[Wikimedia-l] Affiliations Committee 2012 Annual Report

[Bence Damokos]

On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki at gmail.com>wrote:

> phoebe ayers, 01/05/2013 21:54:
>
>  Dear Bence and all,
>>
>> This is a very good report! It is very clear, just the right length and
>> gives a good picture of all of the activity of the committee -- both
>> accomplishments and frustrations. AffComm did a lot in 2012! Thank you
>> very
>> much for all of your and the committee's work on behalf of Wikimedia.
>>
>
> +1
>
> I'm very concerned about this issue, which comes up in many points: «[...]
> failure to come up with a naming guideline to be applied to new affiliates
> that has caused significant delays and uncertainty in processing
> applications [...] unclear situation has caused a number of delays in the
> full roll-out of the new models and finding solutions that are faster and
> less resource intensive on the legal team [...] any name that incorporated
> a Wikimedia trademark would need to be pre-approved by the WMF Legal
> Department [...] until finalised, easier to apply guidelines are adopted
> that can be used independently by the volunteers behind proposed affiliates
> and the Affiliations Committee, the act of naming proposed affiliates will
> be a difficult and lengthy process.»
>
> As usual, process, role and responsibilities as clear as mud.
>
> Yes, to be fair, since the closing of the report, we had made some
progress on this issue (e.g. we've had some user group name templates
pre-approved[1] during a meeting in Milan with Stephen from the legal team
and had clarified the process and responsibilities for names that don't
match those templates for example in the case of thorgs). It remains to be
seen if things do go smoother going forward with these improvements, but
the goodwill is there on each side.

Best regards,
Bence

[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Step-by-step_user_group_creation_guide&diff=prev&oldid=5476169