Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Kirill Lokshin]

The Affiliations Committee has no intention whatsoever of changing the
process; rather, we are simply trying to determine whether the conditions
that we originally set out have in fact been met.

It would, perhaps, have been easier for everyone if we could have done this
without having to solicit specialized legal expertise, but  the
circumstances seem to have unfortunately precluded a procedure whose
validity is obvious from a simple reading of the applicable rules.

Regards,
Kirill

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 8:17 PM Nathan  wrote:

> Thank you for acknowledging the existence of this thread and the fact that
> AffCom is still making some effort to bring the problem to a resolution. It
> doesn't seem like it should be all that challenging, if one disputant is a
> single individual and the other is a community of people led by those for
> whom they have repeatedly expressed support.
>
> If, as described, AffCom laid out a procedure by which one side could
> legitimize itself and then decided to revoke that procedure after much work
> by those trying to follow it... AffCom could acknowledge an error and
> apologize. That you have described your proposed next step is at least
> progress in the right direction.
>
> In any case, I'm sure we all look forward to AffCom sharing the results of
> its solicitation of advice with the Wikimedia public.
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 8:07 PM Kirill Lokshin 
> wrote:
>
> > As I believe we mentioned the last time this particular topic came up, we
> > are unlikely to resolve the intricacies of Portuguese nonprofit law by
> > debating them on a mailing list.
> >
> > Gonçalo and his colleagues have quite clearly expressed their position:
> > they believe that the process by which they came to control Wikimedia
> > Portugal complies with the applicable provisions of Portuguese law.  At
> the
> > same time, the other side in this conflict has expressed a contrary
> > position: that the process in question does *not* comply with those
> > provisions.
> >
> > The Affiliations Committee has obviously been unable to make any real
> > headway here, particularly as the dispute hinges in no small part on
> > interpretations of case law rather than a plain reading of the applicable
> > legal codes; consequently, we've solicited advice from actual Portuguese
> > legal experts, which we hope to receive in the near future.  Until that
> > happens, however, we are not going to be able to bring this to closure,
> one
> > way or the other.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Kirill
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Lucas Teles]

I really hope that the reason for de-recognition of any affiliate is not
that “the other side expressed a contrary position”.

We have seen it in Brazil too, as others already started to link the dots.
There where two groups in conflict. Instead of solving the problem, or even
declaring itself unable to solve (which they are and would be
understandable), AffCom de-recognized both of them with no warning. And we
still keep asking why with no answer: [1]


I don’t know why we keep asking (but I don’t plan to stop until I have an
answer). Probably for being long-term volunteers and believing on the
Wikimedia Movement, but after undergoing so many unfair and poor
judgements, I don’t have the answer. And I am still willing to work on the
improvements and not only pointing fingers. Reading the message from AffCom
saying that “The Brazilian community is much broader that the contributors
involved in these two former User Groups” and all the rest, it sounded like
our work was disposable on their eyes, a perfect insult. [2] In my opinion,
this lack of professionalism is a clear sign that the committee was not
able to deal with the case and decided about it in the easiest way for
them, with a terrible outcome for Brazil. But it’s okay... we have other
people to do the job, don’t we?

I can’t understand why did AffCom come up with a roadmap if they were not
willing to respect the terms of it. If WMPT fulfilled the requirements on
roadmap what we all expected is that AffCom would fulfill their part of the
agreement. Just like the discussion I mentioned above on which AffCom
creates a place to discuss and then disappears.

WMPT was inactive for years. I never understood why AffCom allowed that,
but never bothered to ask. We should all be grateful for the users that are
trying to recompose the chapter and clearly willing to do it under the
committee advice, but working with the rules of AffCom itself is not
enough. Sounds like an impossible mission is defined and when it is not
fulfilled, it is used as a reason for de-recognition.

The lack of transparency, the poor judgement, irresponsible decisions, the
apparent inactivity of their members should have an end. As I said, I am
still willing to help like I bet others will, but keeping silent about your
own problems won’t make AffCom better. Sorry for any possible emotional
argument... it’s hard to hide it after a year of expectations and unsolved
conflict.

Teles

[1]-
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliations_Committee/Brazil_Next_Steps#Lack_of_AffCom%E2%80%99s_participation
[2]-
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Brazil_Next_Steps#Communicating_Next_Steps_for_the_Brazil_Communities


Em qui, 11 de out de 2018 às 21:17, Nathan  escreveu:

> Thank you for acknowledging the existence of this thread and the fact that
> AffCom is still making some effort to bring the problem to a resolution. It
> doesn't seem like it should be all that challenging, if one disputant is a
> single individual and the other is a community of people led by those for
> whom they have repeatedly expressed support.
>
> If, as described, AffCom laid out a procedure by which one side could
> legitimize itself and then decided to revoke that procedure after much work
> by those trying to follow it... AffCom could acknowledge an error and
> apologize. That you have described your proposed next step is at least
> progress in the right direction.
>
> In any case, I'm sure we all look forward to AffCom sharing the results of
> its solicitation of advice with the Wikimedia public.
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 8:07 PM Kirill Lokshin 
> wrote:
>
> > As I believe we mentioned the last time this particular topic came up, we
> > are unlikely to resolve the intricacies of Portuguese nonprofit law by
> > debating them on a mailing list.
> >
> > Gonçalo and his colleagues have quite clearly expressed their position:
> > they believe that the process by which they came to control Wikimedia
> > Portugal complies with the applicable provisions of Portuguese law.  At
> the
> > same time, the other side in this conflict has expressed a contrary
> > position: that the process in question does *not* comply with those
> > provisions.
> >
> > The Affiliations Committee has obviously been unable to make any real
> > headway here, particularly as the dispute hinges in no small part on
> > interpretations of case law rather than a plain reading of the applicable
> > legal codes; consequently, we've solicited advice from actual Portuguese
> > legal experts, which we hope to receive in the near future.  Until that
> > happens, however, we are not going to be able to bring this to closure,
> one
> > way or the other.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Kirill
> ___
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> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Nathan]

Thank you for acknowledging the existence of this thread and the fact that
AffCom is still making some effort to bring the problem to a resolution. It
doesn't seem like it should be all that challenging, if one disputant is a
single individual and the other is a community of people led by those for
whom they have repeatedly expressed support.

If, as described, AffCom laid out a procedure by which one side could
legitimize itself and then decided to revoke that procedure after much work
by those trying to follow it... AffCom could acknowledge an error and
apologize. That you have described your proposed next step is at least
progress in the right direction.

In any case, I'm sure we all look forward to AffCom sharing the results of
its solicitation of advice with the Wikimedia public.

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 8:07 PM Kirill Lokshin 
wrote:

> As I believe we mentioned the last time this particular topic came up, we
> are unlikely to resolve the intricacies of Portuguese nonprofit law by
> debating them on a mailing list.
>
> Gonçalo and his colleagues have quite clearly expressed their position:
> they believe that the process by which they came to control Wikimedia
> Portugal complies with the applicable provisions of Portuguese law.  At the
> same time, the other side in this conflict has expressed a contrary
> position: that the process in question does *not* comply with those
> provisions.
>
> The Affiliations Committee has obviously been unable to make any real
> headway here, particularly as the dispute hinges in no small part on
> interpretations of case law rather than a plain reading of the applicable
> legal codes; consequently, we've solicited advice from actual Portuguese
> legal experts, which we hope to receive in the near future.  Until that
> happens, however, we are not going to be able to bring this to closure, one
> way or the other.
>
> Regards,
> Kirill
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Kirill Lokshin]

As I believe we mentioned the last time this particular topic came up, we
are unlikely to resolve the intricacies of Portuguese nonprofit law by
debating them on a mailing list.

Gonçalo and his colleagues have quite clearly expressed their position:
they believe that the process by which they came to control Wikimedia
Portugal complies with the applicable provisions of Portuguese law.  At the
same time, the other side in this conflict has expressed a contrary
position: that the process in question does *not* comply with those
provisions.

The Affiliations Committee has obviously been unable to make any real
headway here, particularly as the dispute hinges in no small part on
interpretations of case law rather than a plain reading of the applicable
legal codes; consequently, we've solicited advice from actual Portuguese
legal experts, which we hope to receive in the near future.  Until that
happens, however, we are not going to be able to bring this to closure, one
way or the other.

Regards,
Kirill

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 6:57 PM Nathan  wrote:

> I can't tell which part of this situation is the more sad; is it the events
> themselves, the total absence of any comment from AffCom, or the very
> limited interest evinced by the rest of the folks subscribed to this list?
>
> It seems if we follow the AffCom model described here, we should take WMPT
> at its word as the complainant and decide that AffCom should perhaps be
> disbanded - maybe to be reconstituted by others at a later date.
>
> Perhaps those others would feel themselves responsible to a constituency
> beyond themselves, at least to the minimal extent that they deign to offer
> a response of some sort in public.
>
> If that sounds like an extreme and unfair outcome, I might even agree...
> but it's clear that AffCom itself sees some logic in that approach.
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 1:02 PM Chris Keating 
> wrote:
>
> > I think there's a question to think about, about how the movement
> > handles this kind of situation where there are evidently serious
> > governance problems affecting an affiliate.
> >
> > There are some clear-cut situations (e.g. total inactivity) where the
> > current de-recognition process can simply be followed by Affcom. And
> > there are some situations where there is a large and prominent
> > affiliate that has plenty of activity, but serious governance issues,
> > where the WMF Grantmaking and/or Legal teams can get involved in some
> > depth (thinking about  Wikimedia UK in 2012 and Wikimedia France in
> > 2017).
> >
> > This is the only case that's "in the middle" that I am aware of - are
> > there more that have been made public? Of course, it's possible that
> > there may be other cases where a small/medium affiliate has been
> > helped to have their governance problems resolved by one process or
> > another (derecognition or something else) but it's happened silently
> > in the background.
> >
> > Chris
> > On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 5:29 PM Paulo Santos Perneta
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > Just a quick message to clarify that the only conflict that ever
> existed
> > in
> > > Wikimedia Portugal, as far as I know, was with João Vasconcelos
> himself.
> > >
> > > Paulo
> > >
> > > Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
> > > escreveu no dia quinta, 11/10/2018 à(s) 15:38:
> > >
> > > >  The pro forma statement bout what a chapter is is valuable, but I
> > think
> > > > many of us kinda got the idea that the problem was not the starting
> > point
> > > > (otherwise why electing him?) but came later. It's possible that
> > someone
> > > > else with more community experience would have never behaved such
> way,
> > but
> > > > that's speculation.
> > > >
> > > > Statistically, in this scenario this lack of community view probably
> > did
> > > > not help. Whatever his skills in "management and conflict resolution"
> > were,
> > > > even assuming they were correctly stated based on previous expertise
> in
> > > > other fields, they were not the best ones to handle the conflicts
> that
> > > > later emerged. Also, considering the resolution we see now, which is
> > not a
> > > > great resolution.
> > > > The point is that in all these disputes (I think about Brazil few
> > months
> > > > ago) it looks like the AffCom position sounds like "you are both
> > wrong".
> > > > Now, this is never a healthy long-term strategy. If it occurs again,
> it
> > > > gives more and more the idea that whoever is in the less correct
> > position
> > > > can hold still because if the matter arrives to the AffCom everybody
> > pays
> > > > equally. I am sure the situation is more multifaceted, but let's try
> to
> > > > grasp the general vibe here.
> > > >
> > > >  This is not wise. King Solomon solved the issue bluffing and
> spotting
> > the
> > > > real mother, he never actually cut the baby in two halves ... But
> > wisdom
> > > > comes also with experience.
> > > >Il giovedì 11 ottobre 2018, 15:43:01 CEST, GoEthe.wiki <
> > > > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Nathan]

I can't tell which part of this situation is the more sad; is it the events
themselves, the total absence of any comment from AffCom, or the very
limited interest evinced by the rest of the folks subscribed to this list?

It seems if we follow the AffCom model described here, we should take WMPT
at its word as the complainant and decide that AffCom should perhaps be
disbanded - maybe to be reconstituted by others at a later date.

Perhaps those others would feel themselves responsible to a constituency
beyond themselves, at least to the minimal extent that they deign to offer
a response of some sort in public.

If that sounds like an extreme and unfair outcome, I might even agree...
but it's clear that AffCom itself sees some logic in that approach.

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 1:02 PM Chris Keating 
wrote:

> I think there's a question to think about, about how the movement
> handles this kind of situation where there are evidently serious
> governance problems affecting an affiliate.
>
> There are some clear-cut situations (e.g. total inactivity) where the
> current de-recognition process can simply be followed by Affcom. And
> there are some situations where there is a large and prominent
> affiliate that has plenty of activity, but serious governance issues,
> where the WMF Grantmaking and/or Legal teams can get involved in some
> depth (thinking about  Wikimedia UK in 2012 and Wikimedia France in
> 2017).
>
> This is the only case that's "in the middle" that I am aware of - are
> there more that have been made public? Of course, it's possible that
> there may be other cases where a small/medium affiliate has been
> helped to have their governance problems resolved by one process or
> another (derecognition or something else) but it's happened silently
> in the background.
>
> Chris
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 5:29 PM Paulo Santos Perneta
>  wrote:
> >
> > Just a quick message to clarify that the only conflict that ever existed
> in
> > Wikimedia Portugal, as far as I know, was with João Vasconcelos himself.
> >
> > Paulo
> >
> > Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
> > escreveu no dia quinta, 11/10/2018 à(s) 15:38:
> >
> > >  The pro forma statement bout what a chapter is is valuable, but I
> think
> > > many of us kinda got the idea that the problem was not the starting
> point
> > > (otherwise why electing him?) but came later. It's possible that
> someone
> > > else with more community experience would have never behaved such way,
> but
> > > that's speculation.
> > >
> > > Statistically, in this scenario this lack of community view probably
> did
> > > not help. Whatever his skills in "management and conflict resolution"
> were,
> > > even assuming they were correctly stated based on previous expertise in
> > > other fields, they were not the best ones to handle the conflicts that
> > > later emerged. Also, considering the resolution we see now, which is
> not a
> > > great resolution.
> > > The point is that in all these disputes (I think about Brazil few
> months
> > > ago) it looks like the AffCom position sounds like "you are both
> wrong".
> > > Now, this is never a healthy long-term strategy. If it occurs again, it
> > > gives more and more the idea that whoever is in the less correct
> position
> > > can hold still because if the matter arrives to the AffCom everybody
> pays
> > > equally. I am sure the situation is more multifaceted, but let's try to
> > > grasp the general vibe here.
> > >
> > >  This is not wise. King Solomon solved the issue bluffing and spotting
> the
> > > real mother, he never actually cut the baby in two halves ... But
> wisdom
> > > comes also with experience.
> > >Il giovedì 11 ottobre 2018, 15:43:01 CEST, GoEthe.wiki <
> > > goethe.w...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> > >
> > >  Hi Illario,
> > >
> > > Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a
> chapter
> > > is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
> > > explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in
> management
> > > and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
> > > Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to
> the
> > > chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an
> advantage,
> > > but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
> > > competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.
> > >
> > > In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter,
> and he
> > > was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very
> quickly
> > > started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did
> not
> > > personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
> > > projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started
> sending
> > > legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our
> most
> > > active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
> > 

[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Research Showcase] Wednesday October 17, 2018 at 11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 UTC

[Janna Layton]

Hello everyone,

The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this Wednesday, October
17, 2018 at 11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 UTC.

YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJrJLWuNvXo

As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. You
can also watch our past research showcases here: https://www.mediawiki.
org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase

This month's presentation:

*"Welcome" Changes? Descriptive and Injunctive Norms in a Wikipedia
Sub-Community*

*By Jonathan T. Morgan, Wikimedia Foundation and Anna Filippova, GitHub*

Open online communities rely on social norms for behavior regulation, group
cohesion, and sustainability. Research on the role of social norms online
has mainly focused on one source of influence at a time, making it
difficult to separate different normative influences and understand their
interactions. In this study, we use the Focus Theory to examine
interactions between several sources of normative influence in a Wikipedia
sub-community: local descriptive norms, local injunctive norms, and norms
imported from similar sub- communities. We find that exposure to injunctive
norms has a stronger effect than descriptive norms, that the likelihood of
performing a behavior is higher when both injunctive and descriptive norms
are congruent, and that conflicting social norms may negatively impact
pro-normative behavior. We contextualize these findings through member
interviews, and discuss their implications for both future research on
normative influence in online groups and the design of systems that support
open collaboration.


*The pipeline of online participation inequalities: The case of Wikipedia
Editing*

*By Aaron Shaw, Northwestern University and Eszter Hargittai, University of
Zurich*

Participatory platforms like the Wikimedia projects have unique potential
to facilitate more equitable knowledge production. However, digital
inequalities such as the Wikipedia gender gap undermine this democratizing
potential. In this talk, I present new research in which Eszter Hargittai
and I conceptualize a "pipeline" of online participation and model distinct
levels of awareness and behaviors necessary to become a contributor to the
participatory web. We test the theory in the case of Wikipedia editing,
using new survey data from a diverse, national sample of adult internet
users in the U.S.

The results show that Wikipedia participation consistently reflects
inequalities of education and internet experiences and skills. We find that
the gender gap only emerges later in the pipeline whereas gaps along racial
and socioeconomic lines explain variations earlier in the pipeline. Our
findings underscore the multidimensionality of digital inequalities and
suggest new pathways toward closing knowledge gaps by highlighting the
importance of education and Internet skills.

We conclude that future research and interventions to overcome digital
participation gaps should not focus exclusively on gender or class
differences in content creation, but expand to address multiple aspects of
digital inequality across pipelines of participation. In particular, when
it comes to overcoming gender gaps in the case of Wikipedia, our results
suggest that continued emphasis on recruiting female editors should include
efforts to disseminate the knowledge that Wikipedia can be edited. Our
findings support broader efforts to overcome knowledge- and skill-based
barriers to entry among potential contributors to the open web.


-- 
Janna Layton
Administrative Assistant - Audiences & Technology

Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery St. Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Chris Keating]

I think there's a question to think about, about how the movement
handles this kind of situation where there are evidently serious
governance problems affecting an affiliate.

There are some clear-cut situations (e.g. total inactivity) where the
current de-recognition process can simply be followed by Affcom. And
there are some situations where there is a large and prominent
affiliate that has plenty of activity, but serious governance issues,
where the WMF Grantmaking and/or Legal teams can get involved in some
depth (thinking about  Wikimedia UK in 2012 and Wikimedia France in
2017).

This is the only case that's "in the middle" that I am aware of - are
there more that have been made public? Of course, it's possible that
there may be other cases where a small/medium affiliate has been
helped to have their governance problems resolved by one process or
another (derecognition or something else) but it's happened silently
in the background.

Chris
On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 5:29 PM Paulo Santos Perneta
 wrote:
>
> Just a quick message to clarify that the only conflict that ever existed in
> Wikimedia Portugal, as far as I know, was with João Vasconcelos himself.
>
> Paulo
>
> Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
> escreveu no dia quinta, 11/10/2018 à(s) 15:38:
>
> >  The pro forma statement bout what a chapter is is valuable, but I think
> > many of us kinda got the idea that the problem was not the starting point
> > (otherwise why electing him?) but came later. It's possible that someone
> > else with more community experience would have never behaved such way, but
> > that's speculation.
> >
> > Statistically, in this scenario this lack of community view probably did
> > not help. Whatever his skills in "management and conflict resolution" were,
> > even assuming they were correctly stated based on previous expertise in
> > other fields, they were not the best ones to handle the conflicts that
> > later emerged. Also, considering the resolution we see now, which is not a
> > great resolution.
> > The point is that in all these disputes (I think about Brazil few months
> > ago) it looks like the AffCom position sounds like "you are both wrong".
> > Now, this is never a healthy long-term strategy. If it occurs again, it
> > gives more and more the idea that whoever is in the less correct position
> > can hold still because if the matter arrives to the AffCom everybody pays
> > equally. I am sure the situation is more multifaceted, but let's try to
> > grasp the general vibe here.
> >
> >  This is not wise. King Solomon solved the issue bluffing and spotting the
> > real mother, he never actually cut the baby in two halves ... But wisdom
> > comes also with experience.
> >Il giovedì 11 ottobre 2018, 15:43:01 CEST, GoEthe.wiki <
> > goethe.w...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
> >
> >  Hi Illario,
> >
> > Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a chapter
> > is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
> > explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in management
> > and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
> > Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to the
> > chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an advantage,
> > but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
> > competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.
> >
> > In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter, and he
> > was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very quickly
> > started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did not
> > personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
> > projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started sending
> > legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our most
> > active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
> > beforehand), and resigned.
> >
> > We have no intention to expose João even more in this public mailing list,
> > so we will not provide a comprehensive list of the problems we found with
> > his term on the board. But to make it clear, when this whole issue began to
> > be addressed, even though we did not ask him to stay on the Board, we did
> > invite him to continue on the chapter, working with us, as AffCom can
> > confirm. Just not in any role with legal responsibilities.
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Gonçalo Themudo
> >
> > *Presidente*
> > *Wikimedia Portugal*
> > *Email: *goethe.w...@gmail.com
> > *Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org 
> > *Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
> > todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Paulo Santos Perneta]

Just a quick message to clarify that the only conflict that ever existed in
Wikimedia Portugal, as far as I know, was with João Vasconcelos himself.

Paulo

Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l 
escreveu no dia quinta, 11/10/2018 à(s) 15:38:

>  The pro forma statement bout what a chapter is is valuable, but I think
> many of us kinda got the idea that the problem was not the starting point
> (otherwise why electing him?) but came later. It's possible that someone
> else with more community experience would have never behaved such way, but
> that's speculation.
>
> Statistically, in this scenario this lack of community view probably did
> not help. Whatever his skills in "management and conflict resolution" were,
> even assuming they were correctly stated based on previous expertise in
> other fields, they were not the best ones to handle the conflicts that
> later emerged. Also, considering the resolution we see now, which is not a
> great resolution.
> The point is that in all these disputes (I think about Brazil few months
> ago) it looks like the AffCom position sounds like "you are both wrong".
> Now, this is never a healthy long-term strategy. If it occurs again, it
> gives more and more the idea that whoever is in the less correct position
> can hold still because if the matter arrives to the AffCom everybody pays
> equally. I am sure the situation is more multifaceted, but let's try to
> grasp the general vibe here.
>
>  This is not wise. King Solomon solved the issue bluffing and spotting the
> real mother, he never actually cut the baby in two halves ... But wisdom
> comes also with experience.
>Il giovedì 11 ottobre 2018, 15:43:01 CEST, GoEthe.wiki <
> goethe.w...@gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>  Hi Illario,
>
> Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a chapter
> is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
> explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in management
> and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
> Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to the
> chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an advantage,
> but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
> competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.
>
> In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter, and he
> was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very quickly
> started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did not
> personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
> projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started sending
> legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our most
> active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
> beforehand), and resigned.
>
> We have no intention to expose João even more in this public mailing list,
> so we will not provide a comprehensive list of the problems we found with
> his term on the board. But to make it clear, when this whole issue began to
> be addressed, even though we did not ask him to stay on the Board, we did
> invite him to continue on the chapter, working with us, as AffCom can
> confirm. Just not in any role with legal responsibilities.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Gonçalo Themudo
>
> *Presidente*
> *Wikimedia Portugal*
> *Email: *goethe.w...@gmail.com
> *Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org 
> *Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
> todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Alessandro Marchetti via Wikimedia-l]

 The pro forma statement bout what a chapter is is valuable, but I think many 
of us kinda got the idea that the problem was not the starting point (otherwise 
why electing him?) but came later. It's possible that someone else with more 
community experience would have never behaved such way, but that's speculation. 

Statistically, in this scenario this lack of community view probably did not 
help. Whatever his skills in "management and conflict resolution" were, even 
assuming they were correctly stated based on previous expertise in other 
fields, they were not the best ones to handle the conflicts that later emerged. 
Also, considering the resolution we see now, which is not a great resolution.
The point is that in all these disputes (I think about Brazil few months ago) 
it looks like the AffCom position sounds like "you are both wrong". Now, this 
is never a healthy long-term strategy. If it occurs again, it gives more and 
more the idea that whoever is in the less correct position can hold still 
because if the matter arrives to the AffCom everybody pays equally. I am sure 
the situation is more multifaceted, but let's try to grasp the general vibe 
here.

 This is not wise. King Solomon solved the issue bluffing and spotting the real 
mother, he never actually cut the baby in two halves ... But wisdom comes also 
with experience.
   Il giovedì 11 ottobre 2018, 15:43:01 CEST, GoEthe.wiki 
 ha scritto:  
 
 Hi Illario,

Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a chapter
is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in management
and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to the
chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an advantage,
but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.

In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter, and he
was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very quickly
started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did not
personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started sending
legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our most
active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
beforehand), and resigned.

We have no intention to expose João even more in this public mailing list,
so we will not provide a comprehensive list of the problems we found with
his term on the board. But to make it clear, when this whole issue began to
be addressed, even though we did not ask him to stay on the Board, we did
invite him to continue on the chapter, working with us, as AffCom can
confirm. Just not in any role with legal responsibilities.


Cheers,
Gonçalo Themudo

*Presidente*
*Wikimedia Portugal*
*Email: *goethe.w...@gmail.com
*Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org 
*Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[GoEthe.wiki]

Hi Illario,

Apologies, I probably explained myself poorly. I never said that a chapter
is a representative of the Wikimedia community, rather I was trying to
explain that João’s claimed experience (emphasis on claimed) in management
and conflict resolution was a major factor in him being elected to the
Board. At the time, WMPT thought that that could be very valuable to the
chapter. So, we agree, a heterogeneous board is absolutely an advantage,
but in this case the issue was not one of diversity, but rather of
competence and alignment to the movement goals and principles.

In practice, he did not contribute to the management of the chapter, and he
was not prepared to an increase of the chapter activities. He very quickly
started demonstrating uneasiness with any procedural decision he did not
personally vet (which are imperative in volunteer-based, collaborative
projects), and soon after, without any previous warning, started sending
legal threats going as far as using a lawyer to intimidate one of our most
active members on behalf of WMPT (without discussing it with anyone
beforehand), and resigned.

We have no intention to expose João even more in this public mailing list,
so we will not provide a comprehensive list of the problems we found with
his term on the board. But to make it clear, when this whole issue began to
be addressed, even though we did not ask him to stay on the Board, we did
invite him to continue on the chapter, working with us, as AffCom can
confirm. Just not in any role with legal responsibilities.


Cheers,
Gonçalo Themudo

*Presidente*
*Wikimedia Portugal*
*Email: *goethe.w...@gmail.com
*Website: *http://pt.wikimedia.org 
*Imagine um mundo onde cada ser humano pode partilhar livremente a soma de
todo o conhecimento, na sua própria língua.*
___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Plea from Wikimedia Portugal

[Ilario Valdelli]

The best mistake you do is to consider the wikimedia chapter as a
representative of the Wikipedia community while this statement is basically
wrong.

When you say that Vasconcelos had no Wikipedia editing experience and
continue to support your position using this motivation, you probably have
no clear meaning of what is a chapter.

I have no position about the wikimedia Portugal conflict but i would stress
this point.

I Think that there is a clear and well known position inside the wikimedia
movement that any chapter is not responsible of the content of Wikimedia
projects.

A board should have an heterogeneous composition. If a wikipedia editing
Experience is welcome, that's is not sufficient. Having someone with
conflict management Experience in the board would be important and In some
cases more important than Wikipedia' s editing In this case I dont
understand why you did not invite to Vasconcelos to stay.

Kind regards

On Tue, 9 Oct 2018, 14:48 Alchimista,  wrote:

> As a wikimedia Portugal board member I totally agree with Gonçalo's
> statement. Despite what I believe where AffCom best efforts, they clearly
> didn't knew how to properly deal with this situation. They took official
> positions without hearing us, they've imposed a roadmap that we had to
> accomplish in order to lift the suspension, and now that we've accomplished
> it, some unexplained accusations came out of the blue. I feel that AffCom
> put us chasing ghosts during the last months and that all we've done so far
> was in vain, and more importantly, is making us reach the limit of our
> capacities. This last message is a clear example of what shouldn’t be done:
> we’ve been working with special motivation knowing that we were doing all
> what was requested in order to get our suspension lifted, and then AffCom
> sends us that opaque accusation, without any previous attempt to get any
> confirmation or information.
>
> Wikimedia Portugal is currently in a sustainable path, despite all the
> entropy, we’ve been able to fulfill all legal obligations, AffCom roadmap,
> improve our governance and transparency and organize activities. We intend
> to keep this path, continuously improving our capacities, but AffCom is
> clearly making it more difficult.
>
> Best regards,
>
> André
>
> GoEthe.wiki  escreveu no dia terça, 9/10/2018 à(s)
> 11:12:
>
> > The original message was rejected due to a filter rule match, but you can
> > access it here:
> >
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediapt/2018-October/002698.html
> > I am sending it below without the links. Please access the link above for
> > the full version.
> > __
> >
> > Sorry in advance for the lengthy email – the tl;dr version is: Wikimedia
> > Portugal has done all it was asked to do, so the suspension that was held
> > conditional to performing those steps must be lifted accordingly. For the
> > sake of transparency, we are sending this out to not only the AffCom
> > mailing list, but also Wikimedia-l and WikimediaPT-l.
> > _
> >
> > Dear members of AffCom,
> >
> > (cc to the Wikimedia Portugal mailing list, Wikimedia mailing list)
> >
> > Last 5th October we were again surprised by the content of your email
> > (quoted below) in response to us completing the roadmap we had agreed
> upon
> > in order to remove the suspension of Wikimedia Portugal. On that message,
> > you say you have once more received information whose substantiation is
> not
> > mentioned, from sources that are not disclosed. And still you seem to
> > accept it as the truth without even providing us with the opportunity to
> > get properly acquainted with it, let alone rebate or contradict it. While
> > you speak of transparency, that message is unsettlingly opaque, as have
> > been multiple such messages relayed to us in the course of this whole
> > process.
> >
> > As you are well aware, Wikimedia Portugal was faced in March with a
> > situation where the president of the Board, João Vasconcelos, became
> > demissionary without any previous warning [1]. It should be noted that
> when
> > Vasconcelos was elected as president of the Board back in 2015, he wasn’t
> > elected based on any background as a Wikimedia editor, as he has no
> history
> > of contribution to any of the Wikimedia projects, but rather on his self
> > proclaimed merits on organisational and conflict management (!). Despite
> > the best efforts of several people from Wikimedia Portugal over the
> years,
> > Vasconcelos sadly never really integrated well neither on Wikimedia
> > Portugal, nor in the Portuguese Wikimedia community.
> >
> > So, in light of what looked like an existential threat for WMPT, I and a
> > number of other WMPT members have publicly and transparently mobilized
> > ourselves to organize an extraordinary General Election to elect the new
> > Board. Vasconcelos was probably expecting/hoping that we would ask him to
> > stay. But we have seen this sort of behavior elsewhere [a].We didn't.
> >