few years and if they have
any
>>>>> impact at all in our language community to make our life easier as
>>>>> volunteers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, if the volunteer communities or team of organizers are not
>>>>> strong and vigilant enough, there is always a chance to get
something
>>>>> hijacked by staffs. This is not new; it has happened before a number
of
>>>>> times and it will happen a lot more in the future. This could not be
>>>>> avoided as I feel the spirit of volunteerism in the Indian
communities is
>>>>> much much weaker than the past and dying, if not already dead in some
of
>>>>> the cases. In the last few years, I have seen long term trusted
community
>>>>> members from all over the country leave the movement frustrated,
heart
>>>>> broken and exhausted, including from my language community.
Increasing flow
>>>>> of unnecessary money are rapidly changing the motivation of
volunteers with
>>>>> a strange notion prevailing nowadays that money is the solution of
all
>>>>> problems in the region. Community oversight and long discussions on
meta
>>>>> talk pages about any huge amount of grant proposals are now a thing
of the
>>>>> past. But who cares?
>>>>>
>>>>> Unlike the previous wiki conferences, the wider Indian community
>>>>> did not get the invitation and space to actively take part in the
decision
>>>>> making process from the very start of planning this conference which
led to
>>>>> giving room to WMF staffs, who took over. Without community
vigilance, a 3
>>>>> days conference asked and spent 3 times more donation money than the
last
>>>>> one and has set up precedences of many unwanted things which would
burden
>>>>> future community programs and events in India. It's not at all
surprising
>>>>> that even though no one was stopped, but a very few number of
volunteers
>>>>> from my language community actually applied and participated in the
>>>>> conference, even being one of the most active community in the
region.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Bodhisattwa
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, May 4, 2023, 00:53 Subhashish <psubhashish(a)gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I find this email better worded than the other one in this list
a
>>>>>> few days back which was also about different issues.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Some of these issues, though I'm not personally aware of,
>>>>>> certainly need to be addressed by WMF.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you for upholding the importance of the community by
saying
>>>>>> -- "I am okay with WMF staff being paid, but it should not
undermine unpaid
>>>>>> volunteers and the movement's ethos." Can't agree
more.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While I see public listing of WMF staff and contractors both
>>>>>> on-wiki [1] and the Foundation's official site, WMF staff in
India might
>>>>>> mean staff and contractors who are hired both for long-term and
short-term
>>>>>> and part-time roles. It could also mean those who play global
roles (say,
>>>>>> engineering staffers) but reside in India and don't
necessarily interface
>>>>>> only with the India-based community. Their participation in a
national
>>>>>> level event could be an one-off thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But those nuances apart, the volunteer and staff dynamics
>>>>>> certainly is a topic worth discussing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A worse social phenomenon in India is a foreigner being treated
>>>>>> with more dignity than a local. The intersectionality of caste,
gender,
>>>>>> fluency in English, intergenerational privilege and many other
social
>>>>>> factors play a role. I still think this is not a standalone issue
and
>>>>>> should be discussed (and investigated if needed) keeping in mind
the
>>>>>> intersectionality.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1.
>>>>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_staff
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Subha
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, May 3, 2023, 11:09 PM Jayantilal Kothari <
>>>>>> jayantilalkkd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dear Maryana Iskander and Wikimedia Foundation,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to request
more
>>>>>>> transparency about the roles and responsibilities of WMF
staff in India. I
>>>>>>> am assuming good faith and believe that any issues arising
are
>>>>>>> unintentional; however, these occurrences seem to be
negatively impacting
>>>>>>> the overall movement.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It has come to my attention that WMF allocates a relatively
>>>>>>> small amount of funds to the Indian community. This implies
that a
>>>>>>> significant portion of donor money is spent on staff, making
it crucial to
>>>>>>> ensure that donors and the Wiki community are aware of how
the funds are
>>>>>>> being utilized and the impact generated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Firstly, I have noticed that WMF hires non-community staff
>>>>>>> members who may be initially unfamiliar with the Wikimedia
community and
>>>>>>> movement in general. This is not an issue as long as newly
recruited staff
>>>>>>> members are willing to work collaboratively with the
community, rather than
>>>>>>> competing with them. Unfortunately, there have been instances
where this
>>>>>>> has not been the case, such as WMF India staff paying
Instagram users
>>>>>>> without consulting the community, and the recent
WikiConference India,
>>>>>>> where WMF staff overshadowed volunteer committees and took
over volunteer
>>>>>>> roles during conference planning.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Initially, I thought that privacy concerns might be the
reason
>>>>>>> behind the lack of transparency. However, during the recent
conference, I
>>>>>>> observed that such staff members were comfortable being on
stage and being
>>>>>>> identified as WMF Staff amongst friends from the industry
whom they invited
>>>>>>> to the conference. It appears that more people from the
industry are aware
>>>>>>> of WMF India staff's existence than the community itself.
Some staff
>>>>>>> members were keen to take credit for the entire movement and
even
>>>>>>> conference planning in front of the volunteer community and
friends from
>>>>>>> the industry. It might help and advance the careers of WMF
India staff by
>>>>>>> showcasing WikiConference India on their resumes, but the
main purpose of
>>>>>>> such community events is to give a chance to community
leadership and to
>>>>>>> celebrate unpaid community members. I am okay with WMF staff
being paid,
>>>>>>> but it should not undermine unpaid volunteers and the
movement's ethos.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Wiki community looks up to WMF staff for support, but
now
>>>>>>> there is a fear that WMF staff may hijack community programs
and stages,
>>>>>>> with WikiConference India being a recent example.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding the roles and
>>>>>>> responsibilities of WMF India staff members and their
interactions with
>>>>>>> volunteer communities. The Wiki community is dedicated to the
mission and
>>>>>>> will continue to thrive even without WMF staff. I believe it
is crucial for
>>>>>>> WMF to publicly share the roles, responsibilities, and
outcomes of the WMF
>>>>>>> India staff over the last few years. This transparency will
enable
>>>>>>> community members and donors to appreciate the efforts of WMF
India staff,
>>>>>>> as currently, the impact of their work remains unknown.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I kindly request that WMF provides a list of all WMF India
staff
>>>>>>> members and their achievements, so we can celebrate their
accomplishments
>>>>>>> and collaborate with them more effectively.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Looking forward to your response.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> With Regards,
>>>>>>> Jayantilal
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jayantilal
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
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>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Jayantilal
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l
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Jayantilal
Sent from my iPhone
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