Hi Harsh, I have a few questions. Was there any specific reason to go for a Separate MW Group? Is it due to legal/trademark issues or funding? I'm sure that those two could be sorted if it were taken up by the Chapter similar to an SIG model. On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 3:08 PM, Harsh Kothari <harshkothari410(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: -- Srikanth Ramakrishnan Member of the Executive Committee Wikimedia Chapter [India]

Noopur, Thank you for your response, However, you still haven't answered my question on what benefit a User Group has over Chapter SIG. The Chapter was set up to help promote and streamline Wikimedia related activities in India. We have been asked by affcom and your response would greatly help us understand why direct affiliation is really necessary. It is more important to see what the long term benefits of this would be rather than to just create it because the option exists. -- On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Noopur <noopur.raval(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Srikanth Ramakrishnan Member of the Executive Committee Wikimedia Chapter [India]

Hi, I never mentioned anything about being part of the chapter. The chapter was set up to promote the movement in India and it has done so even in cases where a person/participant was NOT a part of the chapter.. I merely asked what benefit the Group recieves by taking the User Group route over the Chapter SIG route. Harsh, What are your thoughts on the Chapter-SIG model. On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Noopur <noopur.raval(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Srikanth Ramakrishnan Member of the Executive Committee Wikimedia Chapter [India]

Hi, On 01/03/2013 05:11 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Can you describe this Chapter SIG route / model, or point to a URL explaining it? The only thing I could find is http://wiki.wikimedia.in/City_and_Language_SIG_subcommittee_chair but nothing about process or even group activities can be found there. In the meantime, let me add a bit more to Noopur's argument and my previous reply. The main motivation of MediaWiki groups is unsurprisingly http://mediawiki.org - the open source software and its community around. They can be created in Ahmedabad, San Francisco, Mexico City, Berlin or wherever, but they share common needs, common activities, common materials and so on. MediaWiki Groups were born at mediawiki.org because they were needed to bring this open source community to the physical space. In a formal sense they are just wiki pages with registered users signing up for them. No non-profit creation, no formal membership... The whole identity is based purely on activities organized. It was a coincidence that the Wikimedia movement was about to approve the User Groups while MediaWiki Groups were defined. We discussed with the AffCom and we fine tuned the MediaWiki Groups requirements and process in order to make them Wikimedia User Groups as well. Then Harsh, Yuvi and also Sucheta showed up proposing a MediaWiki Group India. At the end we decided that MediaWiki Groups need to be strictly local, and that MediaWiki activities at a national level should be better organized with the chapters, since they have already the infrastructure for that. Then Harsh evolved the proposal to MediaWiki Group Ahmedabad, Sucheta is already trying to gather critical mass for a MediaWiki Group Kolkata, etc. That's it. You can still argue that such organizations could be handled a part of Wikimedia India SIGs, and that their promoters wouldn't be required to be chapter members. I don't even disagree with the idea, but in the right sequence of events: the motivation of these groups is mediawiki.org and therefore good alignment and coordination within the MediaWiki community is what matters most. I have no doubt that strong MediaWiki Groups will contribute to the strength of the Wikimedia community and their related chapters. -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

Truly said Quim and Noopur. The idea and motivation behind mediawiki group is to encourage open source activities, particularly about MediaWiki. At the same time, it also brings to gather people who are working and can work in this perspective. So every wikimedian should welcome this . Regards, Samkit On 03-Jan-13 8:08 PM, Quim Gil wrote:

Hi Yuvi On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Yuvi Panda <yuvipanda(a)gmail.com> wrote: So, to summarize again, Quim, a staff member, and you, a contractor/staff member had a discussion with harsh - I don't know harsh so please forgo any mistaken assumption on my part, had a discussion on IRC, and between the three, it was decided, if a group would be a better option to a list. Unfortunately, there are no logs to even prove the above discussion, which would brig me to reiterate what I said earlier, now confirmed with the explanation above. For the time being, I stand by what I said. Hmm I have no idea about these user groups, or what levels of formalization they do have, so I'll take your word for it. What I do know is the concept of Wikimedia User groups is a new territory for us, the first group using this approach is being led by the staff, as I said earlier. Second, MediaWiki *is* independent and might have nothing to do with Wikimedia. But then again, why are we on a list of Wikimedia asking Wikipedians to join or create the said group? To the extent of my knowledge, Mediawiki is a platform, a piece of software, in terms of real world implications it has no existence. Which would then lead the discussion back in to the circle, that went on the tech list about a MediaWiki foundation and an independent identity, because clearly that's the problem we have right now - shortage of committees, and groups and organizations to conflate a bunch of stuff rather than the actual work they are supposed to do. The simplest question is what would this achieve? Let's say there is a group or a list, what then? would the work materialize that so far has not? or would we be left with dead organizations in a year or two that will continue to carry the Wikimedia or Mediawiki name till someone realizes the exposure of proliferating these. I can point you to 2 dozen dead lists with no activities, in order to get wider participation they forward important announcements to the major lists like this, so, if you end up forwarding to the India list most of the times, what is the separate list achieving. It's the same people, perhaps more so on the older lists. Actually, the discussion about demarcating the rights to use a term is still ongoing. Thematic organizations are being discussed on Meta and if they should use Wikimedia or even Wiki in their name, I suppose some extension would apply to Mediawiki as well. I hope I don't need to point out that the 2 words are the same in both organizations, 'Media' and 'Wiki'. Regards Theo

Theo, I am not sure where this discussion is going to. Srikanth had specific questions on why the MediaWiki user group and why not a technical SIG instead. At least that's what I gather from his mail. However you seem to be asking why a MediaWiki user group at all. For this you will need to rewind to previous mailing list threads where community members, oblivious to any possibility of such MediaWiki groups had expressed the desire to have some kind of a technical collaborative. In fact on this thread itself, I remember a response on the chapter list informing people whom this could interest. The mailing list objections don't quite make sense to me. Nor do the arguments about dead groups. That is the nature of volunteer communities perhaps. People were informed about this proposal on all lists precisely due to te absence of an existing tech list. I personally don't see why there needs to be any justification to start a collaborative group as long as it is not pulling on precious resources. If enthusiastic volunteers of Ahmedabad wish to call themselves MediaWiki group Ahmedabad and have already localized gadgets and think that formalizing would attract more like minded local users, I don't see any harm. Did you see the mini hackathon post and the announcement for all interested members to have a chat with Sumana? Did you also see sucheta and pratik's initiatives in the same vein? Wouldn't it be unfair to term this as an absolute staff initiative and undermine their effort? Best, Noopur On Jan 3, 2013, at 10:07 PM, Theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Just to let you all know: Our Executive Manager Sowmyan met Erik some time back and asked if he needed any help from the chapter. Erik said we could hold quarterly hackathons in different parts of India. We are more than happy to do this and would like the Community to support us. We are nothing without the community and volunteers. On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 10:29 PM, Pradeep Mohandas <prad2609(a)yahoo.com>wrote;wrote: -- Srikanth Ramakrishnan Member of the Executive Committee Wikimedia Chapter [India]

On 01/03/2013 10:02 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: This is very good! But this is a separate discussion than MediaWiki Group Ahmedabad, or isn't it? Please open a new thread to set the basics of the first event. If they are meant to be organized quarterly you'd better start planning already the first one. PS: just in case you are wondering, Erik is fully supportive of MediaWiki Groups as they are part of the WMF Engineering team goals [1]. Have no doubt that having several of such groups spread in the Indian territory will help you having successful hackathons adding up to the Wikimedia & MediaWiki penetration in India. [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2012-13_Goals#Mileston… -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

On 01/03/2013 08:37 AM, Theo10011 wrote: No, https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups were proposed at the MediaWiki community and wikimedia-l, they were discussed also with the Affiliations Committee and they were finally approved and announced last month. Then Harsh and other volunteers in Ahmedabad interested in MediaWiki decided to take that route, and announced their proposal in several MediaWiki and Wikimedia India channels: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/Ahmedabad Harsh sent the proposal also to this list on Dec 14 (it didn't raise any reply until 15 days later, btw) http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-December/009013.… The MediaWiki community is a piece of the Wikimedia movement that can have ramifications out of it, like in the case of people using MediaWiki for their own websites. Still, something like a proposal on a new MediaWiki Group Ahmedabad is clearly on-topic in this list. If you don't bother, then an option is just delete the email and don't bother. :) I agree with you(r irony) here. And precisely because of this MediaWiki Groups are designed to facilitate ad-hoc work without any bureaucratic overhead. The paradox is that a thread like this is creating overhead (I should be doing other things right now, like the rest of people active in this discussion). Still I hope it's worth having the discussion once and forever. After this proposing and resolving on MediaWiki Groups should be a fast process letting focus the teams of volunteers on the actual work. The simplest answer is: - MediaWiki Group X members are empowered to represent the MediaWiki communiy in X. - For someone interested in MediaWiki + X it will be easier to find the right information and contacts to get involved. There was a discussion about this at wikitech-l, see the thread starting at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-December/065333.html If after reading the thread you have more observations about MediaWiki Groups then please share them at wikitech-l. Well, no. "MediaWiki" with the sunflower logo are different things. But also, thematic organizations are meant to be heavier, incorporated organizations while MediaWiki Groups are lightweight and not incorporated. If a MediaWiki group is repeatedly misbehaving the whole problem could be (radically) solved by deleting a wiki page and blocking users - applying the (radical) problem resolution in the Wikipedia way. As soon as you have an incorporated organization things get more tricky. But we are getting off-topic. If you want to discuss Wikimedia User Groups or MediaWiki Groups as such then the right place to do it is in their discussion pages or at wikimedia-l / wikitech-l. -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

howdy Quim I'll reply to your earlier post and state my main objection to this before stopping. I don't really care as much as I might be leading you to believe, so I should disengage. I care more for the larger picture. But I just want to point out some minor discrepancies that might be relevant. On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 7:13 PM, Quim Gil <qgil(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Ah, there are things like history and diffs to look timelines and contributions up. That page you link to, was actually created a month ago, by you.[1] You also made the majority, if not the entirety of the edits to it. :) I don't know about ChapCom approval but I seem to have a fleeting recollection of a hasty timeline that was condensed into a month, close to half of which were holidays here or in the US. In my opinion, ChapCom didnt have time to do the due diligence, completely vet this and look at alternatives like the SIG thing in India, which might be considered now. Yes, 15 days after you created the page.[2] Fast, how volunteers organize these days, now back in my day......... :P I can quibble over semantics here, point out how new "Mediawiki Community" is, and how there is a gigantic overlap between the two. How the highest established userbase in Wikimedia lends itself to the "Mediawiki community" but I am trying to avoid long explanations on a general topic, when this case concerns india for now. Please by all means, do those other pressing things. Don't let this concern you, it's a volunteer led effort so let the volunteers lead. As you mention above, if you don't bother you can just delete this thread. ;) heh. I didnt know you were so well versed about Thematic organizations. I don't believe you involvement in Thematic organizations or these groups predates or exceeds mine, I might be wrong though if the WMF staff created those too. Yes, things do get tricky, the issue is there's been 2 of those so far in India, then this grant to CIS and now this, quasi-organizational push. But anyway.... Thank you for informing me about those lists. :) Regards Theo [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Groups&dir=prev&action=… [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Groups/Proposals/Ahmedabad&…

Hi Theo, I think the historical context you put the Ahmedabad group in is fascinating, but imputing the creation of the proposed group to yet another WMF-led half-baked initiative is unfair. Wikimedia User Groups are finally getting off the ground; while the page might contain edits from me, it is considered official. There have been hiccups with getting trademarks sorted out but the first serious user group proposed is actually the meetup group of Munich, fully supported by Wikimedia DE in their attempt to get recognized. (See the WM DE chapter-created newsletter: https://blog.wikimedia.de/2012/11/15/wikimediawoche-462012/). User groups are meant to be created and recognized quickly (speed of the process will improve as we go on), perhaps even the 1-month timeframe might be considered too long if there are no complications; the model is an easy and not too risky way to empower a group who wants to conduct _offline_ activities (the reasons you don't see the hundreds of on-wiki Wikiprojects applying for this status is that they are not eligible). MediaWiki Groups are indeed a very new concept, but as they fit relatively well into the Wikimedia User Group model, which is overseen by a volunteer committee incidentally, it was agreed that it is better to have it integrated and approved by the volunteer Affiliations Committee. As for the Indian SIG model, it is understandably specific to the Indian chapter. The reason it is being considered is because Wikimedia organizations should be good neighbours, and the creation of new ones should be a carefully considered step. However, it might be that the final recommended best course of action is to 1) make the proposed group merely a SIG in this local context 2) make it only a MediaWiki Group 3) make it into both 4) continue this discussion in a way that the people behind the group simply give up and the problem vanishes. In considering the best way forward, one needs to consider the requirements of setting up a SIG (which requires Wikimedia India membership, and certain other unknown steps that are currently described on the closed members wiki of Wikimedia India – with a promise to make them public), an MG (which are described on the linked pages, but boil down to having at least three interested people with a common goal to do something offline and support from the relevant community(ies)) – my guess is that not counting prolonged discussions like this, the MG process is quicker so a reasonable final action plan would include first getting this status and then being recognized as an SIG, if option 3 above was the method chosen by the group. Best regards, Bence

Let me (take the effort) to skip through the many lines of diplomacy. What I understand: - Bunch of coders want to form their own group so that the coders can focus on.. coding and not going through endless email threads like this one. I support! PS: I'm no longer with WMF. But if there's one thing I learnt, creating things is faster and more fun than trying to get consensus. And we desperately need more people who can develop, minus the bullshit, or we are never getting out of this well. -- Arun Ganesh (planemad) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Planemad> <http://j.mp/ArunGanesh>

My two cents based on two decades of experience in open source and growing adoption and contributions in India: Mediawiki is an open source project which has community members contributing to it globally. Having a technical Mediawiki user group with developers gathering together for face-to-face technical discussions or coding is a well established norm on all open source projects. Having a local user group mailing list is also fine. The most important component to maintain a successful technical user group is to have active members who find the group useful for learning best practices in open source software development, contributing code, localizing software interfaces and be active contributors to the larger global code base. It is irrelevant whether WMF or some staff member or some local chapter member blesses this. Open source does not work on the basis of needing someone's consent. It works when you have a local problem, bug or feature you would like to develop and improve the software (Mediawiki in this case) you use or want to improve. And you have more than 2 active developers locally :-) The idea is to code not just think and talk about it. Harsh - if you have more than 3 developers who are serious, local and want to learn more about Mediawiki, form your own user group informally. It doesn't have to be a formal group (locally registered society) unless you start collecting money. Keep the barriers to coding and real work as low as possible. I will be happy to help if you need it. Hope this helps. Best, Alolita On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Anirudh Bhati &lt;anirudhsbh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Dear Harsh, First of all thanks to you and the volunteers in Ahmendabad who are keen to contribute to Mediawiki. it is evident from your contributions to Gujarati (around Mediawiki) that you and others are very interested to do your bit. Please continue to do this with the passion and the enthusiasm some of you have show already. On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 12:34 AM, Harsh Kothari &lt;harshkothari410(a)gmail.com&gt;wrote;wrote: As a far these "formal discussions" go they are essential to sort out and bring clarity to the emerging models proposed by the foundation. There are matters of scope of multiple entities at play, overlapping turfs, trademark licensing, membership, continuity of activities and funding that are involved. Building volunteer groups is best done without the need for a registered entity as they come with the burden of maintaining and ensuring compliance to the regulatory authorities. The focus while bootstrapping these ought to be (as you right said) on building the volunteer pool. Let the chapter and the WMF sort out the larger model while you folks keep the focus on the technical work that you are passionate about. I am sure the chapter or the WMF would be happen to support if you were to need any help. Dear All, For now, it is unclear to me what treating the Ahmedabad Mediawiki user group as a formal wikimedia user group actually means? Does that mean it would be non-incorporated entity and have trademark reuse rights (from the chapter?). It suppose it would need to depend on funding as needed from the chapter or WMF. Can someone clarify? Is there any other aspect that I may be missing? To chime in on the observations made earlier on the thread...I for for one also believes... India has been a test bed to test out models without thinking through the ramifications enough. The creation of India programs (first intended as a temporary office, then a formal entity, subsequently wound up (which came as a huge shock to many) and handed over to CIS (now A2K). I do think some of these moves ought to have happened with more chapter involvement. If for one don't understand how first a focused Boots-on-the-ground initiative is launched and subsequently there is a move to a narrowed focused model (a complete change in approach). This move has surely impacted the dynamics at the ground in India immensely. We have lost some truly good wikipedians who have moved on in disillusionment. I care for the movement and do believe that strengthening chapters to be the custodians of the movement in respective countries is the way to go forward. In my view, all movement entities should focus on assisting chapters to be successful who in term focus on supporting the community and local outreach. If there isn't belief in chapters, better to scrap them than run parallel entities (I am not referring to the Ahmedabad initiative here). What is sad is in the midst of this complexity of organisational entities, we perhaps risk losing truly enthusiastic volunteers whose only interest is in contributing to the movement. Catalysing and supporting volunteer enthusiasm and interest ought to be our collective sole purpose and focus. I request Harsh and the other volunteers to keep the focus on the "coding" and the cool stuff than get caught up in the debate of the organizational complexity which is best left to the chapter EC and the WMF to sort out quickly. regards Arun

Thank you Arun for moving this discussion to more generic terms. I am answering to your questions below. Pradeep, I agree that this discussion needs to go on until we reach to an agreement satisfying all parties. But looking at the thread there is little to nothing specific to Ahmedabad here. One could even say that it is not even restricted to India since this type of situation will happen wherever there is a national chapter and some contributors willing to create a Wikimedia User Group or a MediaWiki Group. I have renamed the thread and you might even consider moving the discussion to wikimedia-l in order to gather opinions from other chapters and contributors elsewhere. On 01/07/2013 05:20 AM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: For what is worth Harsh has been answering promptly to any requests about the Ahmedabad proposal coming from myself (as promoter of MediaWiki Groups), the Affiliations Committee and the Wikimedia India chapter in the direct contacts with Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Asking Harsh or the Ahmedabad volunteers to answer the generic questions in this thread is like asking Belgium to come up with answers about the problem of Global Warming. Or something. :) I tried to answer questions like the ones you are asking at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-January/009126.h… . I'll try harder now. :) Maybe the simplest way to explain local MediaWiki Groups is that they are like Wikipedia Meetups, but focusing on MediaWiki instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup "Local MediaWiki groups collaborate with Wikimedia chapters, See also Wikipedia meetups and other local communities related with Wikimedia, free software, free culture..." https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups#Local_groups No more, no less. Indeed. MediaWiki Groups are not meant to be incorporated. Maybe this should be put clearly in our documentation to avoid confusion. No. The only right you get as MediaWiki Group Something is to use "MediaWiki Group Something" in your activities and materials. For anything else you need to ask the chapter or the WMF just like anybody else. "MediaWiki groups can request support from the Wikimedia Foundation and chapters in various forms: Advice on the use of Wikimedia / Wikipedia / MediaWiki logos and trademarks in your activities." https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups#Support_from_the_Wikimedia_Foundation… Being a MediaWiki Group doesn't grant you any funding. You need to find your own resources or ask the chapter / Funds Dissemination Committe, WMF... again just like anybody else. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups#Budget_requests About the several mentions of the WMF experimenting in India with new models. I can't speak about the past since I wasn't here. But I can assure you that the WMF has no specific plans or intentions regarding MediaWiki Groups in India. If some the first proposals are coming from India is because there are people here with an interest in organizing MediaWiki activities locally. India is a computer science powerhouse and there is a history of MediaWiki / Wikimedia tech activities. That explains, not any undisclosed WMF plan. Yuvi Panda might have a @wikimedia.org address at work but his interest is personal. Harsh and the Ahmedabad promoters don't have any ties with the WMF that I'm aware of. If someone would have started in Germany, Australia or wherever we would be now supporting them just in the same way. We are supporting MediaWiki Group Ciudad de México just in the same way, only without lengthy discussions because there nobody seems to see a problem in this kind of groups. If you still think there is a WMF agenda behind MediaWiki Groups in India please speak up, otherwise we will just accumulate a silent layer of misunderstanding. I wish someone would explain how a MediaWiki Group (or a Wikimedia User Group) harms a chapter. In my previous email I tried to explain how MediaWiki Groups are designed to support chapters and collaborate with them. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-January/009126.h… MediaWiki groups are Wikimedia User Groups, and afaik WUGs have been designed and approved by the people organizing the chapters and the presence of the Wikimedia community in the World. E X A C T L Y ! Thank you for writing this down so beautifully. Now, this is the situation: a group of volunteers wants to create a MediaWiki Group, which is a type of entity approved by the Wikimedia movement and is meant to work in collaboration with chapters. Weeks after the proposal was presented no argument has been presented against this group of volunteers in Ahmedabad, and they are not overlapping with other existing activities. Can we just let them do what they want? Like Wikipedia Meetups, they are "just" a group of people getting things done locally and coordinating through a web page. If thanks to this lengthy discussion or other experience we find improvements we can just apply such improvements to this Ahmedabad group and others that will raise. Evolution, the wiki way In fact, ultimately this is a decision to be discussed between Wikimedia India and the Affiliations Committee. The WMF has actually little extra to say. The WMG Engineering plan does contemplate the creation of MediaWiki groups in the World to "extend the capacity of the Wikimedia Foundation in events, training, promotion and other technical activities benefiting Wikipedia, the Wikimedia movement and the MediaWiki software." For doing that we are using the tools created by the Wikimedia community: Wikimedia user groups, which happen to share the basic idea with open source user groups - which is what we are really after with the MediaWiki Groups. -- Quim Gil Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

Hi Yuvi, An agreement was reached that the group would first seek recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter SIG and then as a Wikimedia User Group. Best regards, Bence On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 4:40 AM, Yuvi Panda &lt;yuvipanda(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: