[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012

[Joan Goma]

Hi Jan,

It is not a problem of lack of time or lack of communication channels. It
is a problem of lack of participation of chapters and fear of change.

These proposals have been in meta for months. [1] The answer to many of the
questions raised here have been in meta for months. [2]

The problem is that it is very difficult to reform a cemetery if you need
the participation of inmates and even more if when you're about to decide
then all of them suddenly resurrect to oppose.

The movement roles group has worked and made his proposal. It has members
that also are active in chapters who were well aware of chapter’s needs and
sensitivity. I think that from the beginning the chapters have been afraid
to change and believed that it was they who had the authority to decide or
at least to block any decision. That’s why IMO they have not felt the need
to participate and that’s why they now raise their voice with thousand
arguments to block the decision.

In theory and to some extent I could agree with chapters that creating any
new model is their death. (particularly the dead of dorment or inactive
chapters) But in practice things are exactly the reverse. Wikimedia Spain
[3] is the best evidence that having other organizations in the same
territory is highly healthy for chapters. Although while these
organizations are not formally recognized and there are no mechanisms for
communication and coordination between them and the chapters there will be
misunderstandings and inconveniences.

I think that many participants in this debate are not grasping what
decision we are talking about. We are not proposing the creation of new
organizations. We are not deciding whether there will be new organizations
that compete with chapters or not. The creation of new models and new
organizations is not in our hands. In many countries in the world there is
freedom of association and those new models and organizations may perfectly
appear. They don’t need our approval. What we are deciding here is whether
we want to create channels of communication and cooperation with these new
models and encourage them to appear or if we give them back and tries to
discourage more people joining to promote free knowledge.

I think Florence and Lodewijk have understood. But while the proposal of
Florence seems to me that leads us to give them back by creating two sides
with the WMF and the new institutions in one and chapters in the other the
proposal of  Lodewijk leads to create mechanisms to ensure that we have
good understanding.

I like more the proposal of Lodewijk. I also have given my view to the
questions Achal so kindly had the patience to collect in meta. [4]



[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Movement_roles/summary/models&direction=prev&oldid=2979496

[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_roles/models#Partner_organizations_2

[3]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Espa%C3%B1a

[4]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_affiliation_models#Questions






Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:41:49 +0100
> From: Jan-Bart de Vreede <jdevreede at wikimedia.org>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
>        <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012
> Message-ID: <268BD4B0-7E6F-43FE-BCC6-03B486877091 at wikimedia.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi Ziko and Lodewijk,
>
> Thank you for this feedback. I must say that I was not intimately involved
> in these recommendations, and my take was that this was something that came
> out of the MR workgroup, and we had actually waited too long to approve
> these recommendations.
>
> It is clear to me that there is a close link between the
> fundraising/dissemination discussion and the increased options of
> "organising" ourselves. I am also convinced that we need to increase the
> different kinds of organisation methods that we support.
>
> But lets take the time to discuss the content of this proposal. If that
> means we need to take an extra month, so be it (would be my personal
> opinion) and make sure that we end up with something that is a marked
> improvement on the current situation. And we might have to refine it in the
> coming years (as we will have to do with most of the things we are trying
> to settle at this point :)
>
> Thanks for your constructive feedback!
>
> Jan-Bart
>
>