Dear all,

A quick update on New Models of Affiliation for the Wikimedia Movement since the publication of the board letter on 13 Feb. The letter is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models. From the emails responding to this, SJ and I extracted a number of relevant questions that are slowly being discussed on the talk page.

A small informal working group is aiming to move this discussion forward in the next 15 days. We are:

Bence Damakos - ChapCom
Bishakha Datta - WMF Board
Joan Goma - Amical
Sam Klein - WMF Board
Delphine Menard - WM DE, ChapCom
Achal Prabhala - ChapCom advisor
Marcos Talles - WM ES
Galileo Vidoni - WM AR

Our aim is to discuss and progressively fine-tune the draft proposal on New Models of Affiliation for the Wikimedia Movement. Each of the members is already part of this  discussion, has expressed a deeper interest in the issue, or is likely to be affected by it. 

We will conduct our discussions on meta at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_affiliation_models as per the following timetable:

2.1 Affiliation models, names, and overlaps
Deadline to add our comments and additional questions to this section: 2 March

2.2 Requirements for recognition
Deadline to add our comments, more questions to this section: 4 March

2.3  Rights and duties 
Deadline for our comments and questions: 6 March

2.4 Overlaps and privileged status within a region 
Deadline for c and q: 8 March

2.5 Membership, communities and collaboration

2.6 Mentoring and review
Deadline: 12 March

It would help us immensely if any of you with an interest in this issue would participate in the meta discussion as per the time-table above. (Broken into bite-sized pieces to ensure we can focus on smaller bits; the whole thing is a lot to chew off at once). I will continue to announce the smaller bits at the start of each to stimulate participation - and get back next week on steps after 14 March.

We hope this will help us develop the New Models of Affiliation draft proposal into a solid set of recommendations and look forward to your interest and participation. 

Cheers
Bishakha