Most of the points of Jayantilal Kothari are valid. Especially agree with WMF staff taking credit and being on stage most of the time in the recent conference. They were oblivious to volunteers editing structure or their problems. Most of the presentations felt like lectures only with no meaning for the editor community. Foundation hired people get most of the time on stage.

Also many hired people who got appointed for any community do not have any relation to the community. In the conference they did not have any intention to listen to our problems, they just wanted to make a presentation and go home. Foundation should look into this structure between paid employees and volunteers which has developed here. Volunteers should be on the forefront not on the backfoot. 

Thanks,

User: हिंदुस्थान वासी

On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 11:25 PM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Andreas,

There is no denial that money is needed in our region to run programs but there should always be a critical debate, if we are asking too much amount and for the right cause. I can't talk about others but I come from a cross-border language community which has always shown high regards to the value of donation money and expressed concerns in the past, whenever it has felt that money asked in a grant proposal is out of proportionate. So, whenever a grant proposal comes from my language community or from the two affiliates of the region, we brainstorm for days, if not months, to understand if there remains any small chance to waste the valuable resources which are to be entrusted upon us. For example, questions naturally arises in our community that if we really need to or have the luxury to spend this huge amount of around 10 million INR just for a 3-days conference to meet and greet each other after a long time or could that amount of money be invested on local affiliates and communities so that they can sustain themselves and provide quality output for the next decade. There has always been this debate and the people who talked about the second option are quietly moving away from the movement as they were not heard properly or were targeted for their critical analysis. We strongly feel that throwing unnecessary amount of money to whatever proposal comes over from the region is detrimental to the community dynamics as these money spoils people in the communities, brings more mistrusts and corruption and changes the motivation to contribute to the open knowledge movement. Also, huge amount of money does not necessarily translate to delivery of high quality output all the time, good results can come from limited resources too, even with zero budget, if they are planned properly; there are numerous success stories in our movement of those, which are rarely acknowledged or celebrated.

What we feel that there might be some 'white guilt' working in the background to reverse colonial sins from the past in the regions which might drive people from the west to approve more money in Africa and Asia without consideration of local inputs. Any voices against these western perspectives to flood local communities with huge amount of unnecessary money are marked as counter-productive, ignored, silenced and bypassed with different regulatory measures imposed upon the community until people stop criticising and get fed up of being ignored. For example, personally, I have developed apathy nowadays regarding whatever is happening around grant process western to our state border of West Bengal until they directly affects us and prefer to remain silent during their community review process.

By the way, I have no objection hiring WMF staffs from the region. In fact, a number of staffs and contractors from the region are and were highly respected for their support and understanding of the local communities. But all are not beds of roses. There are multiple evidences of opacities, ignorance, agenda pushing, bossing around, corporate mentality, hijacking of community plans and projects etc. among staffs, which builds walls of mistrusts separating them with the volunteers rather than breaking them. I can't disagree to what Jayantilal implied in his statement. So, to me, staffs are always welcome, but if they have no intention to listen and support for community needs, then we frankly don't need them around our communities to push their own agenda, we can manage ourselves.

Regards,

Bodhisattwa

On Thu, May 4, 2023, 18:30 Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Bodhisattwa and all, 

You raise an interesting point – that the influx of money appears to have a demotivating effect on Indian volunteers. This has also come up in discussion elsewhere.

Now I have been one of those who have urged the WMF to spend more money in India. I have always felt that actual spending on the ground has not matched the Foundation's fundraising messages about how money is urgently needed to build capacity in Indian and African languages. And I have argued that hiring staff in India, e.g., makes more sense than hiring staff in the US, where salary expectations may run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

How would you resolve these competing considerations?

Regards,

Andreas (Jayen466)

On Thu, May 4, 2023 at 3:21 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

Coincidentally, just yesterday afternoon, when we were having a meeting in Kolkata with volunteers from West Bengal and Bangladesh, these concerns came up among other things. We were wondering about the visible impact of the increasing number of WMF staffs in India to improve our editing and reading experiences, significant partnership development or strengthening the communities in the last few years and if they have any impact at all in our language community to make our life easier as volunteers.

Anyway, if the volunteer communities or team of organizers are not strong and vigilant enough, there is always a chance to get something hijacked by staffs. This is not new; it has happened before a number of times and it will happen a lot more in the future. This could not be avoided as I feel the spirit of volunteerism in the Indian communities is much much weaker than the past and dying, if not already dead in some of the cases. In the last few years, I have seen long term trusted community members from all over the country leave the movement frustrated, heart broken and exhausted, including from my language community. Increasing flow of unnecessary money are rapidly changing the motivation of volunteers with a strange notion prevailing nowadays that money is the solution of all problems in the region. Community oversight and long discussions on meta talk pages about any huge amount of grant proposals are now a thing of the past. But who cares?

Unlike the previous wiki conferences, the wider Indian community did not get the invitation and space to actively take part in the decision making process from the very start of planning this conference which led to giving room to WMF staffs, who took over. Without community vigilance, a 3 days conference asked and spent 3 times more donation money than the last one and has set up precedences of many unwanted things which would burden future community programs and events in India. It's not at all surprising that even though no one was stopped, but a very few number of volunteers from my language community actually applied and participated in the conference, even being one of the most active community in the region.

Regards,

Bodhisattwa

On Thu, May 4, 2023, 00:53 Subhashish <psubhashish@gmail.com> wrote:

I find this email better worded than the other one in this list a few days back which was also about different issues.

Some of these issues, though I'm not personally aware of, certainly need to be addressed by WMF.

Thank you for upholding the importance of the community by saying -- "I am okay with WMF staff being paid, but it should not undermine unpaid volunteers and the movement's ethos." Can't agree more.

While I see public listing of WMF staff and contractors both on-wiki [1] and the Foundation's official site, WMF staff in India might mean staff and contractors who are hired both for long-term and short-term and part-time roles. It could also mean those who play global roles (say, engineering staffers) but reside in India and don't necessarily interface only with the India-based community. Their participation in a national level event could be an one-off thing.

But those nuances apart, the volunteer and staff dynamics certainly is a topic worth discussing.

A worse social phenomenon in India is a foreigner being treated with more dignity than a local. The intersectionality of caste, gender, fluency in English, intergenerational privilege and many other social factors play a role. I still think this is not a standalone issue and should be discussed (and investigated if needed) keeping in mind the intersectionality.

1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Foundation_staff

Subha

On Wed, May 3, 2023, 11:09 PM Jayantilal Kothari <jayantilalkkd@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Maryana Iskander and Wikimedia Foundation,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to request more transparency about the roles and responsibilities of WMF staff in India. I am assuming good faith and believe that any issues arising are unintentional; however, these occurrences seem to be negatively impacting the overall movement.

It has come to my attention that WMF allocates a relatively small amount of funds to the Indian community. This implies that a significant portion of donor money is spent on staff, making it crucial to ensure that donors and the Wiki community are aware of how the funds are being utilized and the impact generated.

Firstly, I have noticed that WMF hires non-community staff members who may be initially unfamiliar with the Wikimedia community and movement in general. This is not an issue as long as newly recruited staff members are willing to work collaboratively with the community, rather than competing with them. Unfortunately, there have been instances where this has not been the case, such as WMF India staff paying Instagram users without consulting the community, and the recent WikiConference India, where WMF staff overshadowed volunteer committees and took over volunteer roles during conference planning.

Initially, I thought that privacy concerns might be the reason behind the lack of transparency. However, during the recent conference, I observed that such staff members were comfortable being on stage and being identified as WMF Staff amongst friends from the industry whom they invited to the conference. It appears that more people from the industry are aware of WMF India staff's existence than the community itself. Some staff members were keen to take credit for the entire movement and even conference planning in front of the volunteer community and friends from the industry. It might help and advance the careers of WMF India staff by showcasing WikiConference India on their resumes, but the main purpose of such community events is to give a chance to community leadership and to celebrate unpaid community members. I am okay with WMF staff being paid, but it should not undermine unpaid volunteers and the movement's ethos.

The Wiki community looks up to WMF staff for support, but now there is a fear that WMF staff may hijack community programs and stages, with WikiConference India being a recent example.

There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding the roles and responsibilities of WMF India staff members and their interactions with volunteer communities. The Wiki community is dedicated to the mission and will continue to thrive even without WMF staff. I believe it is crucial for WMF to publicly share the roles, responsibilities, and outcomes of the WMF India staff over the last few years. This transparency will enable community members and donors to appreciate the efforts of WMF India staff, as currently, the impact of their work remains unknown.

I kindly request that WMF provides a list of all WMF India staff members and their achievements, so we can celebrate their accomplishments and collaborate with them more effectively.

Looking forward to your response.

With Regards,

Jayantilal

--

Regards,

Jayantilal

Sent from my iPhone

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