First of all, thanks to the AffCom for defining the
criteria. I am
positively surprised and impressed that they managed to do it since
Wikimania when I was told in a private chat that I could forget about
having my user group recognised as a chapter this year. Thank you all, who
made this possible in such a short time!
I've taken the pains of reading the whole discussion and it seems that
there are two main points of discussion:
- quantitative vs qualitative criteria and
- the possibility to transform chapters in user groups and disband user
groups.
I strongly oppose to only quantitative criteria. Some have to be in place
and I expect the AffCom to define meaningful quantitative criteria for the
recognition of user groups and chapters, but I expect that a group of
serious and experienced community members has the right to overwrite the
quantitative criteria if considered needed. This way the communities will
know what to aim at, but if the standard aims are not suitable for the
cultural and/or political context of the place where they act, exceptions
must be allowed.
Organisation should be transformable and the criteria should hold for
everyone. There already is a process of deciding who is allowed to send
representatives to the Wikimedia Conference and something similar should be
set up for the upgrading and downgrading of organisations.
This said, I would gladly see user groups and chapters getting as similar
rights and responsibilities as possible. I do not understand why a rather
inactive chapter can send 2 to 4 delegates to the Wikimedia Conference,
have a vote for affiliate-elected WMF seats and be allowed to sign the
trademark agreement, while a very active user group can send 1 delegate,
cannot decide on the future of the WMF BoT and has to go through a tedious
process every time they wish to use the Wikimedia logo and name. This way
aspiring user groups are being deprived of possibilities to develop and by
doing that to enable the creation of more free content even faster. Imagine
a chapter with five active Wikimedians and a user group with ten. These
exist.
Best regards,
Nikola / User:Lord Bumbury
Wikimedians of Bulgaria User Group
On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi,
I appreciate the effort, it's interesting but there should more
flexibility
in my opinion.
All is relative. Probably in Estonia, to do an outdoor activity, people
must wait more time than buying a loaf of bread in Venezuela. Depending on
the variable everyone has more difficulties than another, but it's
different to divide the world into good and bad.
Some criteria should be meet, I agree, but the flexibility and more a
matrix of criteria makes sense.
The biggest problem in a general concept of rules is to introduce global
rules that can kill the diversity.
They will help to have standardized and well defined entities and easy to
monitor, but also similar and undifferentiated entities.
To measure a maturity of a model the best would be to introduce a
combination of variables and not only three. It would be good to have,
let's say, three different parameters for each areas to have at least 9
different standards as a combination.
I think that a more flexible criteria can be a valid support.
Kind regards
On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 8:22 PM, Carlos M. Colina <maorx(a)wikimedia.org.ve
wrote:
> Hello Pine,
> El 19/08/2016 a las 06:28 p.m., Pine
W escribió:
> Hi Carlos,
> In general, I like the new criteria.
> I would like to suggest making the
criteria entirely quantitative, so
that
there is minimal subjectivity about whether or
not affiliates are
meeting
these standards and therefore there is likely to
be less controversy
about
> the status of affiliates.
> The problem of making the criteria entirely quantitative is that the
> context where affiliates operate is not the same across the world. We
> cannot apply a rigid, based in fixed numbers criteria because the
situation
> of Estonia or The Netherlands, to give an example, is not the same of
> Venezuela, where people need to queue for hours just to buy a loaf of
> bread, if they happen to be lucky enough to find a bakery operating, or
> where scheduled 4-hour daily blackouts are the norm across the country
> except for the capital.
> If all affiliates operated in the
same conditions, that would be another
> story.
> --
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ilario>
Skype: valdelli
Tel: +41764821371
http://www.wikimedia.ch
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