Hello everyone,
I agree with Butch and Gnangarra. We need to solve local conflicts first and then go for broader global collaboration. Volunteers are the fuel of Wikimedia, it's not a wise step to completely ignore volunteers from a particular region and start an affiliate covering those areas.
To Ankan and Aishik specifically,
Thanks a lot for your response. What you said is completely different from what we are experiencing right now in the local community here in Bangladesh. I'm seeing the local volunteer community including the admin panel being divided into numerous micro-groups and these groups are being engaged in multifaceted conflicts within themselves. In fact, executive members from Wikimedia Bangladesh have also been engaged in heated exchanges with several community members including a few admins in the last few weeks. There are numerous on and private offwiki social group incidents where the community members experienced these. The village pump of bnwiki itself is flooded with recent heated discussions. I'm mentioning Wikimedia Bangladesh here because I, myself have seen them being involved in conflicts with several local organizers. Since the formation of this user group is rooted in the local conflict in Bangladesh that involves Wikimedia Bangladesh also, I would request not to suppress the voice of local volunteers and try to find a solution locally that may involve perspective from experienced global contributors. But please don't flood the global mailing list and it's better to put an end to this user group discussion.
Being honest, Aishik is one of the most celebrated organizers in Bangladesh, anyone active here in the local movement would agree that. It is very weird that no one from Wikimedia Bangladesh noticed Aishik's user page and requested them to put down the "Associate Member" status if Aishik is not anyhow formally connected to this chapter. No local contributor would believe that no one from the local chapter noticed Aishik's user page before.
The contact persons of this user group are some of the most active organizers of Wikimedia Bangladesh. In fact, they have organized and worked hard for Wikimedia Bangladesh even more than the Executive Committee members, we haven't at least seen the Executive Committee members actively organizing anything in the local community in most cases. Local volunteers can ensure that it is quite unbelievable that the founders of this user group didn't discuss it with Wikimedia Bangladesh. I repeat it's not possible that they didn't discuss it with the local chapter here. There are two possible options. The first one is, the local chapter supported the decision of launching this user group even after knowing that it would create overlapping and conflict. And the second one is, they didn't support and let these people go as they wish (again, knowing that there would be a conflict). Since they are the most active organizers of Wikimedia Bangladesh, it's not impossible that there was a conflict between these two groups - the unstable situation in the local community also supports this possibility.
I don't think it's valid to directly tag any concern using words like "fictitious" and "blame on the basis of personal thoughts". There are tons of on and offwiki proofs that may support the idea that these "allegations" against Wikimedia Bangladesh are shared thoughts instead of just personal opinions. But I don't think it would be a good idea to present the evidence here since this is not the main topic in this thread (though it's very much relevant to study the background of the current global situation). The community came to know about an active trust and safety case against four of the bnwiki admins for target harassment from public discussions. In fact, in the bnwiki village pump, it has also surfaced that one or more people from these four admins have close relations with Wikimedia Bangladesh, and the chapter is directly or indirectly involved in the harassment incidents. According to my observation, these harassment incidents were some of the root causes behind the current unstable situation in the local community which has been brought globally via the formation of this user group.
Again, I agree with Butch and Gnangarra, we should not clog the global mailing list with local conflict issues and solve the local conflict first. It is better not to consider proceeding with the proposed user group and take some time to know and collaborate with the volunteers from all over the mentioned region, and solve the local complexities locally first. Before launching such an ambitious initiative, our colleagues from Eseap and other regions should be consulted and their opinions should be considered carefully. I hope that this discussion will come to a successful conclusion.
Regards,
Iftee