Hi Illario,
Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a chapter
is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in management
and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to the
chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an advantage,
but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.
In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter, and he
was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very quickly
started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did not
personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started sending
legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our most
active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
beforehand), and resigned.
We have no intention to expose João even more in this public mailing list,
so we will not provide a comprehensive list of the problems we found with
his term on the board. But to make it clear, when this whole issue began to
be addressed, even though we did not ask him to stay on the Board, we did
invite him to continue on the chapter, working with us, as AffCom can
confirm. Just not in any role with legal responsibilities.
Cheers,
Gonçalo Themudo
*Presidente*
*Wikimedia Portugal*
*Email: *goethe.wiki(a)gmail.com
*Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org <https://sites.google.com/view/themudo>
*Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*