Hi Camelia,
thanks for the reply - was there any consultation of the first user group before the decision was made? It should've been obvious from their reports and grant applications ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians_of_Al... ) that Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group also has volunteers and activities in Albania, especially in GLAM and Education, which you attribute to the second group (Wikimedia Community User Group Albania).
The underlying problem here is that nobody feels responsible for our current affiliate structure and others (especially the affiliates affected by your decisions) are left to deal with the situation themselves. This is definitely something the working group Roles & Responsibilities needs to work on in order to have more friction-less affiliates model in the future. This example right here is a good showcase of how an affiliation model should not work.
I think it's pointless to blame anyone for this, I just hope we figure out a better way in the future :-)
Best, Philip
On Tue, 12 Feb 2019 at 12:18, camelia boban camelia.boban@gmail.com wrote:
Hello everyone, sorry on my delayed answer.
I respond in the name of AffCom as inside the group it is one of the tasks assigned to me.
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. And it suggests, but does not decide affiliation.
In the specific case of Albania, the objectives purpose of the first UG (Wikimedia Community User Group Albania) in that specific moment was the Albanian language (which is spoken not only in Albania, but also in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, Turkey, Italy) and activities especially related to Wiki Loves Monuments, diversity and Wikidata, OSCAL and Software Freedom Kosova. In the case instead of the second UG (Wikimedia Community User Group Albania) the purpose was Outreach, GLAM and education, everything focused territorially on Albania. So no scope overlap, no territory overlap. Furthermore, the two groups had always actively collaborated together until that point.
We followed the rules/models we actually have and these are the right motivations for which AffCom has suggested at that time the recognition of the second group. If instead we want to discuss about find/suggest different models of affiliation or chage the existent, this must be a separate conversation.
Thank you.
Camelia & Sami, on behalf of AffCom
-- *Camelia Boban*
*| Developer |* *Affiliations Committee Treasurer - **Wikimedia *Foundation Coordinator - Diversity Working Group for Wikimedia Strategy 2030 Chair & co-founder - WikiDonne User Group WMIT - WMSE - WMCH - WMAR Member M. +39 3383385545 camelia.boban@gmail.com *Wikipedia https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Camelia.boban | *Twitter https://twitter.com/cameliaboban *|* *Google Plu https://plus.google.com/+CameliaBoban/s https://plus.google.com/+CameliaBoban/* *WikiDonne https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiDonne* *| **LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/camelia-boban-31319122 **|* *Aissa Technologies* http://aissatechnologies.eu/
Il giorno ven 8 feb 2019 alle ore 19:22 Фархад Фаткуллин / Farkhad Fatkullin frhd@yandex.com ha scritto:
We are likely to eventually have a similar situation in my region of the Russian Federation & we welcome this.
- A recently recognized Wikimedia Community of Tatar language User Group
(WUG TAT) is a language-oriented UG without geographical borders. 2) At the same time, we will eventually need a Tatarstan-centered Wikimedia User Group / Subnational Thematic organization without specific language focus.
I am actually in the process of laying the ground for the second. During https://ru.wikimedia.org/wiki/%D0%A3%D0%BC%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%80%D0%B5%D0... I was given less than a minute, but still managed to convince both Federal Deputy Prime-Minister and Regional President. I will have to craft value proposition statements & roadmaps in a way as to try have this implemented first in my Republic, then across Russia.
farhad
-- Farkhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan
06.02.2019, 21:02, "Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l" < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>:
I guess... probably one include also the majority of Kosovo,
Albanian-speaking regions of Greece, P.Y.R.O.M./North Macedonia and maybe even Southern Italy and the other one is just centered on Albania as a state. This is not the same scenario as Brazil (not sure if, partially, also Greece) since in that case we had two group precisely centered on one country.
It's not totally practical but the geopolitical situation is not
practical in the end by itself... You cannot force people to get rid of a group that might become a future national chapter because their language is spoken by many other people in neighboring countries who already clustered in a previous UG. So it should not be considered a critical situation per se, although the interaction of the two UGs should be closely monitored and addressed since the beginning.
What is missing is a precise guideline or attention to UG related to
languages (of minorities or globally spoken). You could have the same problem with a future Italian minor languages UG active in Corsica or Croatia, with a Retho-romance Alpine language user group, with a gender gap UG active in a language distributed along various borders... and so on. They don't seem to show huge problems when similar situation exist in reality but they could degenerate, stop cooperation, or never start it with other UGs or national chapters.
I value plurality, I want UG to be created and catalyze activities, and
I think that the problem is mostly the character of people. However, I strongly advocate a more structured architecture of language-based UG to be implemented. Basically what I suppose was done with Catalan Wikimedia Thematic Organization, although in that case there is no main entity competing on the area of a sovereign country where Catalan is spoken (which is not necessarily a better scenario, just complex in a different way). We call them almost all "User groups" but they are sometimes local geographical unions of users and volunteers (embryonic future national chapters or just regional associations), language-oriented associations created to involve minorities or cross-projects of interested users unified by a topic. They all have different purpose and should be rationalized somehow. I think I pushed a little bit in that direction on the application to WikiSummit, stressing the importance to make order in the field.
IMHO, we should have single-language thematic organizations
(specifically for a language), cross-language thematic organization or local UG centered on a vague historic geographical area or a very precise administrative one. And think carefully about their status. This is however just a vague idea.
Alessandro Il mercoledì 6 febbraio 2019, 18:11:57 CET, Philip Kopetzky <
philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> ha scritto:
Just to close off this thread, there seemingly is no plan and others
are
left to deal with the fallout of this decision.
On Tue, 12 Jun 2018 at 08:23, Paulo Santos Perneta <
paulosperneta@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Kirill,
I join Philip and Mardetanha on their concerns and questions. Having followed closely the Brazil situation - which ended up in the worst possible way, IMO - I'm very interested in your answer.
Best,
Paulo
2018-06-11 13:07 GMT+01:00 Mardetanha mardetanha.wiki@gmail.com:
Hi Kirill
Philip's concerns were not answered, would you please respond, I
had the
very same question.
Mardetanha
On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 3:12 PM, Philip Kopetzky < philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Kirill,
what's the difference/relationship between this group and the
Wikimedians
of Albanian Language User Group, which is currently applying for a simpleAPG grant? How do we avoid creating more Brazilian scenarios
by
reconising even more user groups from the same area?
Best, Philip
On 22 May 2018 at 22:07, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com
wrote:
> Hi everyone! > > I'm very happy to announce that the Affiliations Committee has
recognized
> [1] Wikimedia Community User Group Albania [2] as a Wikimedia
User
Group.
> The group aims to improve content about Albania across the
Wikimedia
> projects, including Commons and Wikidata, and to collaborate with
other
> Wikimedia user groups, chapters, and other free culture groups in
Albania
> and across the region. > > Please join me in congratulating the members of this new user
group!
> > Regards, > Kirill Lokshin > Chair, Affiliations Committee > > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/ > Resolutions/Recognition_Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Albania > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_ Group_Albania > > _______________________________________________ > Affiliates mailing list > Affiliates@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/affiliates > > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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