Wikimedians of Slovakia/history

This is chronological overview of founding and working of Wikimedia Slovenská republika.

Timetable Wikimedia Slovakia

2011

January 2011

• discussion on the topic of founding Wikimedia Slovakia
• submission to rename and change the mission of the existing association known as SOIT to Wikimedia Slovakia. After discussion at an editors meeting in May 2011 this was disallowed as inapplicable.

February 2011

• registration of the domain wikimedia.sk by editor Rudko

March 2011 / April 2011

• discussion through Skype with the Austrian editors (functions of Wikimedia Austria in supplying the Slovak community, stipends for Wikimania 2011)
• busy discussion of the topic of founding Wikimedia Slovakia in the Slovak Wikipedia community section Wikipolitics
• editors Nelliette and Wizzard promoted the initialisation of the founding plans by posting their names on list of interested Wikipedians
• arranging contacts (e-mail, Skype, tel.) to key persons of existing Wikimedias in the neigbourhood (WMCZ, WMAT, WMDE) and to the supported editors
• discussion with the president of WMCZ
• discussion with Austrian editors supporting the founding project
• adding contacts, short international discussions
• discussion about founding financial support for Wikimedia Slovakia by WMDE and WMAT

May 2011

• official statement of support for founding costs 50% WMAT / 50% WMDE
• first consultation of lawyer (specialist of founding associations)
• international meeting of editors in Bratislava with the main theme of founding Wikimania Slovakia
• decision to exclusively discuss the founding on the Slovak Wikipedia community panel (transparency)
• discussion about the address and cloud computing archival system

July 2011

• discussion about Foundation conference Vienna

August 2011

• editor Rudko participated in Wikimania 2011, also in pre-Wikimania chapter meetings

September 2011

• finalization of the by-laws

October 2011

• control reading of by-laws through chapter committee (in progress)
• translating by-laws into English (in progress)
• preparing official founding meeting, end of November

December 2011

• finished by-laws
• official founding by three members
• sent it to Slovak Justice Ministry for approval
• 16 December 2011 — official letter from Ministry of Justice corporate registry that confirmed the founding of Wikimedia Slovakia

2012

March 2012

• 9 March 2012 — First general assembly with elections to presidium and audit committee

September 2012

• 9 March 2012 — Second general assembly - amendments to by-laws (especially new address), change between presidium and revision commitee
• preparation for Wikipedia workshop within Konferenco pri Aplikoj de Esperanto en Scienco kaj Tekniko (KAEST) in mid-November (grant)

2019

• The board (Radoslava Semanová as a Vice-chair, Matej Grochal as a Board member) has announced next Generally Assembly for 9th March 2019 but haven't fullfiled all the necessary requirements of bylaws (haven't informed the members by email and by the website about the Assembly; the only channels used was the organisation's mailing list, Wikipedia and Facebook page - none of them is required, nor accepted by bylaws). An announcement through the website was missing after the previous chair Michal Matúšov left his position and the then-board haven't managed to get access to the website in time. Later, Semanová informed about post-deadline "fulfillment" of 1 of 2 non-fulfilled requirements but the board still refused to obey the bylaws. The board have had the time and possibilities to announce a new, valid Generally Assembly but have elected to not do so. The bylaws was violated in 2 ways:
  1. declaration of Generally Assembly without fulfilling the requirements (and without "higher purpose");
  2. not helding Generally Assembly within three months of the start of the year.
• On the 9th March 2019, people from Wikimedians of Slovakia has meet for a self-declared "Generally Assembly". Later they had informed that the meeting was regular Generally Assembly, despite no evidence of fulfillment of bylaws was publicly shared. Throughout the whole rest of the year the Board was misinforming the public.
• In April, another AGM was called for 4 May 2019. A new board was elected there (though with some "old" members).
• On September 28 the organisation held an Extraordinary Generally Assembly. During it, the Vice-chair Radoslava Semanová agreed that she have violated the bylaws on the beginning of the year. She has not apologized (neither privately during the Generally Assembly, nor publicly) and the Board continued to misinform the members, wiki community and public about the affair.
• After months of private communication, the Audit Committee (Patrik Kunec as a Chair of the Audit Committee, Lukáš Mikulec as an Audit Committee member) officially made a final decision to intentionally disobey their bylaw's control function and not to examine the bylaw violation by board from beginning of the same year. The reason stated was that double bylaw violation done by board is a trivial affair.
• In December the Board announced next Generally Assembly for 1st February 2020. One Board member publicly alluded possibility to officially change protocols from the year, suggesting the Board is willing to correct the information about Generally Assemblies held and not held in 2019.

2020

• During the Meeting of the Generally Assembly on 1st of February 2020 the Generally Assembly accepted the Annual Report for 2019. In the report, there was no mention of the meeting in March 2019 to be called "Generally Assembly", suggesting cancellation the previous claims about such status. The organisation from their own initiative have not explicitly informed about their current opinion on the status of the disputed meeting, nor apologized in any of the channels used previously to spread the false information.
• On 18th June, Matej Grochal (than-time Chair) recognized, that on beginning of 2019, he and Semanová violated bylaw. From the time he was firstly informed about being on way to violate bylaw until he recognized their violation have passed nearly 17 months.

Participants

Participating in the founding process discussions were editors Radiológ, Bubamara, Teslaton, Bronto, Peko, Nelliette, KuboF, Wizzard, K@rl, Hubertl, Beppol, Juan de V, DannyB, Rios, and Rudko, as well as outside well-wishers.

Editors Radiológ, Bubamara, Jonesy, Egg and Teslaton participated in the discussion, though in opposition to the founding of an organization at the time.

The official founders that signed the by-laws of incorporation and activated the official process of founding were Nelliette, KuboF and Rudko - all Slovak Wikipedians.

Editor Nelliette resigned before the first general assembly. As of September 2012 there are 3 active participants (presidium) with active support of some more members and some members of the Slovak wiki community.

Old version of Meta page

The idea for Wikimedia Slovenská republika ("Wikimedia Slovakia") was born in winter 2010-11, initiated by some Austrian and Czech editors while visiting Slovakia and participating in some meetings of Slovak editors. After long discussions in the community through the discussion platforms on the Wikipedia project, a small group of editors started the founding process in Slovakia. Indeed, some Slovak Wikipedia editors were not very happy about the founding idea but did not really have strong arguments for stopping the process. The few arguments centred on whether such a group was even necessary, whether there were enough people available, and whether the leadership would be transparently elected. After the first meeting in May 2011 some editors changed their minds and took a neutral position on the issue of founding the organization.

The main instigator of the founding process was the german-based slovak editor Rudko. The editor Nelliette is in real life a bookkeeper and was very interested to participate in the founding process. Editor KuboF is a young student, active on the Esperanto Wikipedia and he is one of the co-founders of the Slovak organization. There are other supporters of this project too. For example, some very active editors hail from Austria (more than 200 000 edits). There are also members of Wikimedia Österreich (WMAT), editors and members of Wikimedia Czech Republic (WMCZ) and Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE).

At the Haifa Wikimania 2011 editor Rudko discussed intensively the founding idea with other editors and members of Wikimedias from Switzerland, Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, as well as other interested persons. His idea of planning a timetable to meet quarterly with slovak and other interested editors was accepted. In the intervening three months between meetings there would be time to lead discussions and speak with the community about their wishes.

The Slovak corporate by-laws, based on the versions of WMAT and WMCZ, were passed with the assistance of a specialist lawyer. The official founding meeting was on 2 December 2011. A fortnight later (16 December 2011) the Justice ministry in Slovakia confirmed the founding of the organization as the by-laws passed at first reading.

The next steps for Wikimedia Slovakia are to begin some practical projects and to make contact with other organizations in Slovakia, as well as similar Wikimedia chapters in other countries, interest groups and user groups.