This is truly appalling!
Sibi, the way you have phrased this and supported your claims is
commendable. These mailing lists have often seen serious matters reduced to
mud-slinging and personal remarks.
Rohini Lakshané
about.me/rohini
[image: Rohini Lakshané on about.me]
<http://about.me/rohini>
2015-03-03 16:20 GMT+05:30 sibi kanagaraj <civil.si...@gmail.com>:
> Hi all ,
>
> This is to bring to the attention of the larger Wikimedia Community about
> concerns regarding Abhishek Surywanshi’s ( User profile -
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=AbhiSuryawanshi
> ) wikimedia activities and use of movement funds.
>
> While edit counts are not the only way to assess the value of a
> contributor and people are encourage to do outreach, I am seeing a clear
> pattern that he has been *very active consistently only in offline
> activities that involve large scale funds.*
>
> *History of programs or events where he has used or applied to use
> movement funds:*
>
> 1)A Travel and Participation grant request for travel to US from India for
> Wikimedia Outreach in US -
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:TPS/AbhiSuryawanshi/NASA_LARSS_program
> . The community and EC members of Wikimedia India disapproved of this grant
> request.
>
> 2)Wikipedia Summit Pune -
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune . How much
> was spent and how? Where is the expenses report? Following failure to abide
> by terms regarding financial transactions, *Wikimedia India banned
> supporting him financially and passed a resolution regarding this.* ( As
> per http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015
> )
>
> 3)Various (mostly flight) travel and stay to many different conferences /
> meetups across India in the recent past. Community approval for these are
> not clearly seen.
> *Swatantra conference 2014
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests/Swatantra_2014/Participation#Request_for_Support
> (On behalf of which community?)
> *India Community Consultation 201 4 -
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Community_Consultation_2014#Hindi
> (Self-nomination (?) on behalf of Hindi Community where he has made 425
> edits.
> Bengali Wikipedia 10 years celebration in Kolkatta during Jan 2015 (On
> behalf of which community?)
>
>
> Following are some of his proposed activities that will need a grant made
> in near future:
>
> 1)Wikipedia Summit India in Pune during 2015 -
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/WikipediaSummitIndia
>
> 2)Travel and participation grant request for 1125 US dollars for round
> trip travel from Pune to United States for conducting Indic outreach in
> United states -
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Harvard_India_Conference_and_Wiki_Workshop
>
> 3)WikiConnect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect - No
> idea about the budget. The pilot he is doing in Nashik *needs 6100 INR
> for a cake itself *and reimbursement for 15 days of his stay and food.
>
> 4)Further outreach in US -
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Indic_Language_Wikipedia_Outreach_in_United_States
>
>
> Some of the concerns:
>
> 1.He is using and proposes to keep using movement funds in large scale
> with questionable impact which are against the learnings already documented
> at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation
>
> 2.He is *using fictitious and misleading titles like Ambassador,
> Wikipedia* to establish non-transparent relationships with numerous
> organizations in and outside India -
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiConnect/Pilot_Project#mediaviewer/File:Wikipedia_Nashik_Workshop_Participants_January_2015.jpg
> . This has the risk of damaging goodwill and brand name for Wikipedia.
>
> 4)When a current GAC member and former Wikimedia India EC member seeks
> details regarding his grant request and reminds the current EC about the
> ban, he is hinting legal action against chapter (As per
> http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:Grants/WikiConnect_Pilot_-_January_2015 )
>
> As a community member, I request the funding agencies in the movement to
> take stock of this situation and implement intense scrutiny for funding
> requests with proper evaluation of program design and due process for
> having community approval by experienced Wikimedians.
>
> Please donot proceed ahead without community discussion or approval.
>
> Executive decisions circumventing community approval will never help the
> movement.
>
>
> -Sibi Kanagaraj
> User:Commons Sibi (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ACentralAuth&target=Commons+sibi
> )
>
>
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