[Foundation-l] Movement Roles: my suggestion of "Language Contact Persons"

[Ziko van Dijk]

Dear friends,

One element of the discussions on "Movement Roles" was about other /
new entities within our movement, aside the already existing
Foundation and the Chapters, which I prefer to call "national
Wikimedia organizations". I would like to present to you here my idea
of "Language Contact Persons" who form a link between the Foundation
and the Wikipedia language versions.

== New entities?==
James Forrester and his group (sorry, I don't remember who was the
official primus inter pares) presented in/before Haifa a list of new
kinds of Wikimedia entities:
* Chapters not based on national boundaries, but subjects such as
railways, art, ethnic cultures, mathematics etc.
* informal groups
* Official partners, e.g. a museum we (the Foundation? a national
Wikimedia organization?) that already exists outside our movement

==Scepticism==
I myself, and also some people I have talked to, are very sceptical
about such new entities. I believe that in theory it is possible to
create and maintain them, but in practice there can come up a lot of
problems. Imagine that a group wants to join that is occupied with
Marxism, or Zionism, or other potentially controversial subjects. And
then groups with antimarxism, antizionism etc.  What subjects exactly
(and what kind of behavior) do we want to allow? And what actual
problem we would try to solve with such new entities?

One particular question is the organization of ethnic or linguistic
groups which cannot have a national Wikimedia organization (chapter),
but which also cannot or don't want to integrate into existing
national Wikimedia organizations. The best known example are the
Catalans together with the Scottish Wikipedians (or just some of
them?).

== A concrete problem to be solved ==
I must mention here my personal interests. I am an editor of Wikipedia
in Esperanto, a small, transnational language that never can have a
national Wikimedia organization. We Esperanto-Wikipedians can also not
easily integrate into existing national Wikimedia organizations
because we live in many different countries, where other (national)
languages are dominant. So, as an Esperantist I would like it very
much to see a Esperanto "chapter" of Wikimedia, but as a Wikimedian in
general I am afraid that it would open a box of Pandora.

Thinking of practical problems, I remember that we small language
Wikipedians often don't have good connections with the Wikimedia
organizations. We don't know well how to make use of the existing
material and other ressources. And the Foundation and the national
Wikimedia organizations know little of us. When I go to the Foundation
and ask whether we are allowed to use the logos for a flyer in my
small language, then the Foundation might ask itself: *Who is this
Ziko, can we trust him, does he speak for more people than only
himself?*

== Language Contact Person (LCP) ==
I would like to suggest a small solution to solve a part of the
problems. Every language version of Wikipedia should designate a
"Language Contact Person" for relations with the Foundation (and
national Wikimedia organizations). This LCP is to be elected by a poll
 with the same requirements as for admins.

A deputy LCP is also to be elected, in order to replace a LCP when
necessary. If one of both is no longer active, it will be the task of
the remaining one to take care of a new election of that other
position.

You know, originally it is often an admin who represents a language
version in one way or other. But that is not really the task of an
admin, and other people might be a suitable LCP but are not
interesting in becoming an admin. The LCP would be only a liaison
officer, he won't "officially represent" the language version. Like
adminship it will be less a position of honour but of work.

The LCP has to report to the Foundation about the language version and
its community and outreach, monthly or at least once a year. (Think of
my "Tell us about your Wikipedia" project on Meta.) And when the
Foundation wishes to contact that language version, for example when
it needs a translation or wants the whole movement to know about
something important, the LCP is the best way to take care of that. The
LCP knows the village pumps and mailing lists etc. of his language.
So, in future, Casey Brown does not have to search and contact all
those language versions and their activists, but will simply post to a
common mailing list of all LCPs and they will do the rest.

On the other hand, when the Wikipedians of a particular language
version have a specific problem and seek for help from the Foundation,
they can do that most efficiently via their LCP.

Of course, a LCP is not only useful for small languages. Think of
Spanish, a global language. Some Spanish speaking countries have a
national Wikimedia organization, others have not. A Spanish Wikipedia
LCP can be the coordinator of a flyer in Spanish for all of the
Spanish speaking countries.

== Experimental phase ==
My suggestion is that the Foundation asks the Wikipedia language
versions to elect LCPs (and their deputies). After a year, the
Foundation evaluates the experiences with the LCPs, whether  they
really make communication more efficient or not. Then,
* the LCP system can remain the same as it is,
* or has to be abolished because it caused more work than it helped,
* or the system will be given a more formal basis, with the LCP
getting a higher status or more tasks, or even becoming the nucleus of
language based formal Wikimedia organizations.
Maybe the LCP experiences can be of value with regard to Wikimedia
projects such as Wikisource, Wikibooks etc.

Please let me know what you think about the possibility and potential
usefulness of Language Contact Persons.

Kind regards
Ziko

-- 
Ziko van Dijk
The Netherlands
http://zikoblog.wordpress.com/