http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee
states that
"The *Affiliations Committee* (formerly known as *Chapters Committee*,
colloquially *AffCom*) is a Wikimedia community
committee<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Fo…
with advising the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of
Trustees<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_Fou…
the approval of new movement
affiliates<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia_a…ls>:
national or subnational chapters, thematic organisations and user groups.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models
recognizes only an additional category of affiliation called "Movement
partners" which states that
"Like-minded organizations that actively support the Wikimedia movement’s
work. They are listed publicly and granted limited use of the marks for
publicity indicating their support of and collaboration with Wikimedia."
Examples for like minded organizations are Mozilla, Creative Commons,
WikiEducator, Freenode. A glaring observation about these examples are that
they don't get involved with direct Wikimedia content generation work.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/Movement_Partne…
is itself in draft stage yet and there are no known (at least to me)
movement partners publicly listed yet.
There are no clear guidelines on the nature of work they can do and the
extent of funding they can get.
There are very clear requirements and application page for chapters,
thematic organizations and user groups. Please see the
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requirements_for_future_thematic_organizatio…
In the infobox in the same page, you can see that there are clear and
strict guidelines, agreements and requirements that should be met by all
such organizations.
So, my question is:
How is CIS-A2K eligible to get Annual Plan Grant through FDC? What is it's
status within the Wikimeda affiliation model? Where are the guidelines,
requirements and agreements for that?
It is not a joke to be recognized as a movement parter sans any
transparency and bottom-up process when other affiliates like chapters and
thematic organizations (like Amical Wikimedia) make a very tedious journey
to be recognized.
If there is no convincing answer for this, CIS-A2K program can only be seen
as a proxy program run by WMF to achieve its strategic goals in the region
and it has no business doing work that should be done by the WMIN and the
respective language communities.
Lack of "mature" regional communities / affiliates is not an excuse to fund
unrecognized entities like this.
Extensive guidelines should be drafted for movement partners, CIS-A2K
should go through the process and then only can it become eligible to apply
for next round of funds irrespective of its legacy and history.
Thanks,
Ravi