[Wikimedia-l] Looking back at the London Conference

[Ziko van Dijk]

Dear Council Members and everyone interested in the WCA,

On 16/17th February 2013 a number of Council Members visited the
London Conference I had proposed in mid January to talk about the way
of the WCA and to prepare the Wikimedia Conference in Milan. We are
happy that the London Conference did happen, and, in spite of the
debatable WMF board statement of 5th February, that two WMF board
members still agreed to join us.

Because in 2012/2013 the signals from the WMF were not very consistent
I tried to receive more clarity about the relationship between
Foundation and Association. This was only partially successful, but I
understand that the two present WMF board members were as open as it
was possible within the constraints of the WMF board unity. We very
much appreciated the commitment of Alice and Jan-Bart and were happy
not to hear certain allegations from the board statement again.

The London Conference discussed many WCA subjects collected during the
last months. One of them was communication, and I am content that I
could convince the participants of a major change. For someone who is
interested in the WCA it has been very difficult to follow the
proceedings, plans and results. When e.g. a Council Member wanted to
talk to others or discuss something, he or she used one of the several
mailing lists the movement has, or Meta Wiki, or private email
addresses. I believe that this has been a fundamental problem with the
regard to the perception of the WCA, and that the participation even
from Council Members suffered also because of this kind of
communication.

After the election of a new Chair, the Chair of the WCA Council will
issue a Bulletin, a kind of short report, with a summary of what
happened recently and what are the plans for the near future. This
will be put on Meta Wiki, and, naturally, discussions will centre
around those Bulletins. For those who are interested it will be much
easier to follow and to participate. If someone wants to support the
WCA via translations, he or she can translate those Bulletins instead
of a lot of messages.

There will be a special list 'WCA-announcements". If you want to be
informed about Bulletins and discussions, join the list and you will
get links to Meta Wiki. It's a one-way-list, because the discussions
are supposed to be on Meta Wiki. This is a WCA service for Council
Members and non Council Members alike. In this way, nobody is obliged
to be on a heavy traffic list such as Wikimedia-l.

When we talked about the future and a possible new election of the
Chair I also asked about my position. If for any reason someone
believed that there should be a new election of the Deputy Chair, I
wanted to hear. The participants said that that is no issue and that
it is good to have continuity. The role of the Deputy Chair is to be
there for the case that at some moment there is no Chair, and then the
Deputy has to arrange the election.

The WCA continues to exist and will make some rearrangements - it's
exiting to follow the evolution.

Kind regards
Ziko van Dijk

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Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/

Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
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