Carlos, Is there a reason why the list is private? The topics you mentioned—general affiliate discussion, regional conferences, blog post announcements, and so on—don't seem particularly sensitive. (I'm just curious. My WMF role has nothing to do with affiliates and I wouldn't subscribe to the list even if it were public.) Thanks! On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 2:19 PM, Pine W &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Neil P. Quinn <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Neil_P._Quinn-WMF>, product analyst Wikimedia Foundation

Hey Pine, As you know, AffCom started looking into this list after some discussions with affiliates in Berlin, Wikimania, and at that page you referred to. We did talk with that list’s moderators about potentially reusing that list (largely why the creation of this list took awhile). However, ultimately, we decided to proceed with the creation of this list. The old list is not on Wikimedia servers or officially connected to AffCom, so I cannot speak to its future. However, it has becoming increasingly inactive, is limited to chapters (so excludes a majority of our affiliates), and not something we have promoted recently. My personal hope is that this new broader list replaces that one over time, but that is not something we can “force” as it’s not a resource we officially help manage. -greg (User:Varnent) Vice Chair, Affiliations Committee

I too question the need for a private mailing list. We should require more than a just a "consistent request" before we reduce transparency and create yet another walled garden away from the community. --Ed On Oct 16, 2015 12:07 AM, "Pine W" &lt;wiki.pine(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

+1 for public archives to start. Private lists are almost never made public later, even where there's no need for privacy. A more transparent alternative is to make any list publicly-archived (archives world-readable, even if membership and ability to post to the list is restricted), while setting it up and discussing its purpose. If list members have specific uses that would require privacy, that purpose can drive a decision to make it private. Then at least those founding discussions and the reason for list privacy are visible to others. The converse doesn't happen. The only people whose voices count in a decision to make a list public are generally those already on the list. And they have access, so they have no pressing need to review whether its archives should be public. Gregory Varnum writes: Well, Carlos mentioned 10 uses for the list, none of which need private discussion. It sounds like you're saying an 11th is "encouraging affiliates who don't currently write about their work and experiences, to do so" and you think a significant number will only do so if their messages are not publicly visible or archived. The downside is that you defined the list very broadly, also encouraging people who currently write about their work publicly to start using this new list: so now those thoughts will be lost to the larger community forever. And the majority of outreach projects, event organizers, local communities, and groups (which aren't interested in going through a formal recognition process) will be walled out. SJ On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 1:18 PM, Gregory Varnum &lt;gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

You've set up a strawman argument, Greg, and your solution is suboptimal. This is a community issue, as SJ correctly notes, and it should be discussed with the community. Leaving it private "for now" and polling the list affiliates (or going back to a virtually unknown Meta page) is going to result in the list staying closed—do we really believe that anyone there is going to vote to publicize their own discussions? Are there specific examples of these "affiliate-specific issues" occurring in the past? There are very few things that I can think of that should be private, and one of those is privacy issues, which shouldn't be discussed on any mailing lists (open or closed). Leaks can and do happen. If a chapter needs private advice "on discussing an issue with the broader community", they might want to look into breaking down the walled garden they're already in. --Ed On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Gregory Varnum &lt;gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Ow yes, I remember a affiliate specific issue that was not handled appropriate by some users from outside any affiliate. And also this discussion here doesn't give a comfortable feeling (in my opinion) to affiliates to do (always) a public discussion. If I as affiliate member, want to have feedback from my colleagues, I am not waiting for a hostile environment. The problem here as well is that people with certain tasks, like running an affiliate, do have the need for communication with people with the same task. That is the basic reason for setting up a mailing list. If you can't imagine why people with the same task should communicate internally, it certainly should not up to you to decide due a lack of experience. Years ago I could not imagine why certain people with a certain task wanted to communicate with each other internally, until I came in that position myself. If I want feedback in how other affiliates do certain things, I am not waiting for other people to scare those affiliates away with their messages. And by the way, having a way to communicate internally (like a closed mailing list) does not create a walled garden away from the community. The thing that does create a walled garden away from the community is by saying that some people are separate because they have a certain task. The "we versus them" thoughts. And what is called a "community" is much much larger than the small amount of people on the mailing list, that is typically biased as result of hard discussions that occur from time to time. Romaine 2015-10-19 20:54 GMT+02:00 Ed Erhart &lt;the.ed17(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

Sorry, we already have chapters-list (that did not had a have flux) that is "private", and the knowledge there (I know, barely nothing) could be used to the Aff, but it's private... The volume of discussions demanding an opacity is... none! Documents will not be shared at mailing lists, and problems must not be hidden from the "public". This privates clubs are not coherent to values of Wikimedia Movement. On 21 October 2015 at 00:27, Craig Franklin &lt;cfranklin(a)halonetwork.net&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

On 20 October 2015 at 18:00, Romaine Wiki &lt;romaine.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Snipping this separately. There are almost 90 affiliates (including chapters and thematic organizations), and this number is growing rapidly. If each one can have two or three members of this mailing list, we're talking hundreds of subscribers. A list with that many subscribers is never going to really remain private and confidential. Anyone who is discussing anything 'sensitive' on a list with that many subscribers is, frankly, doing it in the wrong place. The existing chapters-l and internal-l mailing lists used to leak like sieves when they were in heavy use (and in addition the information that was leaked was often distorted and incomplete). The mailing list can be configured so that only recognized subscribers can post but anyone can view. This has several advantages: reduced mailing list management time/costs, ability of other chapter execs/members to keep up with discussions when the subscriber members are unavailable, ability of potential user groups and other affiliates to learn from osmosis, not only from current discussions but from archives. Learning patterns can be pulled out of the archives once the list has been around for a while. Public lists also tend to moderate the behaviour of those who may push things in inappropriate directions (sexist or harassing comments, bullying, etc). I don't have a pony in this race, but I do have a ton of experience with nonpublic Wikimedia movement related mailing lists - and most of the ones that "work" effectively and are good methods for sharing information are ones with very specific and narrow functions that deal with information that is covered under the access to nonpublic information policy. Regardless of whether the decision is a public or a private list, ensure that there are hard rules about who can and cannot subscribe, what actions will be considered unacceptable, and what will be done if any subscriber behaves inappropriately (e.g., does the person get unsubscribed, is there an appeal mechanism, what's the complaints mechanism, do affiliates who have a member "unsubscribed" get to replace that person with someone else, etc.) Risker/Anne

" it's not good to give publicly comments on the candidates." Why is that so? And candidates? To what? On 21 October 2015 at 06:12, Ilario Valdelli &lt;valdelli(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

This do not answers any of my questions... opacity even in the talk, the via will not make any difference. On 21 October 2015 at 10:43, Ilario Valdelli &lt;valdelli(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

That's the spirit of Wikimedia Movement, censorship... I was talking about the list, you said: " it's not good to give publicly comments on the candidates." and I asked why, you decided not answer. And you know that AffCom screwed WMBR, so don't come with "If you are member of a chapter, please ask internally to your chapter, not to me." just to border me. On 21 October 2015 at 11:35, Ilario Valdelli &lt;valdelli(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

How about less provocations, attempts to breakdown the conversation with violence, and support our idea in a civilized manner ? So " it's not good to give publicly comments on the candidates.", why do you think that? I am not understanding your affirmation, because you did not offer any argument that corroborates to your statement. On 21 October 2015 at 12:13, Ilario Valdelli &lt;valdelli(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

*q.e.d.* no arguments, nothing more to add, just ''ad hominem'', and provocations. On 21 October 2015 at 13:08, Ilario Valdelli &lt;valdelli(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton rodrigo.argenton(a)gmail.com +55 11 979 718 884

Chris writes: "affiliates" There is room for a private list that's only for confidential topics; but the right list for that may already exist. As Risker says, you'd want to limit membership if you expect any confidentiality at all, and focus use of it on that theme. Risker writes: <snip other useful comments> -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

Looking at the current (private) chapters' list, for at least a year 90%+ of the traffic has been announcements that were cross-posted to Wikimedia-l. The other 10% is invitations and requests addressed to "chapters people" that might be boring to most people on wikimedia-l but could have been publically archived with no problem. The last "private" thing to happen on that list was discussion of the 2014 Affiliate Selected Board Seats process - actually not so much the process itself but how to deal with an intemperate email from someone from the English Wikipedia Signpost who was threatening to write an article about the process being an undemocratic sham. Apart from that we are stretching back into 2013 and the death throes of the WCA before anyone said anything interesting on the list. On the subject of email lists, internal-l which is meant to be "chapters plus WMF staff" has had virtually no traffic for literally years. There was at one point a limit on the number of representatives of chapters that could be on internal-l (and IIRC on the chapters list) but that never really served any purpose (it certainly didn't improve the signal to noise ratio...) What does all of this mean? I think it's pretty clear that broad-based private-access lists aren't serving any purpose. My preferred option would be to either ditch the Chapters mailing list or make it announce-only, scrap Internal-l entirely, and have an "affiliates" list that is open. Chris On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 7:21 PM, Gregory Varnum &lt;gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 2:17 PM, Gregory Varnum &lt;gregory.varnum(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: ​I feel it's now time for the obligatory "Please discuss this on meta if we want to talk about transparency" post. < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Affiliat… ​ -- ~Keegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email address is in a personal capacity.

Hi all, I support Chris' arguments and I would add some points. As administrator of the chapters mailing list I think that the best is to recover some "historical memory", which is never regrettable. Considering that we are going to celebrate several year of birthday of Wikipedia or of Wikimedia projects, I think that the "historical memory" is more than an asset. I personally can support the creation of a mailing list like this for several reasons: 1) the chapters mailing list is closed for a specific reason 2) users groups cannot be accepted for a specif reason, even if there is a strong pressure 3) The chapters mailing list is hard to maintain because, as closed mailing list, the update and the verification requires time and workload, and this workload is manageable only if there is a limited number of subscriptions The chapters mailing list exists *only* to assure a neutral (and this word makes sense) and a "demilitarized zone" to discuss and to announce the selection of the WMF's board members assigned to the chapters. I would not open here a long discussion about the process or about the assignments to the chapters of these two seats (not all WMF board members are selected by the community), the chapters are considered as a stakeholder and the chapters asked to have a place like this. So please discuss in other places this item. So the point 1) is justified. The users groups cannot be accepted until the users groups cannot participate in this selection because the main aim of the mailing list is exactly that. So the point 2) is justified. I personally can assure that to keep this place "neutral" there is a long verification of the eligibility of the members and it requires a lot of time. The chapters mailing list has very low traffic because is used also to make some announcements (for instance the Wikimedia Conference) because not all chapters members follow Wikimedia-l. Except these two utilization, there are nothing else. At this point I would correct my sentence and I would say that: "I personally can support the creation of a mailing list" but I would add "not a twin of the chapters mailing list". A closed and limited mailing list will be a simple replication of the chapters mailing list except the big workload to manage more subscriptions. It makes sense and can complete the chapters mailing list only if it is "open" and "transparent". Anyone who would open an user group can follow it, any chapters who would use the chapters mailing list for a use different to the main one, would be addressed to the open mailing list. And as personal hint I suggest to keep it open because the management of a close mailing list with a high number of eligible subscribers may require a lot of time and verification. Kind regards On 19.10.2015 21:12, Chris Keating wrote: -- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch

I do question why some members from the community should be involved in chapter/affiliates issues. If affiliates want to communicate with each other, without interference from individual users, they had no way to do such until this list was created. And there is no transparency reduction. The suggestion that with creating this list the transparency is reduced is an illusion. If affiliates want to communicate with only affiliates, they will found another way to do that without doing that publicly, and that is much less transparent. Earlier on the chapters mailing list it appeared there is a enough support for a closed list. Wikimedia is a large movement. In that movement a lot of things are done and a various set of tasks are performed. Each of those people doing the same tasks like to be able to communicate with other people doing the same task(s). To communicate effectively e-mail lists are created. For example, also Wikipedia admins have multiple private mailing lists, arbcom, OTRS, Stewards, etc. They all have sensitive data, but they also just like to be able to share experiences, ask questions with people who do the same tasks, and have some basic level of communication. This communication is essential for doing a task and improving the quality in how this task is executed. This communication will happen anyway. But they are two ways to organise that: organised in a closed mailing list or not organised with people communicate only directly with excluding many relevant people. No, there is not a new another walled garden, it is just a better organised walled garden that exists already for a long time in other forms. Romaine 2015-10-19 19:10 GMT+02:00 Ed Erhart &lt;the.ed17(a)gmail.com&gt;om>:

We are still contacting affiliates to invite them to join. So far we have used mailing lists and MassMessage to contact affiliates. Since many of them are not on this list, it is tricky tracking them all down (partly why this list is being created). As it turns out - more heard from the MassMessage and Signpost than this list (which - sort of speaks to why WM-l is not a good method of reaching the affiliates). We do not have one good place to reach all of the affiliates without this list, so it is taking a bit to track everyone down. Basically every couple days I am finding more affiliate leaders who have not yet heard about the list (again - speaking to one reason why we agreed this list should be created). However, we are steadily getting requests to join and I believe personally we are making good progress. Generally, I do not yet consider it “active” and many folks are still holding off starting threads until there are more affiliates brought onboard. My personal guess is that it will be at least another few weeks before we’ve been able to track everyone down, and the list can be considered active. -greg

I have not seen any moderated messages - but will check. That is not intentional. Perhaps the moderated message you are referring to is from your email to AffCom? -greg _______________ Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.

My fault for reusing the subject line. :) -greg _______________ Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.