Comité de Organizaciones/Resoluciones/Solicitud de presupuesto para la reunión anual 2013 - Abril de 2013

Considerando que:

• El Comité de Organizaciones enviará un presupuesto revisado al proceso de presupuesto de la Fundación Wikimedia, incluyendo los gastos por una reunión anual;

• El Comité de Organiaciones considera necesario que para su trabajo efectivo y eficiente deben contar con una reunión anual;

• La ubicación de la reunión sea en Wikimanía posee beneficios, incluyendo los ahorros en viajes y tiempo de reunión, involucrando a asesores en la reunión cuando sea posible y produce resultados inmediatos de la reunión durante Wikimanía;

• Una consulta al interior del comité mostró que existe el apoyo del comité para realizar un reunión en Wikimanía en vez de reubicarla.

• Una lista de resultados deseados se ha creado;

• Los costos estimados para dicha reunión son de $40.000, considerando un 15% de reservas de las actuales tasas aéreas para el 4 de agosto al 12 agosto de 2013.

Se acuerda que:

• El Comité de Organizaciones realizará su reunión anual 2013 con Wikimanía 2013 en Hong Kong;

• USD 40.000 de su presupuesto serán distribuidos para organizar y realizar esta reunión;

• Un reporte con resultados públicos de esta reunión será publicado un mes tras la reunión.

Votos

Resolución aprobada con 9 votos a favor, 0 votos en contra, 0 abstenciones, 1 votos no emitidos, el 28 April 2013.

Reporte público

Reunión

La reunión anual 2013 del Comité de Organizaciones se llevó a cabo en la Universidad Politécnica en Hong Kong el 6 y 7 de agosto. Los miembros del Comité de Organizaciones fueron a participar en la conferencia de Wikimanía.

Los objetivos de la reunión fueron para mover hacia adelante los casos abiertos y alcanzar el consense del Comité sobre los próximos pasos, la mejora de las formas de afiliación de aplicaciones se manejan a nivel interno y es el proceso de los propios solicitantes, decidir sobre su camino y a seguir con el tipo de movimiento de socios afiliados, viniendo a una decisión para la supervisión o seguimiento de capítulos en violación de sus acuerdos, y tener una conversación inicial sobre el futuro del Comité.

El presente informe es una versión ligeramente modificada del informe elaborado para uso interno, la información que se considera como personal, sensible o relativos a las solicitudes en curso se han eliminado.

Primer día

Fotografía grupal

Presente:

• Miembros del comité: Carlos, Salvador, Galio, Greg, Lodewijk, Bence, Tanvir, Maria (parte del día), Josh (parts of the day)
• Invitados (Parte del día): Asaf Bartov, Geoff Brigham, Stephen LaPorte, Bishakha Datta, Patricio Lorente
• Ausente: Jerry

• El Comité examinó los procesos de aplicación de los capítulos, organizaciones temáticas y grupos de usuarios. En el caso de los tres tipos de afiliación se crearán las guías actualizadas y discutidas internamente en torno a finales de agosto, antes de ser publicadas.

• • En el caso de los grupos de usuarios una serie de simplificaciones y aclaraciones de los requisitos acordados (eliminando la necesidad de las personas de contacto que se identifican con la WMF, añadiendo la posibilidad de tener la página de información general del grupo en un wiki que no sea como Meta mientras exista un vínculo claro entre Meta). (En relación con esto, en interés de la buena gobernanza se pidió al Comité en presentar el proceso de aprobación de los grupos de usuarios a la aprobación de la Junta para trabajar con el equipo legal en averiguar en qué punto los grupos de usuarios firman el acuerdo del grupo de usuarios.)

• • In the case of thematic organisations the step by step guide will be better synchronised with the actual recognition process by emphasizing the need to contact the Committee early on, clarifying the section on bylaws review making explicit some of the criteria used, and separating the naming of thematic organisations as an independent step.

• • The guide for chapters has been found quite well polished, however the consistency of the Committee's handling of applications could use improvements. As a step towards improving consistency it was agreed that stages of new applications would be handled in set, publicly communicated timeframes (for example, posting our standard questions should happen within 2 days, and reviewing the answers should not take more than 1-2 week, a bylaw review should not take more than 4 weeks, etc.). (The timeframes would also be applicable to all types of affiliates.) - AffCom members are expected to follow these timelines and adjust their work to them in order not to slow down the pre-affiliation process (unless it is something really outstanding and that requires immediate attention) and hence affect the quality of the service we are providing to those affiliates-to-be.

• A few clarifying amendments were discussed for the Committee's internal policies that will be adopted in formal resolutions after final drafting.

• • In particular, the spending policy will be clarified to request that the Committee treasurer be informed by the WMF of the remaining funds in the Committee's allocation, allowing for better tracking and verification of expenses where they are covered directly by the WMF.

• • The Committee standards of participation will be clarified in a way that committee members who voluntarily suspend their membership have a maximum of 15 days to make a decision on continuing their participation following the end of their suspension period. The current text of the standard was unclear in this regard, resulting in suspended members not making a decision to resume their membership being considered full members for an indefinite amount of time despite their inactivity or unresponsiveness.

• The Committee has decided to provide better support for recently approved affiliates in three ways:

• • Each new affiliate will be assigned a designated AffCom advisor (ideally one of the liaisons working on their recognition) who will contact the affiliate at least every three months to inquire of their development, offer advice and make introductions between new and old entities. This program will be considered a pilot to be evaluated in a year's time.

• • New and soon to be approved affiliates will be proactively informed of the Committee's grant facility that can cover the costs of incorporation and other costs associated with the recognition process (e.g. translation).

• • New affiliates will be presented with a short introduction letter that provides a description and contact information of the key WMF departments a new affiliate will likely interact with. The Committee has received principal agreement from a number of departments already, follow up will include requesting the individual departments for their part and putting it together into a single letter.

• A small number of changes to the Committee's working methods were discussed in addition to setting deadlines to phases of the recognition process. A rotating secretary position and – on the suggestion of Asaf Bartov, a rotating system for assigning one of the two liaisons for each application were put in place.

• Finally, the fourth, as of yet undefined affiliate type, movement partners were discussed with the participation of the invited guests and the Committee. A mixed working group was set up to discuss the principal questions and come back with a draft proposal. The group aims to start its work in mid-September and come up with a draft by around mid-November, it is expected that the group will use Meta wiki as their open working and discussion space.

Segundo día

Comité en discusión

Presente:

• Miembros: Bence, Salvador, Carlos, Galio, Lodewijk, Greg, Josh, Tanvir
• Ausente: Jerry

• The Committee spent a significant part of the second day going through all pending cases (around 20), decided on follow-up steps and where necessary assigned or re-assigned liaisons to them. The application of the Wiki Ed Foundation, Wikimedia Brasil and Wiki Project Med were discussed in more thorough detail.

• Following this the Committee has agreed to remind chapters of their obligations under the chapters agreement to provide activity and financial reports at least once a year (ideally published on Meta) and notify the WMF (practically, through the Affiliations Committee) of changes in their bylaws.

• Committee members then participated in the WCA seminar session on affiliates.
• The meeting was concluded with a discussion and decision on action points for Wikimania and the decisions taken during the meeting.

Chapters Village

The Affiliations Committee has participated with a table in the Chapters Village, initially in the open "Logo Square" area, later taking over parts of one lounge room as the latter had air conditioning.

Among others, we have had encounters with the following groups at or near our table:

• Wikimedia Eslovaquia (Wikimedia Slovakia)

• Wiki Project Med

• Wikimedia Bolivia

• Voluntarios del Medio Oriente

• Wikimedia Nepal

• Wikimedia Armenia

• Wikimedia Uruguay

Other meetings and encounters

Committee members had a number of dedicated meetings on certain affiliate-related topics, including:

• Multiple meetings related to Brasil (the state of the chapter-to-be, the community, the catalyst programme)

• Mainland China

• Wikimedia Finlandia (Wikimedia Findland)

• Wikimedia Macao (Wikimedia Macau)

• Wikimedia Sudáfrica (Wikimedia South Africa)

• Wikimedia Ucrania (Wikimedia Ukraine)

• Grupos de usuarios de Wikisource (Wikisource User Group)

• Ladsgroup Amir Sarabadani

• Ghana

• Ecuador

• Wikiviajes (Wikivoyage)

• Chapters Dialogue

Recomendaciones para el futuro

Based on the experience of this meeting, we have distilled some lessons to improve the efficiency of future meetings, including:

• We need to arrange our venue better. (On the first day of the meeting we were relocated twice by the organisers, the room we ended up with was a non-rearrangeable lecture hall that was also advertised as the meeting place for incoming attendees, quite unsuitable for meetings; the room was not properly equipped with extension cords and markers, not to mention any other amenity. The room on the second day was a classroom that was better suited for our needs, but the lack of equipment was persistent and there was construction work being done in the adjacent room.)

• The meeting would benefit if it was lead by a neutral facilitator instead of one of the members, in this case mostly Bence.

• Prepare some flyers or any kind of printed material for booth type events.