Dear Pradeep,
 
Thank you very much for your email and appreciating that Pune Community has done some work for the wiki-conference in last 2-3 months. We have not stopped people to participate individually in the conference activities.
 
There are quite a few requests from many members to us to participate in the conference itself (on conference dates). We also feel that we all would love attend the conference and we are eager for that as this is the 1st conference happening in Maharashtra. But the decision of Pune members attending the wiki conference looks now more or less a individual decision. At present, we really do not have data how many members have applied for scholarship and how many got it. We also need to understand that if he/she do not get the scholarship and wish to attend the conference, then staying in Mumbai for 3-4 days, travel from Pune to Mumbai & back and spend on food and local logistics is a sizable expenditure for an individual. It is the decision of scholarship team to confirm to the individuals for selection for scholarship so that at least those people can definitely participate in the conference.
 
I hope, this communication will be taken in the positive spirit and will not have any impact on Conference work. We wish our BEST wishes for the conference.
 
With Regards,

Mandar V. Kulkarni

From: Pradeep Mohandas <pradeep.mohandas@gmail.com>
To: WikiConference India 2011 <wikiconference-india@lists.wikimedia.org>; Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia. <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Mailing list for Wikimedians / Wikipedians in Mumbai-India <wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org>; Wikipedia Pune Mailing List <wikimedia-in-pun@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, 19 September 2011, 22:09
Subject: Re: [WikiConference-India 2011] [Wikimedia-in-mum] Withdrawal of Pune community - Re : [Wikimediaindia-l] Pune community

Dear Mandar and the Pune community,

I'm writing this email on behalf of Pranav, myself and everyone else in the Mumbai Community. We are really sorry that Pune has pulled out of being co-hosts. In this email, we wanted to apologise for our contribution in your making this decision and acknowledge the effort that the Pune community has put in into this Conference.

We feel bad that the situation has come to this. It is not fair for only one party to take the blame for making such a decision. For all the faults that we may have committed knowingly or unknowingly, “Sorry”.

At this point, it will be unfair if we did not acknowledge the role that Pune has played in bringing the Conference to this point. Let me re-assert that the Conference would not have taken off without the help of the Pune community. For everything that you have done, please accept our heartfelt “Thank you”.

We also want to say that we need a lot of help in taking forward the conference and we do hope that the Pune community will be involved in any and every capacity they choose for the conference.

Warm regards,
Pradeep Mohandas

On 19 September 2011 17:36, Shekhar Krishnan <shekhar@mit.edu> wrote:
In the meeting this Saturday we officially recorded the deep regret of
everyone present at the withdrawal of the Pune community from the
conference organisation.

What is more regretful is that no explanation was given for this drastic
step, and no open discussion took place on the issues which led to this
split. While the policy questions about the composition of working
groups, and scholarships and hosting for volunteers were resolved, it
seems personal disagreements still linger.

We are already quite thin on the ground in Mumbai, and need more
volunteers and enthusiasts for the conference to be successful. For
Mumbai's sister city of Pune to secede at this nascent stage in the
formation of the all-India Wikipedia movement is indeed sad.

At our meeting on Saturday, we discussed these points, and how we can
strengthen the working group by assigning official Points of Contact
(PoC) in every team/committee. For each team there will be a "backup"
PoC if the main PoC cannot attend weekly online meetings, and devote
time to their organisational duties.

This conference needs all the help it can get. Certain teams
(logistics/venue, technical/IT, party/fun) will benefit from PoCs based
in Mumbai, but all working groups can benefit from participation by
Wikipedians anywhere in India, including Pune.



S.K.

On 09/18/2011 05:12 PM, Kundan Amitabh wrote:
> Hi !
>
> We regret the withdrawal of Pune community from the organisation of the
> conference and sincerely hope that this will not affect their
> continuing participation in the conference itself.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Kundan Amitabh
> Managing Director,
> Ang India Technologies,
> www.angindia.co <http://www.angindia.co/>
> ======================
> 9768884444 / 9869478444
> ======================
>
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:42:54 +0100 (BST)
> From: Mandar Kulkarni <mvkulkarni23@yahoo.co.uk
> <mailto:mvkulkarni23@yahoo.co.uk>>
> Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Pune community
> To: Wikimedia India Community list
> <wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>,
> <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>"
> <mailto:wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
> <mailto:1316184174.35491.YahooMailNeo@web24004.mail.ird.yahoo.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> This to formally communicate to all that Pune wikipedians are
> withdrawing from the co-hosting of the Conference due to the differences
> came in?Mumbai
> and Pune communities and many other unresolved?issues.
>
> For your information pls.
>
> With Regards,
>
> Mandar V. Kulkarni
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-in-mum mailing list
> Wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum

--

Shekhar Krishnan
58/58A, Anand Bhavan
201, T.H. Kataria Marg (Lady Hardinge Road)
Mahim, Mumbai 400016, India

http://heptanesia.net
http://web.mit.edu/shekhar

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--
Pradeep Mohandas
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