The initial message was a private message from Romaine (WMBE Board member)
on his own initiative; not verified, nor approved by (the Board of)
Wikimedia Belgium. Please read this reply carefully in order to try to bring
more clarity.
I have immediately notified Romaine that he abused his function in the WMBE
Board to communicate private matters on the general mailinglist.
Since Monday I am in private contact, both with T&S and the management of
Wikimedia Nederland to follow-up this dispute. This caused delay in replying
to this message. The Wikimedia Belgium Board will continue to evaluate the
situation and take further measures.
Wikimedia Belgium wants to apologize for any moral damage that the initial
message provoked.
What one member of the general assembly did propose is that an internal
audit could be requested to investigate the general behavior, the working,
the completeness of procedures, and the treatment of cases by the Trust and
Safety (T&S), and the grants team.
Specifically, we have encountered as a chapter repeatedly during the last
several years a lack of appeal, both in the T&S complaints handling, and in
the grants team handling sAPG requests.
Specifically in the T&S handling procedures, the rights of the alleged
offender are not sufficiently guaranteed. There is a possibility that rumors
are invoking a punishment without careful verification of the facts, without
the defendants being sanctioned in a neutral way, and without taking into
account certain handicaps like hard-hearing, or autism.
That being said, please stop discussing this specific conflict publicly,
because a lot of important details are missing, are single-sided
interpretations, or even completely wrong.
-- Geert Van Pamel, chair of Wikimedia Belgium