I completely agree with Lodewijk here: Publishing such warnings could very
well in effect kill off the affiliate, and make the warning moot.
This was, however, very much what the AffCom has done to Wikimedia
Portugal. In 18 May the AffCom has sent a message to the WMPT general
mailing list, which is for general information and includes our partners
and people which are just interested in WMPT, not only associates.
In that message the AffCom requested* "all members of the chapter to cease
from taking part in this conflict and to work to resolve differences.*" The
so called "conflict" was nothing but a single individual sending legal and
personal threats against members of the chapter. this is the information we
had back then, this is what we had reported to teh AffCom - it still is the
same information we have today, it has not changed. So the AffCom told
those on the receiving end to "cease from taking part in this conflict and
to work to resolve differences".
Then continued: "Y*ou may also officially request a conversation with this
committee to discuss a potential mediation plan, which we are more than
happy to help with.*" - no conversation with any of the three members of
the elected board took place before this message. So much for "hearing all
parts".
And continued: "*In the case of no interest in resolving your differences
and moving forward, this committee may consider the de-recognition of WMPT*"
- Apparently we in the chapter should refrain from receiving menaces and
threats from the single individual that was harassing us, or else the
chapter would be derecognized. How this would make any sense, I don't know.
"*having taken into account also the low activity of the group, based on
the the reports submitted.*" - this bit is fair. Wikimedia Portugal was
kind of comatose for many years - basically since the individual who is now
harassing us - a non Wikimedian - became president. What is not fair is
that all this pressure comes precisely after we finished taking all the
necessary steps to fix that mess that had been forming since 2014 at least.
We had just fixed our stuff, and the missing report was about to be sent -
and the AffCom knew it perfectly, I personally told them that in Berlin -
when this message was sent.
It then demanded what what seems to be a vote of silence about this matter,
reducing discussions about it to the AffCom list, which was now apparently
lifted by Kirill: "*In addition to this, we request that all communications
regarding he present situation be routed directly to the AffCom discussion
list (affcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org <affcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org>) rather than
various personal communications channels.*"
And they finally ended with a demand which was plainly illegal under the
Portuguese law: "*Please also, refrain from presenting oneself as
representative of Wikimedia Portugal until this situation is resolved.*"
Wikimedia Portugal by then was - as it is now - a registered Association of
full right in Portugal, with an elected board validated according to the
law, and that board cannot "refrain to present itself as such" on the
course of it's obligations to the state and the law (tax records,
registration updates, etc.)
I recall, this was sent by the AffCom to the general list of Wikimedia
Portugal, without any previous warning or contact that would hint about
such a thing, generating surprise, questions and apprehension among the
people in that list.
I don't believe this is OK. I don't believe the AffCom was correct in doing
this this way.
Paulo
(This is only my personal opinion, I'm not writing in the name of WMPT, but
merely as a member of the chapter who has passed through all that)
effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> escreveu no dia quarta,
19/09/2018 à(s) 22:28:
As always, it is complicated. While there are benefits
to extreme
transparency, there are also very real downsides. Depending on the culture
in the country, being overly public in the 'warning phase' can have the
result that partners will pull out of agreements, donations will be held
back and volunteers good name get damaged (and withdraw from the
organization). Publishing such warnings could very well in effect kill off
the affiliate, and make the warning moot. Another side effect of going
public with such warnings is that people get real defensive. This is
already sensitive when you involve all members, but this gets even worse
when you involve the whole world.
Efforts of AffCom should not focus (imho) on sanctions or punishing, but
rather on adjusting the processes and practices of the organization to
align with movement values and directions. Diplomacy often requires some
silence - and as long as AffCom still sees hope that the organization can
adjust and repair - I'm all for it that they use silent backchannels.
Admitting to the problem is required to start fixing it - and such
admission is usually easier achieved in private.
A community that tried to get maximum effective affiliates needs to find a
healthy balance between transparency and diplomacy. Where exactly that
balance is to be found, it a complicated question though.
Lodewijk
On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 9:15 AM Isarra Yos <zhorishna(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also apt to be useful information for other
affiliates - oh, they did or
didn't do blah and it added up to serious problems; we've been heading
in that sort of direction too and should probably stop, or similar -
often it's things we can all learn from, so if presented as such and
handled consistently, there need not be shame in it.
On 19/09/2018 02:49, Pine W wrote:
> I have several thoughts regarding this and related issues, but my main
> feeling is that we should not hide news that would be in the public
> interest to communicate, such as the suspension of an affiliate or an
> investigation into an affiliate's use of trademarks, simply because it
is
> bad news or embarrassing news.
>
> There are good reasons to keep certain information private, such as
> preparations for pending litigation or personally identifying
information
that has
not been made public. The potential for negative publicity if
information is published, such as the suspension of an affiliate, isn't
sufficient justification for keeping information private.
Good governance is difficult to do if relevant information is kept
private.
One of the benefits of having news regarding
official actions be public
is
that the public can evaluate the performance of
the officials (in this
case, Affcom). Transparency is a useful deterrent against favoritism,
negligence, and other problems in public service organizations in
general.
> I generally want transparency regarding both the official actions of
> affiliates and the official actions of Affcom. I would like Affcom to
set
> an example of being transparent by default,
whether news is good or
bad.
Pine
(
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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