Hi Lodewijk,
Let me make a few points:
1. I appreciate that Affcom is working to make its outputs more timely,
especially for user group decisions.
2. I hear you say that you are under-resourced with volunteers and staff
support. I appreciate that serving on Affcom is probably one of the more
thankless jobs in the Wikimedia movement, and I understand that there is
a Wikimedia-wide shortage of volunteers, particularly volunteers who do
their jobs skillfully, who avoid conflicts of interest, and who volunteer
in less visible roles in order to keep the Wikimedia movement functioning.
3. I don't hear of a need for more staff support for Affcom from the most
recent Grantmaking quarterly review [1], so I am not sure if and when
this is going to happen. This may be a point that Asaf can address.
4. We in Cascadia Wikimedians (and I imagine other thematic
organizations) have our own timelines that we need to deal with, and
needing to wait indefinitely for Affcom and Legal to make decisions makes
planning difficult on our end. Also, we are losing organizational momentum
while we wait. Momentum is important for the creation of organizations, and
possibly for their survival. It would be a disappointment to have groups
such as ours lose volunteer interest and partnership opportunities because
of delays such as those that we are experiencing.
5. Prior to this discussion on Wikimedia-l, I sent emails to the liaisons
and/or Affcom and/or Legal that went unanswered. Regarding our most
recent subjects of discussion, we did not even hear a simple "we'll get
back to you by early next week" until taking this matter to Wikimedia-l
and Geoff. In the meantime during the past few weeks, I have received
multiple communications from Cascadians asking what is happening, and I
can only tell them that we are still waiting for Affcom and WMF Legal.
6. From my perspective as a "client" of Affcom, I continue to believe
that a 14-day timeline is reasonable for most decisions or for further
substantive questions to be asked. There may need to be process tweaks in
order to make that happen, for example Affcom members may be given fixed
deadlines by which to vote in consensus processes. Perhaps this is a
discussion that Affcom should have with Asaf once it has onboarded new
members with fresh energy and ideas, and perhaps Affcom could ask Anna
Stillwell for ideas as well. There are trade-offs to be made between the
comprehensiveness of internal discussions and timely outcomes for those
discussions, and from recent experience I would say that more weight should
be given to the value of timely outcomes, in addition to more transparency
and frequent communication.
7. I appreciate that you are giving attention to this matter and that
Affcom is making efforts to improve the situation that will achieve
benefits over the next few months. I hope that Affcom will provide
updates to the community and affiliates.
Thank you,
Pine
[1]
_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Grantmaking
/September_2014
On Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 2:55 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>
wrote:
Hi Pine,
I think nobody wants to say that questions should take longer to get
answered - we all would like your inquiries to be answered sooner rather
than later. To accomplish this, the Committee has made changes in its
workflow several times in the past year, to especially make user group
applications less time consuming. Previously, decisions on User Groups had
to be taken by a formal committee vote, after a period of consensus
building. Recently this process has been delegated mostly to the liaisons,
who have some liberty to decide on behalf of the Committee.
However, I also feel a need to mention that it is unreasonable to compare
two such very different committees and expect similar response times
because of it. While I am not familiar with how discussions in the
IEG-committee go, I can say that the AffCom often has ''in camera''
discussions, which are not visible to the outside world. We're working
hard
to come to a good *Committee decision* rather than a simple up/down vote
of
individuals. We need to combine our experiences and skills rather than
make
a choice all for ourselves. Unfortunately we don't have frequent meetings,
so these discussions mostly drag on via email - something to improve.
Especially when a new type of application (or an application with a new
component) comes in, that requires some discussion among the Committee
members - this unfortunately takes time.
This combined with the fact that there is little staff support (something
being worked on to improve as well) and that the number of members has
been
low for some time (selections currently ongoing), I can confidently say
that the situation can be expected to improve over the coming months even
further. Will that solve all problems, and get all response times as we
would like to see them? Probably not. But improvement would already be a
big win, I'd say.
A last, general word of advice: if you don't get a reply to your question
a
week after your email, feel free to poke again. Please do it genty, but
feel free. No need to get agressive, angry or insulted because it takes
long. It might well be that your liaison is busy at work, or even that it
ended up in their spam filter. A friendly reminder goes a long way.
Best regards,
Lodewijk
(outgoing AffCom member, not speaking on behalf of anyone else)
2014-10-11 10:23 GMT+02:00 Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com>om>:
Thank you for that information, Asaf, Kirill, and
James.
James: my point still stands that somehow at IEGCom we are able to
respond
substantively to almost 100% if inquiries within
7 days. It seems to me
that if we can do this at IEGCom, then asking Legal and Affcom to
commit to
substantively responding to all inquiries within
14 days is reasonable.
There may be an exceptional case from time to time, but explanations for
delays and regular updates should still be forthcoming. Users generally
shouldn't need to go to Geoff or Wikimedia-l to get progress, nor should
there be multiple weeks of silence from Affcom and/or Legal, especially
when updates have been requested during that time.
I would like to ask that the communication and timeliness issues
discussed
in this thread be addressed thoroughly, and that
the specific actions
taken
be made transparent.
Thank you,
Pine
On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> That's correct. And for completeness, I am the primary staff liaison to
> AffCom, with Stephen LaPorte providing support on legal matters.
>
> A.
> On Oct 10, 2014 3:40 PM, "Kirill Lokshin" <kirill.lokshin(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 6:24 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Kirill, my understanding is that Affcom functions under the Legal
> >> department, much like the Individual Engagement Grants Committee
> functions
> >> under the Grantmaking department. Is that so, and if not, which
> department
> >> is responsible for Affcom?
> >>
> >
> > Hi Pine,
> >
> > That's not the case. AffCom reports directly to the Board of
Trustees
> [1]
> > rather than to any staff department.
> >
> > Kirill
> >
> > [1]
> >
>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Affiliations_Committee_Char…
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Affiliations Committee mailing list
> > AffCom(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affcom
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
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