Dear colleagues,
I'm sorry that I hadn't paid enough attention to this mailing list and
missed the message - on March 4 there were presidential elections in
Russia, and I worked in the observers coordination center, so on 5th I
was tired of numerous and bold violations of electoral commissions.
Unfortunately, I feel that I shouldn't keep it unanswered.
Yaroslav Blanter deliberately rejects direct contacts to Wikimedia
Russia. It is known that earlier he was an active wikipedian in
Russian Wikipedia; there and at Commons he regularly expressed severe
subjective judgement on me, on Wikimedia Russia, and particularly on
Wikimedia Russia's Director. I hope it's clear that his refusal to
have dealings with Wikimedia Russia and personal problems in
communications between us make it quite hard to keep him informed on
all the details of our plans and actions.
Yesterday at Commons Yaroslav announced that he doesn't wish to
countinue his work on WLM RU's lists.
Pavel Kaganer, and Sergey Leschina (they both are Wikimedia Russia
members who worked on the WLM 2011), and I recruit a team of regional
coordinators from the beginning of March, and currently we have plans
to cover Russia only partially - the team this year will be larger
than in the past, but the major expansion of participation, most
likely, is not possible yet. The complete coverage would be possible
next year, I think.
If anyone needs fresh information on state of WLM in Russia, I'm
available almost 24/7 in e-mail and jabber, and I reply to personal
messages prompter than to messages in mailing lists.
regards,
Lvova Anastasiya
On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote:
On Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:18:32 +0100, Maarten Dammers
<maarten(a)mdammers.nl>
> No team in Russia? Russia pulled of such a nice competition last year in
> so little time. This year has so much potential. Would be a waste if
> Russia wouldn't be joining in. What happened with the people who
> organized it last year?
this is the situation with Russia how I see it. Other
people may see it
differently.
...
3. The Russian Chapter is in principle responsible for
all the decisions.
This Chapter is dormant, consists of about a dozen of people, does not
accept new members (and never did), and has little support in the
community. Last year, the decision was made in mid-July, Anastasia Lvova
(User:Lvova) coordinated the effort, finding sponsors and the jury, and
Pavel Kaganer (User:Kaganer) somehow coordinated the creation of lists for
Saint Petersburg (which is one Region out of 83), and he is still
categorizing the photos which were submitted during the 2011 WLM. From what
I know, these two users have done the bulk of the work, and others (except
for jury, of course) have done very little to nothing. I am not sure
whether there was any dedicated team. Russia was only able to start their
participation on September 15. When I suggested in August that WLM 2011
could have been held for the whole country with the existing lists, I was
told to mind my own business. For the record, I have been involved in the
monument protection in Russia since 2004, and the organizers must have
known this.
4. In October, I started the discussions knowing we need time to prepare
WLM 2012. The discussions are held on the dedicated page on Commons.
Whereas I managed to solve a number of problems related to the lists and
databases (for example, as outlined in #1), but generally all I got were
promises like "next week / next month / sometimes I will start working on
this". So far, none of these promises has been held. The only user
currently active is User:Kaganer, and he is also a member of the Russian
Chapter. In December, I asked the Russian Chapter to make a decision
whether Russia would participate, and got no reaction (if there were any
discussions in the Chapter, I was not informed, since they maintain a
closed mailing list with non-public archives). I assume this is related to
the fact that there is no coordinator. User:Lvova mentioned she has no
time, and she would only decide in April, and most probably she would not
be interested. I am also not the best candidate since I am not a Russian
resident and also I am not on speaking terms with Mr. Medeyko who is the
Chapter President and who was instrumental in chasing me out of Russian
Wikipedia. I also currently have no account on Russian Wikipedia. I
volunteered to prepare the lists and I can also do communications with the
international team, but I am certainly not in a position to find sponsors
or even to compile a jury. I am afraid again nothing would happen until
mid-August and then Russia either will drop out or the Chapter will appoint
someone not even informing me.
Cheers
Yaroslav