Talk:Affiliations Committee/Archives/2014

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Existing trademark licenses

The draft of the proposed trademark policy says: «Chapters, user groups, and thematic organizations must comply both with this trademark policy and their respective agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation. If there are inconsistencies between this trademark policy and a chapter, user group, or a thematic organization agreement, the organization should follow their agreement». The second sentence cancels the first, because existing agreements obviously didn't include agreement to a policy that didn't exist yet and the explicit provisions are such, at least in the case(s) I know, that basically the whole policy can be disregarded. However, more recent or less careful chapters may have worse wordings in their agreements and should check that this new claim by the WMF doesn't make them impossible to conduct their activities. --Nemo 10:03, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

This is not a contradiction:

• Existing organizations can continue to operte under their existing agreement, unless they decide to cancel it by accepting the new policies in a new agreement. There are termination clauses in all contracts that specify what can happen and how
• The policy exposes the situation that newer organisations will have to accept, i.e. the policy fixes the direction for newer agreements with the WMF.
• This policy may give also more rights to these organisations than what they currently have : if they want to use these rights, they have to accept the policy. Existing agreements are often limited in scope or in time (subject to multiple successive agreements for specific events). For example they may have a permanent limited right to use the trademarks for some kinds of events but not for saling products, including sales of medias containing the trademark (for example in the name of these products, such as books, or counceling services, or hosting services, or training services, or translation services). verdy_p (talk) 14:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say it's a contradiction. I'd like a source for your claim in point 2. --Nemo 12:15, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

You said it was a contradiction in the terms "inconsistencies" and "The second sentence cancels the first". verdy_p (talk) 14:21, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, the User Group agreement and the Thorg agreement includes the trademark policy by reference, the latter makes it explicit that the policy may be changed. Nemo, you might want to forward your question to the WMF legal team. --Bence (talk) 15:22, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Macedonian mess

Dear AffCom, we have what appears to be a breakaway group from the Macedonian chapter coming along to GAC with a large bid for an annual operating grant. There are implied complaints that AffCom has left in limbo an awkward situation with respect to the chapter and this breakaway group—among other things that AffCom has failed to respond for more than six months.

What is going on? Tony (talk) 03:25, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not clear to me why you complain that AffCom is making something harder for GAC. We have an unaffiliated (i.e. unreviewed) group asking for a grant, isn't this routine for GAC?

• Even if WMMK's status happened to be revoked, this wouldn't imply immediate recognition of another organisation. I don't see how WMMK's status is related to the grant request.
• As long as Shared Knowledge doesn't use Wikimedia trademarks and Wikimedia Macedonia doesn't formally complain that the proposed activities are in contrast with Wikimedia Macedonia's rights per its chapter agreement, or WMMK explicitly agrees to allow such activities, I don't see how the grant is affected.
• I've not seen any public request to revoke chapter status to Wikimedia Macedonia, let alone reasons. Do you think AffCom should review a secret request? Also, if the association is inactive, can't its (former?) members ask for it to be disbanded by local authorities? (There is such a possibility in Italian law but I don't know about Macedonia of course.) Then no revoke decision would be needed-
• The new group's page was orphan till a moment ago (when I added a link from the request page). It seems therefore that the organisation has not started even the most basic steps of recognition as user group or chapter, what's AffCom supposed to do then?

--Nemo 13:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Please point to where I make that complaint. I don't give a toss who is who and what the internal Macedonian politics are. All I'm doing is informing you that these people are complaining that AffCom hasn't responded to their emailed requests for information or assistance for six months. I'm uneasy having vast amounts of donors' money paid out via the PEG program when the situation is unclear. Over to you. Tony (talk) 09:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Here is where: «AffCom seems to be a very unsatisfactory board committee [...] extreme tardiness in dealing with this matter [...] I'm unwilling to pick up the little bits because AffCom can't fulfill the most basic of its duties to the movement. Tony (talk) 03:17, 19 July 2014 (UTC)». Of course it's not your obligation to review group bylaws etc., you're a volunteer; but it's perfectly in scope for PEG and GAC (as well as IEG), which are designed to be about non-previously-reviewed entities. The only grant program requiring affiliation decisions is APG/FDC (see e.g. how the WMF board veto'ed any funding to WCA by pre-emptively vetoing any proposal to recognise it as affiliate). --Nemo 07:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't read what I wrote above: "All I'm doing is informing you that these people are complaining that AffCom hasn't responded to their emailed requests for information or assistance for six months. I'm uneasy having vast amounts of donors' money paid out via the PEG program when the situation is unclear." Tony (talk) 15:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Status of Wikimedia Macedonia

I've notified the members of the Affiliations Committee on the mailing list about the status of Wikimedia Macedonia and the activities that were carried out by the newly established community-endorsed Shared Knowledge in the past few months and requested review of its bylaws which would have to lead to resolution of the current status of Wikimedia Macedonia. I hope that my request will be answered promptly.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Call for members—a number of issues

Dear AffCom members

I note that the process of appointing new members is not particularly transparent, and that this body is unique among WMF staff/board committees in being elected by current members of the body. (This is a situation I'm not entirely comfortable with, and wonder whether one should work towards a composite membership that is partly appointed by AffCom itself, partly by the WMF board, partly by staff, and perhaps even partly by community election, although I could live without the last).

Without having hunted down the pages for last year's call (2014 call for candidates), I wonder why candidates can't make their pitch for appointment on-wiki, for all to see. I also wonder whether candidates could be formally asked to state their language abilities on that 1–5 scale (GAC members now do this, I think).

May I suggest that the "very" be dropped from "Very good communication skills in English"? GAC is on "reasonable", one step lower than that still, which I think works well and opens the net widely. You might also consider expressing the skills/experience in binary form, as is so common: essential, and preferred. Gives you greater flexibility.

Tony (talk) 04:31, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. We are currently reviewing the member application process. However, it is unlikely that we would move all applications entirely onto a public wiki due to the confidential information people decide to include in some applications. Also, self-selection exists with the WMF Board itself - so the situation is not entirely unique. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 16:15, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I note that the response has taken six weeks.

Confidential information doesn't have to go on Meta, but can be separated from the fact of nomination and consideration, and basic information—so the community knows what is going on. Public information such as username, languages, and areas of expertise and experience are highly appropriate on Meta.

The WMF board is only partly self-selected; most are elected, by the Board's consitution. So I don't find the response on that matter convincing. Tony (talk) 06:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Ireland

Hello, the Ireland chapter has been in the proposal stage for five months awaiting recognition. Is five months not an unusually long delay? Is it at all possible that Wikimedia Ireland could still propose funded projects before the end of next year? ~ R.T.G 22:54, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not see an active application for this user group. Please fill one out on Meta-Wiki so we can begin processing this application. More info: Wikimedia user groups/Applications. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 16:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

@Varnent:It's placement on list and Talk:Wikimedia_Ireland_Community#General_questions_from_the_Affiliations_Committee_.28AffCom.29 ~ R.T.G 23:55, 16 November 2014 (UTC)