I want to write with the spirit that I respect the co-founders of the Wikimedians of the Asia Pacific User Group (WAPAC) as individual volunteer fellow Wikimedians. Still, I strongly disagree with creating this user group. It seems like forming a new user group where three co-founders have some conflict with Wikimedia Bangladesh. But instead of finding ways to resolve those conflicts, they, all from Bangladesh, started a parallel user group and called it Wikimedians of the Asia Pacific User Group.

For context, the Asia-Pacific region includes over 45 economies and is home to 60% of the world's population that speaks over 2,000 languages. I highly doubt that forming a user group due to unsolved interpersonal conflicts is a good idea. There is, of course, a lack of conversations with communities of this large region and a lack of regional representation. Not to mention, ESEAP, the organiser of Wikimania this year, had no clue. There are many ways to solve interpersonal conflicts, but creating a user group without a real reason is not one.

Subhashish

On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 3:00 PM Iftekhar Hossain Iftee <i.h.iftee71@gmail.com> wrote:

Note: my last mail was caught in moderation queue, I sent it before Aishik's last mail but it got approved after his mail.

Iftee

On Sat, May 27, 2023, 7:41 PM Aaqib Anjum Aafi <AaqibAnjumAafi@gmail.com> wrote:
I am not sure where is the disappointing stuff in this thread. You are free to start a usergroup and work under an umbrella which adds more to the diversity of the movement, and I suppose it should, in your case, given you plenty of valuable contributions. However, calling helpful and friendly suggestions of others on certain errors that you made as "something unconstructive" is just being dishonest. Most of the comments on this thread are telling you constructively to engage with the larger community, for instance, with regards to the name of the usergroup. I run a thematic usergroup and I had to go through months of AffCom review: this thing overlaps this thing and so on, even though I had not used any such name or overlapped seriously with any specific community. However, the wider community groups in India where consulted by AffCom before they approved my usergroup application.

The reason of me telling this to you is that most of the people commenting here are sharing their experiences and telling you what should be the correct step. You should invite all the communities that are in the region with which the name overlaps and have their comments heard, and if that doesn't reach any conclusion, you can opt for a different name that could perhaps serve your ideas and goals better.

I hope this makes some sense.
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