On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 3:13 AM, Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 8:33 PM, Anivar Aravind <anivar.aravind@gmail.com> wrote:

There are 2 separate issues here . Please address them seperately

1. Blaming community for the organizational management failures of WMF India program

(read Ravi once gain : "Indian Wikimedia office was burnt out precisely because of this negative approach from the community." , and a WMF Board member giving +100 to that) . When you are working on an accountable position in front of a community there will be questions and critiques always. This is a usual phenomenon . Blaming the community for the organizational failures of WMF India team is not the solution for that . Ravisankar and Bishakha have a moral responsibility to explain this critique, since this is different from whatever WMF told us so far . I hope they will respond and close this thread

Dear Anivar,

I took your comment seriously and went back and re-read Ravi's comment - and I continue to agree with what he says. Nowhere does he (or I) hold the community responsible for the failures of the India program. I cannot understand how this conclusion can be arrived at or derived from those comments.

do you mean to say there is no blame on community here in this statement? "Indian Wikimedia office was burnt out precisely because of this negative approach from the community." I have underlined and marked in bold the portion that I and (think Arvind) found objectionable and questioned. Please be advised and read my reply more carefully once again, I never asked any question to A2K team nor I raised any concerns, What I tried was just to ask something to Ravi to clarify, which I think for some incomprehensible or mystic reasons he is trying to avoid and answering himself.

Anyways, as a member of Board of Trustees if you donot see anything objectionable in saying that "Indian Wikimedia office was burnt out precisely because of this negative approach from the community", I as a tiny member of Indic wikipedia community, have no right to feel hurt. You being trustee our representative and leader, and in our culture it is said that Yatha Raja tatha Praja, so as you're not offended (I assume you are community member as well as trustee) we must not be offended and live with this stigma.

Over the last two years, community members, including those from the wider wikipedia communities, have on many instances rightly pointed out things that were going wrong with the program. That's not the issue here. Constructive feedback is always needed and always welcomed.

But we also know - and need to acknowledge - that the community has not always been constructive in its feedback. It is well known that not just members of the India program team, but volunteers from India have themselves felt burnt out and unfairly targeted by the atmosphere of suspicion and the level of politics.

With new leadership in place at the A2K program team following a rigorous selection process, there is a chance to make somewhat of a fresh start. The newly-led team has yet to start work and cannot be held responsible for the lapses of the past. What it needs is a level playing field to start working. Without this, it cannot possibly succeed, no matter how solid its intentions are, no matter how capable it may be, no matter how much effort it puts into working in an inclusive, transparent and peer-like manner with the larger community.

Given this, I would ask that you and everyone on their list do their bit to build a level playing field, and ensure that the newly-led team is given a fair chance to prove its mettle or earn its stripes, in an atmosphere that is free of suspicion and pre-judgement.

Dwelling on the past and nitpicking on inessentials is not going to get us there - but making concrete suggestions for the future might. Once again, I would urge anyone who has specific suggestions for the new A2K team to publicly share them so that these can be seriously considered. This would help create the level playing field that is so badly needed now.

Best
Bishakha

A surrendered member of community,

Dhaval