Hi Greta,
Thank you for the explanation.
This reminds me a lot to what happened in Macedonia, albeit with different
names of the recognised user groups. The artificially created problem by
the Aff Com has eventually ended up in two user groups being eligible for
WMF grants (another contentious decision), then a raising concern that the
WMF can not extend funds to two user groups in a small country serving
community with a small number of speakers and finally a substantial
reduction of the annual grants approved for 2019 and threat that no grants
will be extended for 2020 if the conflict does not get resolved. My kind
advice for you is to start thinking about external funding for the next
budget year (though it is not an easy task in our region) because this is
something that the WMF might do for Albania as well.
I also strongly agree with Paulo that we need to start thinking about
preventing this from happening in the future. The problem is not only that
people do not care about the consequences from their decisions in a
volunteer community but that they just bagger off after complicating things
and simply leave the issue to be solved by the volunteers who did not want
it to happen. I was thinking about introducing a complaint process on Meta
where people from the communities can directly complain about similar
instances of problems created by the WMF, the Aff Com, the grantmaking
committees or any other decision-making party. Frankly speaking, my
impression is that the movement migrates from decisions about big things
made through community-based discussions to a centralised decision-making
process made entirely within the WMF or the committees that do not seem to
serve all communities equally.
Best,
Kiril
On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 2:17 PM Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulosperneta(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Greta,
Thank you very much for your clarifications and insight into this question.
This is very similar with what happened in Brazil, when the 2013
chapter-like UG (Grupo de Usuários Wikimedia no Brasil) and its clone UG
(Wiki Educação Brasil) approved by AffCom in 2015 ended up competing for
the same activities and partnerships.
Hopefully this time AffCom will not have the reckless approach they had
with Brazil, extinguishing both groups to try to solve a problem they
created themselves, and our wikimedian friends from Albania and Albanian
Language will be spared the destruction of their community.
I believe that we, as the broad community, really should do something to
prevent this kind of thing which is mining and destroying parts of the
Wikimedia Movement. It is not possible that we have to stay here quietly
seeing AffCom dealing with all those cases in such an incompetent and
reckless way. If it's obviously not working, why keep it that way?
Best,
Paulo
Greta Doçi <gretadoci(a)gmail.com> escreveu no dia segunda, 25/02/2019 à(s)
12:34:
Dear everyone,
First, we want to thank everyone who contributed in this discussion.
We want to start with the first conflict, which is the name. If you read
carefully Affcon's email above, and you check the info online as claimed
by
Affcon, you will see that actually Affcon itself
has confused both UG
names, crediting events to the other UG, that actually are done by our
UG (
WoALUG
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Albanian_Language_User_Group
)
and vice versa.
After the new UG was recognized and people started raising questions in
this thread, we received an email by Affcon to explain to them what we
thought was the overlapping. We did send our activities and explained why
we thought there was overlapping. Reading Camelias and Sami email above,
clearly that email was ignored.
Exactly during the time that the new UG was applying, the old one
(WoALUG)
was applying for the annual simple grant, which
btw took us at least 4
months to complete, all our activities in Albania were clearly stated,
and
GLAM and EDUCATION were our main goals. There are
also institutions
mentioned and details of what we wanted to do in Albania. So, claiming
that
theres no overlapping of activities is not
valid.
WoALUG goes beyond Albania or Kosovo, because some Albanian contributors
who don't live in Albania created it at the first place, so we wish we
can
help Albanian speakers in diaspora to continue to
contribute, and if they
need information, sources or whatever, our team present in Albania,
Kosova,
Macedonia, or Arberesh in Italy, will use our
resources to make that
happen. Our UG means to be inclusive of what is a small Wikimedia
language
community anyways.
GLAM and Education institutions are depended on public institutions. To
collaborate with an institution, let's say Historic Museum of Albania,
you
need to get permission from the Ministry of
Culture. Think about the
scenario (which is currently happening): one UG requests to collaborate
with Museum of Elbasan and the other UG want to collaborate with Museum
of
Tirana, both should sent the request to Ministry
of Culture. Wikipedia
is a
new thing (still) in Albania, considering that is
already hard to
establish
collaborations with public institutions,
confusing the UGs will result in
bad outcome for both UGs.
And of course, for the other private institutions, it is a competition
who
is going to contact them first.
Splitting institutions is also not an option because for sure we will aim
the same ones, since there's not that many of them.
We were confused, we still are and none of our members have the time to
follow this even after a year.
on behalf of Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Albanian_Language_User_Group
.
On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 7:30 PM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin <
frhd(a)yandex.com> wrote:
> Dear Kiril and Paulo,
> Thank you for explanations.
> You have my deepest respect for
showing your concern for our fellow
> colleagues from Albania, so they avoid repeating the mistakes that have
> been made previously elsewhere. Just like you, I certainly hope that
our
volunteer-colleagues serving in AffCom did their best to assess and
minimize possible risks that might come in case of competition. As for
Albanian language & Albania centered multilingual UGs, let's hope they
are
> getting along well and work hand in hand on the aspects in which they
can
> help advancing each other's missions.
>
> Our current situation is actually encouraging us to consider developing
> Russian-speaking UGs in all regions of Russia, and my home Republic
might
be one of
the first ones where this will be useful. Our chapter consist
of
> representatives of various Wikimedia projects, languages & ethnic
groups,
but our
weakness is rather low regional representation and empowerment,
which we hope to balance through UGs. The world is in constant flux, so
eventually we might also witness similar competition for attention that
you
> are talking about. We currently don't seem to have reasons for conflict
> between Wikimedia Russia chapter and Russian & other language or
> territorial UGs because:
> * UGs have representatives in the national chapter
> * National chapter meetings are broadcast live on YouTube,
> * Chapter leadership prioritizes country-wide tasks of importance for
> growing the movement,
> * Wikimedia projects in Russian and other languages are not that famous
> yet,
> * neither affiliates, nor individuals in Russia get their grant
requests
> approved by WMF (there are reasons for
that), and
> * Russian language is teaching us to be anarchic inside (affiliate
> structures are nothing more than just legal tools), whilst locals have
> centuries-old history of living together in Hunnic Empire, Cumania,
> Mongolic Empire, Golden Horde, Russian Empire, Soviet Union & now
Russian
> Federation (something we remember despite
the fact that Golden Horde
and
> earlier ones don't get much coverage in
high-school history courses).
>
> regards,
> farhad
>
> --
> Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин
http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 /
skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
15.02.2019, 17:37, "Paulo Santos Perneta" <paulosperneta(a)gmail.com>om>:
> Hi Farhad,
>
> It is very easily understood by the so called Brazilian scenario:
>
> Step 1 - AffCom recognizes a chapter style UG, with geographic focus
> Step 2 - Dissidents from first group start warring first UG while
> attempting to form a second UG, clone of the first UG
> Step 3 - AffCom recognizes second UG
> Step 4 - Conflict between UGs dramatically increases with time,
spreading
> > into the Wikimedia projects
> > Step 5 - AffCom dissolves both UGs
> >
> > Current status: No recognized Wikimedia community in the country
> >
> > My opinion: Terrible disservice by AffCom to the Wikimedia Movement.
> >
> > Best,
> > Paulo
> >
> > Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin <frhd(a)yandex.com> escreveu no
dia
sexta, 15/02/2019 à(s) 10:59:
> Dear Kiril, Philip and colleagues,
>
> Please explain the nature of reasons that cause trouble in having
multiple
>> Wikimedia affiliates in the area, as this seems to be context
specific.
> >> It's possible that our context in Russia is very different, which
is
> why
> >> we are actually welcoming creation of new UGs throughout the
country,
> both
> >> territorially and thematically oriented ones (on top of the
Wikimedia
>>
Russia national chapter).
>> Should you give more reasons why this seems causing conflict, I
might.
>>
>> Over here we are quite happy with existing collaboration at all
levels
> and
> >> are even looking forward to developing a mechanism to speed up
their
> formation throughout the country - namely
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Languages_of_Russia_Community_Use…
>>
Myself and other representatives of Wikimedia Russia discussed this
in
> >> detail and welcomed by AffCom secretary during Wikimania 2017
> >>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Frhdkazan/Wikimania2017#Aug.12
And
> in the framework of
https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/Smart_region
> initiative, I will eventually proceed to registering a
Tatarstan-oriented
> thematic multilingual UG, on top of recently
registered
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_of_Tatar_language_User_…
> >> & Wikimedia Russia, in both of
which I am currently a member.
> >>
> >> regards,
> >> farhad
> >>
> >> --
> >> Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин
http://sikzn.ru/
> Тел.+79274158066 /
> >> skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
> >>
> >> 14.02.2019, 03:25, "Kiril Simeonovski" <
kiril.simeonovski(a)gmail.com
:
> > Hi Paulo,
> >
> > Camelia's paragraph that you referred to tells a story that is
exactly
>> the
>> > opposite of what the Affiliations Committee is doing in practice.
The
> >> > so-called 'Brazilian scenario' emerged in Macedonia when, in
2016,
> the
> >> > committee decided to recognise a second user group on the same
> territory
> >> > without consulting the existing one. This has eventually
developed
> into a
> >> > problem regarding the overlap in the scope of the two user groups
> and the
> >> > resolution was normally sought from the people (more importantly
> >> > volunteers) who were not willing this to happen. It should be
also
> noted
> >> > that Macedonia is a country with only 2 million inhabitants
unlike
> >> Brazil's
> >> > over 200 million and this has been mentioned numerous times by
> different
> >> > people in the movement to refer to the severity of the problem.
> >> >
> >> > My opinion is that the Affiliations Committee has no vision on
the
future
>> > of the Wikimedia movement and their main efficiency indicator is
the
> >> number
> >> > of user groups they recognise with no care about the
consequencies
of the
>> > apparent wrongdoing. They managed to bring the tally to over 100
user
> >> > groups and the Wikimedia Foundation even got engaged to celebrate
> this
> >> > achievement, while they did not give a damn about the problems
that
they
> > have posed with their light-minded
routine. Moreover, when you
approach
>> > them with some relevant questions, they simply brush off and
respond
> >> with a
> >> > months-long delay.
> >> >
> >> > In conclusion, the Affiliations Committee is artificially
creating
> >> problems
> >> > as a result of their recognition policy and is seeking resolution
> from
> >> > volunteers that were not consulted at all about the potential
> >> > consequencies. This is a waste of volunteer time and efforts for
> >> something
> >> > that could have easily been prevented. Unfortunately, the
Wikimedia
> >> > Foundation and some other
voices in the movement contribute to
this
> misery
> > and it is highly unprobable that any complaint to any one in the
movement
> > would pay off.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Kiril
> >
> > On сре., 13 фев. 2019 г. at 16:13 Paulo Santos Perneta <
> > paulosperneta(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> camelia boban <camelia.boban(a)gmail.com> escreveu no dia terça,
> 12/02/2019
> >> à(s) 11:18:
> >>
> >> > (...)
> >> > In line with the philosophy of the inclusion of the movement,
AffCom
>> has
>> >> > acted as it always does when it receives affiliation requests:
it
> >> >> assesses
> >> >> > the territorial overlap and the declared purpose of the
requests
with
>> >> > others affiliates present in the territory, contacting the
already
>> >> > recognized affiliates to
hear from them about any concerns,
using
the
>> >> > experience and knowledge on the territory of each of its
members.
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> I suppose this was not in effect back in 2015, when Wiki
Education
> >> Brazil
> >> >> was approved, as neither the existing affiliate in Brazil - UG
> >> Wikimedia
> >> >> in Brazil -, nor Wikimedia Portugal, have been consulted about
it,
> even
> >> >> when it totally overlapped with the territory of the existing
> >> affiliate in
> >> >> Brazil, and was announced by AffCom as having a Lusophone
target,
>>
therefore
>> >> interfering in Portugal as well. Furthermore, at the date it was
>> approved,
>> >> Wiki Education Brazil was already in open conflict with the
existing
>> >> affiliate in Brazil, which
makes the approval decision by AffCom
>> absolutely
>> >> incomprehensible.
>> >>
>> >> Actually, I really fail to understand why the candidatures to
AffCom
> >> >> continue allowed to be proposed in absolute secrecy, leaving any
> >> problems
> >> >> caused by their approvals to be dealt with by the community
after
> the
> >> >> problem is already installed. Does not seem a very clever way of
> >> acting.
> >> >>
> >> >> Best,
> >> >>
> >> >> Paulo - DarwIn
> >> >> Wikimedia Portugal
> >> >> _______________________________________________
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