Hello everyone, I think the time has come to assume good faith and let the office bearers get their act together. We have had enough emails expressing the community's concerns at lack of transparency, lack of communication, etc, etc. The new office bearers are in an un-envious position. I'm sure that they must now be feeling that all the work of putting up a chapter is a thankless job. It was an important task and let us recognise that tackling any state bureaucracy is not an occupation of pleasure. So let us thank them for doing this task and ask them to henceforth function in a manner which meets the concerns of the community.
It would have of course been great if the community had been brought in before establishing the foundation, but that is all water under the bridge now. It is time for us to let them be and go about doing whatever they planned. This spate of attacks/accusation/discourse I'm sure has halted them in their tracks. Such a limbo is the worst situation possible. In expressing our legitimate concern, we have virtually accused them of every possible wrong without concrete evidence and now they stand here already condemned in public eyes. If they have to serve us - make no mistake - chapter activities are meant to serve the community, not govern them - then we have absolutely demotivated them from doing so. To the EC committee, I would like to say, you have my unqualified support for the period of a year and I request you to get your act together and deliver what you have promised. At this point of time, my support is unqualified but henceforth after this grace period, it will be based on your performance and output. I'm giving you the rope, gentlemen of the EC, now either construct a rope bridge and span the gap between you and the community or hang yourselves with that rope (figuratively speaking). To the community, I further request that the tone on the list be lowered to gentlemanly discourse. I am not saying that we stop expressing our concerns but let us do it in a constructive way. Also, we must not make mountains out of mole-hills and we must be even more tolerant than before. If the EC have to achieve ambitious targets, they have to act. When people act, they make mistakes. Only those who dont act, make no mistakes. In my eyes inaction is the greater sin than acting and making mistakes. The EC will make a few mistakes but they may be discussed in a non-accusatory way and lessons should be learnt from them instead of seeking to crucify the EC members at every instant. Also, I will request that all feelings/issues that the community feels strongly about be discussed openly on the list rather than offline and that no efforts be made to influence the EC offline or in an undemocratic fashion. For those who feel, that they would like to be part of the setup in the Wikimedia India chapter - that is a great and good ambition and the way to go about it is by working in constructive manner so that the community's aims are progressed. This email is not meant to point fingers towards any one person, but definitely I feel the community needs to heed my message and if you don't agree, to discuss it politely. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l