Affiliations Committee/News/Issue 3

Affiliations Committee News

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Welcome to the third issue of the AffCom News! The newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the work of Wikimedia's Affiliations Committee. This issue covers July-September 2024 (Q1 2024-25).

The AffCom News is delivered quarterly to all Wikimedia Affiliates and individual subscribers. You may leave comments or ideas for future newsletter on the talk page. You can also help us by translating the newsletter into your language(s). Subscribe to the newsletter by adding your talk page to this list.

If you have an interesting story about what your Affiliate has been doing, feel free to reach out to us at cst@wikimedia.org.

After the successful resolution to adopt the Wikimedia Foundation’s Affiliates Strategy, AffCom will begin reviewing applications following the proposed modification of the User group recognition process. As have already been shared, new applications sent before 12 June 2024 that were acknowledged by AffCom but have not otherwise been processed, will proceed under the new recognition process. All applicants will be notified in the coming weeks and office hours will be organized to assist all interested applicants who will need further assistance.

About Affiliate Health Criteria, the Committee Support Team is working closely with the Community Resources team to streamline the reporting structure and process for affiliates. Read more about the proposed modifications and timeline of testing.

Additional details about the Affiliate Strategy implementation are found on the Affiliate Strategy implementation page.

AffCom is responsible for overseeing the recognition and derecognition process for Wikimedia movement affiliates (Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and User Groups). This section covers updates of affiliate applications as the applications progress though the review process.

This past quarter AffCom recognized three Wikimedia Affiliates:

• 
  Wikimedia Community of Togo User Group (28 July 2024)
• 
  WikiMedistas Wayúu (29 July 2024)
• 
  Wikimedians of Singapore User Group (31 July 2024)

No Wikimedia Affiliates were derecognized in the past quarter.

AffCom is excited to share a proposed modification to the Chapter/Thematic Organization review process aimed at streamlining workflows and enhancing the efficiency of our evaluations. After careful consideration, AffCom is making the following adjustments:

1. Simplified Document Collection: All applicants will submit bylaws, criteria information and fill out a Trust and Safety template while submitting their application for recognition.
2. Parallel Review: The workflows around bylaw, criteria, and Trust and Safety and Human Rights reviews, that were previously staggered will now be reviewed in parallel by both AffCom and Wikimedia Foundation staff. This change is intended to reduce delays and improve the overall timeline for reviews.
3. Criteria Review Shift: The criteria review will be entirely handled by staff to better balance the workload created by reviews. This adjustment will allow AffCom to concentrate on more strategic and governance-related matters, such as reviewing bylaws, while staff ensures that all criteria are thoroughly met.

These modifications are designed to alleviate some of the burden on AffCom members while maintaining a rigorous and efficient review process. AffCom believes these changes will ultimately benefit our community and help facilitate the growth of affiliates.

As the Chapter/Thematic Organisation process is being updated, all applications are currently on hold, with the exception of the Wikimedia Nigeria User Group's submission, which is pending action on shared recommendations from the affiliate.

In July-September 2024, the Affiliations Committee received 6 (six) new User Group applications.

There are no new recognitions, as the Wikimedia Board of Trustees approved a soft moratorium on applications. All applications received before 12 June 2024, can be processed for recognition using the current recognition requirements. All applications after this date will have to follow the new process for recognition.

As of 1 October 2024, 190 Wikimedia affiliates are recognised and active: 36 are Wikimedia Chapters, 2 are Thematic Organizations, and 152 are User Groups.

Eighty-two percent of all affiliates are in good standing. The current compliance level of all Wikimedia Chapters is 97%. The current compliance level of all Wikimedia Thematic Organizations is 100%. The current compliance level of all Wikimedia User Groups is 78%.

Compared to March-June 2024 (Q4 FY23-24), there is an increase in compliance level for Chapters (from 95%), no change for the Thematic Organizations (from 100%), and a decrease for the User Groups (from 84%).

See the detailed quarterly compliance archive for July-September 2024 (Q1 2024-25) on Meta-wiki.

Here are the activity reports from Wikimedia Affiliates published within the past quarter:

• Wikimedia Community User Group Côte d'Ivoire
• Wikimedians for Offline Wikis User Group
• Wikimedians of Japan User Group
• Odia Wikimedians User Group
• Hausa Wikimedians User Group
• WikiClassics User Group
• Kashmiri Wikimedians User Group
• Wikimedia Community User Group Tanzania (2023, 2024)
• Wiki Movement Brazil User Group

AffCom is currently managing 4 (four) active conflicts, with one new report in July-September 2024 (Q1 2024-25). The committee continues to safeguard good governance and collaboration within the Wikimedia network of chapters and user groups. The new case highlights governance challenges and difficulties in co-working within overlapping spaces. AffCom is actively addressing these issues, facilitating communication, and supporting affiliates to overcome these challenges.

In addition, AffCom is making progress with an affiliate facing issues with their bylaws. Through constructive negotiation, they’ve reached an agreement by acknowledging concerns and appreciating small initiatives aimed at improvement. One case involving an affiliate’s engagement with a banned user was successfully resolved. AffCom’s work fosters transparency, inclusivity, and respect within the Wikimedia movement, ensuring affiliates maintain high standards of governance and collaboration.

AffCom participates in Wikimedia movement conversations that relate to the affiliate system or where the AffCom's experience and expertise would be otherwise beneficial, including answering questions about the affiliate system, providing advice relevant to affiliates or potential affiliates, and sharing knowledge and lessons related to operating as a committee with other movement bodies.

In the past quarter, AffCom members or the committee as a whole participated in these conversations:

AffCom participated in the 19th edition of Wikimania, hosted by Wikimedians of the Central and Eastern Europe region in Katowice, Poland, from 7–10 August 2024. At the conference, Mehman and Maciej, together with some members, facilitated a session which involved  introducing our new approaches of working with the community as well as innovations in our work. They also took the opportunity to seek feedback from participants.

If you didn’t have a chance to attend the session either offline or online, you can watch the session recording as linked on Commons.

In this quarter, AffCom held its regular officers elections. The officer positions up for election were chair, vice-chair, and secretary. AffCom advisors Aarya Joshi, Johnny Alegre, and Lucas Teles served as members of the internal elections committee.

The following AffCom members were elected to fill the officers positions for a one-year term:

• Chair: Jeffrey Keefer (FULBERT)
• Vice-Chair: Suyash Dwivedi (Suyash.dwivedi)
• Secretary: Maciej Nadzikiewicz (Nadzik)

In October-December 2024 (Q2 2024-25), AffCom will be participating in the following events:

WikiIndaba Conference is the regional conference for Africans both within and in the diaspora. The conference this year (4-6 October 2024), which is the 8th edition, will be organized by Wikimedia ZA in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. Conferences such as WikiIndaba and other movement conversations that relate to the affiliate system are platforms where Affcom can share experiences and expertise, including answering questions about the affiliate system, providing advice relevant to affiliates or potential affiliates, and sharing knowledge and lessons related to operating as a committee with other movement bodies.

AffCom presented on Affiliate health criteria and changes to User Group recognition process at WikiIndaba 2024. You can watch the recording here (starts around 6:00 mark).

Members of AffCom will be having a strategic meeting in Frankfurt from 22 - 24 October. The meeting will offer advantages in team bonding and building as well as provide three key opportunities for committee members:

• Develop a Collaborative Strategy: Formulating a strategy for the next 1-3 years.
• Process Improvement Initiatives: Discussing the operational impact of various initiatives and refining these changes for optimal results.
• Staff Workflow Optimization: Discussing changes to affiliate support workflows, evolving them, and ensuring seamless integration.

• Wikimedia CEE Meeting: The Wikimedia CEE Meeting is an annual conference centered on Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and other related projects) in countries of Central and Eastern Europe (more recently, also in Central Asia). It features presentations on Wikimedia projects, other wikis, free/open source software, free knowledge and free content, and these topics' social and technical aspects. The 2024 meeting took place in Istanbul, Türkiye, on 20-22 September.
• Italian WikiCon: Italian WikiCon is the conference of the community of Wikimedia projects in Italian. It also includes the regional languages ​​of the Italian territory and those nearby, as well as OpenStreetMap and Vikidia. The event is organized with the support of Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia CH. The 2024 edition took place on 27–29 September in Padova, Italy.
• WikiConference North America: WCNA is an annual conference gathering of North American Wikimedians. The conference location generally alternates location between Canada, Mexico and the United States. The conference this year will be held 3 - 6 October in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• German Wikicon: The WikiCon is a conference of the German-speaking Wikipedia and Wikimedia communities. It has taken place since 2011 at different locations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The conference organizers are volunteers supported by Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Österreich, and Wikimedia CH. This year's edition is taking place on 4–6 October in Wiesbaden, Germany.
• WikiConvention francophone: The French WikiConvention is a Wikimedia conference dedicated to the French-speaking community. Its goal is to allow French-speaking contributors to the various Wikimedia projects to meet and discuss the free sharing of knowledge, education, free software, etc. The 2024 edition is organised by WikiFranca and Wikimedia Canada. It will take place on 31 October – 3 November in Québec, Canada.
• Wiki Loves Monuments 2024: Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is a public photo competition around cultural heritage monuments, organized by Wikimedia chapters and groups. The contest runs from 1 September to 31 October 2024.

In September 2024, voting for the Wikimedia Foundation’s Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees took place. The preliminary announcement of results and confirmation of candidates will take place in October and November respectively.

Human Rights Team outlined some recommendations designed to enhance personal security, digital security, protect privacy, and promote a culture of respect and safety online for our volunteer community. The Human Rights team shares this information and more in their most recent Diff post. If you know a community member who may need this support, please reach out to talktohumanrights@wikimedia.org

The Committee Support Team has launched a Committee Support Service inbox “cst@wikimedia.org” to manage communications with committee members as quickly and efficiently as possible. Read more in this Diff post.