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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