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On Monday 14 February 2011 02:03 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTiktTOFZ8155LS7++dOR5vbrh2qbLhSDb-0vq6va@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
It is probably unfair to say that the chapter hasn't communicated
much on time in just the last one month right after it has got
registered legally, when the information that flowed right from
the time the EC was formed (by you) haven't gone out appropriately
and on time. This has been more or less the case for almost two
years from there. The leadership has changed in last month. Is
that why only the last month's updates are being targeted?<br>
</blockquote>
No, it is not. Lack of transparency always concerned (eg: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-March/000474.html">http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-March/000474.html</a>
). And as you know, January last week's thread was originally about
Malayalam Wikipedia's edit count, later diverted and subject changed
(<a
href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-January/thread.html#1834">Start</a>,
First <a
href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-January/001864.html">Diversion</a>,
.....) to Indian Chapter. Then interim EC's *very delayed*
announcement about leadership change immediately worsen the
situation. Reason for changing the leadership is still unknown (or
atleast to me).<br>
<br>
I am sorry but frankly, making things foggy is not appropriate for
an EC Member. <br>
<br>
I believe Indian Wikimedian community must consider seriously about
Jyothis' and Achal's suggestions.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTiktTOFZ8155LS7++dOR5vbrh2qbLhSDb-0vq6va@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Achal
Prabhala <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:aprabhala@gmail.com">aprabhala@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;"> Couldn't agree more. I think that there
is/ has been a lot of needless<br>
noise. It's not productive to cast insinuations against the
chapter or<br>
foundation (or community for that matter) as a whole.<br>
<br>
I do think, however, that communication from the chapter
regarding the<br>
last set of meetings (and changes then on) have not been
communicated<br>
very well. If, for instance, some of the basic questions were
to be<br>
addressed, I suspect that there would be much less basis for
this kind<br>
of distracting and unhelpful noise. As far as I am concerned,
I have<br>
fairly simple question: I still don't know why one set of the
India<br>
chapter leadership (scroll down:<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-ChapComVer"
target="_blank">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India/MoA-ChapComVer</a>)
was<br>
suddenly replaced by another (as detailed<br>
here:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Announcements/Communication_from_the_Executive_Committee_regarding_first_meeting_on_January_22,_2011"
target="_blank">http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Announcements/Communication_from_the_Executive_Committee_regarding_first_meeting_on_January_22,_2011</a>).<br>
Not being on the EC, I am aware that there might well have
been good<br>
reasons to reshuffle of the chapter leadership team; I would
merely like<br>
to know what these reasons were. And also how you decided to
change the<br>
structure, who stood for elections to various posts, etc. - as
I would<br>
expect from any Wikimedia community body.<br>
<br>
Perhaps this is something that the chapter can consider in
this<br>
instance, and in the future.<br>
<br>
As for Praveen's email, thanks for the explanations, Delphine,
Anirudh,<br>
others.<br>
<br>
However, Anirudh, while the point about moderation/spam
filters makes<br>
sense, mailman does generate emails (on a daily/per instance
basis) to<br>
the admins of a list to check/approve messages caught in the
filter. So<br>
I would imagine that for a message to stay
unanswered/unresolved for<br>
three days indicates that the burden of administration on<br>
WikimediaIndia-l deserves to be shared by more than two people
from the<br>
Wikimedia India chapter.<br>
<br>
Specifically, and to follow up on the intent expressed in
previous<br>
messages (from Jyothis, Salman, Delphine and others), how can
we help to<br>
immediately create a process whereby two non-chapter community
members<br>
from India might be added as Admins to WikimediaIndia-l? Hari
and<br>
Anirudh, I would imagine that the instant you can facilitate
this<br>
process, there will be sufficient uptake from the community to
fill<br>
these two slots - many thanks in advance for considering this
request<br>
from us seriously.<br>
<br>
Good wishes,<br>
Achal<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
On Sunday 13 February 2011 11:59 PM, Jyothis Edathoot wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:AANLkTin3a20bfgYnckOcpXqq5kCtd9jecW9Q=3WV9Wqp@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Achal,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Good points. Thank you. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To have additional mods, it is fairly a simple process to add
them in mailman. I would suggest that atleast as a start, we can
ask people here to nominate themselves for the positions and we
can pick two. Would be great if they are already familiar with
the work. <b>Please note</b> that it is not a title, but a
daily work that comes your way. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>About the chapter issues, I dont think we need to say more
that what Tinu and many others have already mentioned about.
While not counting out the efforts that were made by the
existing EC on building this out, Transparency is the primary
issue that echoes thru. It is probably worth remembering that
chapter is just a support system and has no control over the
projects or its actions. It is neither an administrative power
nor a place for people who just want to have a title on their
business card or get their expenses covered. Chapter will be
answerable to every single paisa spent to the community and
community should stand up and demand for the clarity and
visibility on things. If the chapter cannot do it, trust me, it
will not last for ever. Probably the interim EC should not have
re-elected themselves behind closed doors. Instead, they should
have probably opened the memberships and conducted the election
for the first official EC. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>However, my vision about the future of EC is slightly
different from what we have now. Unlike many other chapters
around the world, Indic chapter have a unique challenge: Many
different language Wikimedia projects, ranging from highly
active to dead, (and more on the way) rolls up under its
umbrella. To deal with this, we can probably take a page out of
our democracy itself and consider building a representative
assembly style administration system for our future. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Some thoughts around this:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li><b>Local Representation:</b>All local wikis should elect a
respected member of their community for a period of a year
(or two) and form an administrative council for the chapter.
This could be per language basis or per project basis, based
on their community size. I would not exclude English, but
would limit the participation to one member in council. for
the rest of projects - It could be probably like for every
project that has more than 50 (this is just a number, we can
look at the real world situations) active people (not
including bots) - we can allocate one member per project to
the council. other wise, one member per language projects
would be enuf. this is just to ensure that we have enuf
coverage per project and per language depending on the size
of people.</li>
<li><b>Formation of EC:</b> From the administrative council,
the EC can be elected in for a term. This election should be
by the chapter members / local language wikimedians. </li>
<li><b>Limit on Term in EC:</b> It may also be worth enforcing
that no project gets more than one (or at the most 2)
consecutive term in EC (if we have enuf representations to
fill in all slots). This will ensure that all projects gets
it share of EC terms over the years. </li>
<li><b>Communication: </b>A Monthly or quarterly report of
the chapter activities should be published by the EC and
admin council. Individual representatives are and should be
responsible for communication between chapter and projects.
Should there be a reason to replace the member by the local
community, such a provision should be provided.</li>
<li><b>Removal of member: </b>Inactivity and lose of trust by
the general public should be considered as a reason for
removal as usual. On the other hand, if the rest of the
administrative council members feels against one member,
chapter should be able to request for replacement citing
proper reasons for it. </li>
<li><b>Funds and Grants: </b>All funds and grants from
chapter account probably can be openly discussed and
approved on the foundation wiki or meta wiki (like the
foundation grant process)</li>
<li><b>Audit and Annual report:</b> End of every financial
year, an audit committee for the financial and functional
aspects of the chapter's actions should be formed from the
administrative council and audit results should be made
public along with the annual reports.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>We can go on like this, but I would leave it open to further
discussions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks.</div>
<div><br clear="all">
Regards,<br>
Jyothis.<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.Jyothis.net"
target="_blank">http://www.Jyothis.net</a><br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis"
target="_blank">http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis"
target="_blank">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jyothis</a><br>
I am the first customer of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.netdotnet.com" target="_blank">http://www.netdotnet.com</a><br>
<br>
woods are lovely dark and deep,<br>
but i have promises to keep and <br>
miles to go before i sleep and <br>
lines to go before I press sleep<br>
<br>
completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926)
/ resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in
meetings<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
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