On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta@gmail.com> wrote:

Pradeep's post brought up some immediate and broader questions for me, which I've put up on his blog.

Also reproducing them here, simply because I don't think we should under-estimate what his post means. That someone who was such an integral part of the Mumbai and India community and the wikimedia movement feels despairing enough to retire - over the 'politicking' - is not a good sign.

Reporting
*How can we ensure that such reports are based on consensus, so that those who've been vital parts of such community events do not later feel alienated by the reporting?

*How can we ensure that such reports represent the perspectives of many of those involved in such events, rather than a singular perspective? One way to do so is to involve all 'teams' in writing their parts of the report - eg Scholarships, Programs etc, getting internal consensus within each team, and then providing it to the core team.

*How can we ensure that such reports are constructive, rather than destructive, in their criticism, and steer clear of name calling or singling out individuals?

*How can we ensure that such reports 'look forward' to helping future community teams that organize such conferences, rather than backwards at pinpointing perceived errors of omission and commission?

*How can we ensure that such reports have a helpful problem-solution approach, eg "this was the problem, this was how we fixed it" to supplement the documentation of processes leading up to an event? That would really help future teams.

Broader
*How can we retain the sense of fun that is so much part of - and integral to - a volunteer movement?

*How can we create a sense of togetherness, a sense that we're all working towards the same shared goals?

*How can we ask the tough questions that are needed to make constituents accountable to a larger community while ensuring that we are not unduly politicking or undermining trust in the process? And how do we know when enough is enough, that it's time to stop?

Many other questions, but I'll stop here for now. I forgot to put some of these up on the blog, they occurred to me while I was writing this.

Best
Bishakha

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I don't know how you can think reporting itself was the problem, I'm really confused how you formed that impression. We can of course, start lying, avoid any cautionary tales and keep repeating "all is great", or you can actually confront the situation. I'm conflicted a bit here, about the negative tones and name calling in the report, but at the same time, if pranav didn't acknowledge what the problems were, why he and pradeep left the community all together after, we won't know what is going on - Like I said, I'm conflicted on this one, but I can't blame him either.

The India programs is turning into a mess frankly. I don't know even know what the status is, or has been with the India operations these days - Is it a trust, are they direct contractors? Is there any legal entity to speak of? - There used to be announcements about regular meetings, but they apparently go on-and-off every other month. Besides having no communication with any one at the India staff, while living in the same city and running the Delhi list, the only activity I can acknowledge that has been happening for a few months, are small meetups and outreach sessions, which are usually done by volunteers and actual editors, all around the world. It's no surprise we are still talking and reeling from the effects of what happened last year.