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The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is looking for new members!

The main role of the Affiliations Committee is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.

The committee consists of fourteen members, selected every twelve months for staggered two-year terms. Those joining the committee during the current process will serve a two-year term ending in December 2021.

AffCom continues to closely monitor the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process that was initiated in 2016. While the affiliation models continue to be discussed as part of the broader strategy discussion, as no decisions have been made to change the current affiliation models yet, AffCom will continue to work in the same manner with regard to affiliate recognitions and intervention support for affiliates with issues of non-compliance in 2020. Specifically, AffCom will continue to process applications for user group and chapter/thematic organization creation, while we await the strategy next steps and begin to prepare for a smooth transition of the committee and affiliates ecosystem to any changing movement structures and systems in 2021.

Being a part of the Affiliations Committee requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a healthy mix of different skill sets in our members.

Required and Recommended Skills for Affiliations Committee Members

Across all committee members there are additional relevant skills as well as requirements which help to support the committee and its sustainability which include both required and relevant general skills

Required Skills

  • Fluency in English
  • Availability of up to 5 hours per week, and the time to participate in a monthly one and two-hour voice/video meetings.
  • Willingness to use one's real name in committee activities (including contacts with current and potential affiliates) when appropriate.
  • Strong track record of effective collaboration
  • International orientation

Relevant Skills

  • Skills in other languages are a major plus.
  • Public Communications (English writing and speaking skills)
  • Strong understanding of the structure and work of affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • Documentation practices
  • Interviewing experience
  • Knowledge of different legal systems and experience in community building and organizing are a plus
  • Experience with, or in, an active affiliate is a major plus.
  • Teamwork
    • Focusing on shared goals instead of disagreements
    • Focusing on the conflict at hand and not past ones
    • Ensuring each member of the team has a clearly defined role, which can help reduce disagreements over areas of responsibility
    • Project and people management to coordinate different parties on a shared plan and seeing it through to completion.
  • Problem-Solving
    • Ability to evaluate various solutions
    • Ability to consider multiple interests and points of view
    • Willingness to revisit unresolved issues
    • The capacity to recognize and respond to important matters
    • The ability to seek compromise and avoid punishing
  • Ability to work and communicate with other languages and cultures.

Given the expectations for maintaining course in 2020 and preparing for potential 2021 transitions, it is important that we are also clear about two different skill sets critical to committee support at this time. The first skillset is oriented to understanding affiliate dynamics and organizational development patterns to successfully process affiliate applications for recognition; the other is oriented to conflict prevention and intervention support for affiliates in conflict.

Affiliate Recognitions Relevant Skills

  • Administration
    • Willingness to process applications through a set, perhaps bureaucratic process.
    • Attention to detail
  • Monitoring & Strategic Development
    • Readiness to participate in political discussions on the role and future of affiliates, models of affiliation, and similar topics.
  • Organizational Awareness
    • Understanding of and community building and organizational development
    • Understanding of group dynamics
    • Awareness of the affiliates ecosystem and models

Conflict Prevention & Intervention Relevant Skills

  • Communication
    • Active listening
    • Reading nonverbal cues
    • Knowing when to interrupt and when to stay quiet
    • Being culturally sensitive at the same time remaining clear and concise when explaining a concept or opinion
  • Stress Management
    • Patience
    • Positivity
    • Ability to inject a dose of humor to dilute anger and frustration when needed
    • Taking well-timed breaks that can bring calm in the midst of flared tempers
    • Ability to manage stress while remaining alert and calm
  • Emotional Intelligence
    • Being emotionally aware,
    • Ability to control emotions and behaviors,
    • Ability to practice empathy,
    • Impartiality,
    • Don’t take anything personally,
    • Being aware of and respectful of differences.
  • Facilitation skills
    • Meeting facilitation experience
    • Peer or community mediation training
    • Peer or community mediation experience

Do you have any of these skill sets and an interest to support movement affiliates?

We are looking for people who are excited by the challenge of empowering volunteers to get organized and form communities that further our mission around the world. In exchange, committee members selected will gain the experience of supporting their world-wide colleagues to develop their communities as well as personal development in guiding organizational development, facilitating affiliate partnerships, and professional communications.

Selection process

As a reflection of our commitment to openness, transparency, and bilateral engagement with the Wikimedia community, the 2019 member selection process will include a public review and comment period. We invite you to share with us you applications, specifying your focus area you’re interested in. All applications received by the committee will be posted on Meta, and the community will be invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate.

At the end of the public comment period, the applications will be voted on by the members of the committee who are not seeking re-election, taking into account comments put forward by the committee's members, advisors, Wikimedia Foundation staff and board liaisons, and the community. A final decision will be made by mid-January 2020, with new members expected to join later that month.

How to apply

If you are interested in joining the committee, please post your application on the nomination page and send an email announcing your application to AffCom lists.wikimedia.org by 10 January 2020. Your application must include the following information:

  • Your full name and Wikimedia username
  • A statement describing your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
  • Answers to the following questions:
  1. How do you think affiliates work best together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
  2. What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
  3. What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you uniquely qualified?
  4. Which subcommittee are you most interested in serving on: Recognitions OR Conflict Prevention & Intervention?

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to chat or have a phone call with anyone about our work if this helps them decide to apply. Please distribute this call among your networks, and do apply if you are interested!


On behalf of the committee,

Camelia Boban, AffCom member

Invitation to participate in Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos

Dear Wikimedia Affiliate Community,

We are inviting you to participate in Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP), a new global contest scheduled to run from July through August 2020:

Participants will choose among Wikipedia pages without photo images, then add a suitable file from among the many thousands of photos in the Wikimedia Commons, especially those uploaded from thematic contests (Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Folklore, etc.) over the years.

WPWP offers a focused task for guiding new editors through the steps of adding content to existing pages. It can be used to organize editing workshops and edit-a-thons.

The organizing team is looking for a contact person at the Chapter, Thematic group & Wikimedia User Group level (geographically or thematically), or for a language WP, to coordinate the project locally. We’d be glad for you to sign up directly at WPWP Participating Communities

Thank you,

Deborah Schwartz Jacobs

On behalf of Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Organizing Team - 21:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Broken links on this page

@Jan Apel (WMDE): (not sure who is responsible for updates to this page): Hi, I was trying to find a current staff listing, but the staff links on this page are broken. https://www.wikimedia.de/transparenz/ refers to https://www.wikimedia.de/ueber-uns/mitarbeitende/ but that is also a 404. Other links on this page may also need to be updated.--Eloquence (talk) 08:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi Eloquence, the staff page on the Wikimedia Deutschland website is currently offline. Let me know if I can look up someone on the internal org chart for you. --Gnom (talk) 19:44, 20 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Call for candidates - June 2020

Hi everyone,

The Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing and sustaining Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is seeking new members!

The main role of the AffCom is to guide groups of volunteers that are interested in forming Wikimedia affiliates. We review applications from new groups, answer questions and provide advice about the different Wikimedia affiliation models and processes, review affiliate bylaws for compliance with requirements and best practices, and update the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees as well as advise them on issues connected to chapters, thematic organizations and Wikimedia user groups.

The committee consists of five to fifteen members, selected at least once every year, to serve two-year terms. As the committee must hold mid-year elections to replenish its members at this time, those joining the committee during the current process will serve a slightly extended term from July 2020 through December 2022.

AffCom continues to closely monitor the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process initiated in 2016. While the affiliation models continue to be discussed as part of the broader strategy discussion, as no decisions have been made to change the current affiliation models yet, AffCom continues to work in the same manner with regard to affiliate recognitions and intervention support for affiliates with issues of non-compliance in 2020. AffCom continues to process applications for user group and chapter/thematic organization creation, while we await the strategy next steps and begin to prepare for a smooth transition of the committee and affiliates ecosystem to any changing movement structures and systems in 2021.

Being a part of the AffCom requires communication with volunteers all over the world, negotiating skills, cultural sensitivity, and the ability to understand legal texts. We look for a mix of different skill sets in our members.

Click here for further details.

James Heilman on behalf of AffCom

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:18, 13 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Affiliations Committee elections announcement June 2020

Hi everyone,

This is a friendly reminder that the Affiliations Committee (AffCom) – the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing and sustaining Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups – is seeking new members! The deadline to post your application on the nomination page is 30 June 2020.

  • Application process: Considering the anticipated changes following the Strategy recommendations, we had a limited scope to introduce changes in the process. We have made a small but impactful addition to the application process by introducing the Self Assessment survey form which will help the committee know more about your engagement as endorsements are not consistently shared, may not be representative, and often do not speak to the specific skills needed.
  • Selection process: No change; see: Membership.

If you have any questions, please contact me and/or the committee as a whole. We are happy to answer questions about our work if this helps people decide to apply. Please distribute this announcement among your networks. Good luck to all the candidates!

On behalf of the committee,

--Rosiestep (talk) 00:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC) via MassMessagingReply

Links gehen nicht

Ein Großteil der Links auf die Berichte des Vereins (Jahresplanung und Jahresabschlüsse) gehen ins Leere. Kann man das bitte fixen? Danke!--Schreibvieh (talk) 18:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hallo Schreibvieh, Tjane hatte neulich schon ein paar Links aktualisiert. Die Links auf den alten Blog müssen in der Tat auch noch angepasst werden. --Gnom (talk) 20:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Feedback on movement names

There are a lot of conversations happening about the future of our movement names. We hope that you are part of these discussions and that your community is represented.

Since 16 June, the Foundation Brand Team has been running a survey in 7 languages about 3 naming options. There are also community members sharing concerns about renaming in a Community Open Letter.

You should have received a separate affiliate survey via email. If you have not, feel free to email brandproject wikimedia.org.

Our goal in this call for feedback is to hear from across the community, so we encourage you to participate in the survey, the open letter, or both. The survey will go through 7 July in all timezones. Input from the survey and discussions will be analyzed and published on Meta-Wiki.

Thanks for thinking about the future of the movement --The Brand Project team, 13:37, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: The survey is conducted via a third-party service, which may subject it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling, see the survey privacy statement.

Announcing a new wiki project! Welcome, Abstract Wikipedia

Hello everyone. I am posting the announcement below, which you may have missed elsewhere, and in the hope that you can share it with your local communities. Please note that it may be available in your language at m:Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/July 2020 announcement. Thanks for your attention! m:User:Elitre (WMF)


Plan und Wirklichkeit

Guten Tag,

es gibt Wikimedia Deutschland/Planung 2020 (die Diskussionsseite ist fast leer).

es gibt Wikimedia Deutschland/Planung 2020/Halbjahresbericht 2020 der im wesentlichen ein Zahlenwerk enthält.

es fehlt jeglicher Entwurf oder Hinweis zu Wikimedia Deutschland/Planung 2021 (Stand heute).

es fehlt jeglicher Bericht zur Umsetzung von Planzielen ausserhalb des Wirtschaftsplans. Beispiele:

Es wäre sinnvoll mit der Planung 2021 anzufangen und grundsätzlich in den Berichten auf Ergebnisse die nicht "Cent & Euro" betreffen hinzuweisen.

Grüße --80.187.113.225 12:44, 19 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hallo, danke für deine Nachricht. Der inhaltliche Halbjahresbericht 2020 wird vom Präsidium am 28. August besprochen, das Protokoll wird anschließend veröffentlicht. Die Planung für 2021 wird im Anschluss auf die Strategieklausur im Oktober vom Vorstand aufgestellt und vom Präsidium Anfang Dezember beschlossen. Wenn du weitere Fragen hast, gib gern Bescheid. --Gnom (talk) 17:02, 19 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sunday September 20 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting

 
Birds of a feather flock together.

The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.

Following up on the August SWAN meeting and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates, this month we are meeting on Sunday September 20, and you are all invited to RSVP here.--Pharos (talk) 01:49, 18 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sunday October 25 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting

 
Friendship is a movement value.

The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.

Following up on the September and August SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including the recent proposed changes to the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws, this month we are meeting on Sunday October 25, and you are all invited to RSVP here.--Pharos (talk) 17:05, 20 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Call for insights on ways to better communicate the work of the movement

The Movement Strategy recommendations published this year made clear the importance of establishing stronger communications within our movement. To this end, the Foundation wants to gather insights from communities, including affiliates, on ways we all might more consistently communicate about our collective work, and better highlight community contributions from across the movement. Over the coming months, we will be running focus groups and online discussions to collect these insights. We hope your affiliate will decide to share your thoughts by participating in a focus group or joining the discussion on Meta-Wiki.

ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sunday November 29 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting

 
Take flight with us.

The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.

Following up on the August, September, and October SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including the recent proposed changes to the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws, this month we are meeting on Sunday November 29, and you are all invited to RSVP here.

(Note that the UTC times of and are the same as before, although a number of places have had daylight savings time changes since our last meeting).--Pharos (talk) 18:43, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sunday January 10 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting

 
Into the blue.

The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.

Following up on the August, September, October, and November SWAN meetings, and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates including SWAN input on Interim Global Council and Movement Charter, this month we are meeting on Sunday January 10, and you are all invited to RSVP here.

To start the exchange of ideas on the IGC early, and to help prepare before the SWAN calls, we have set up and invite everyone to participate at this etherpad. If you like a more interactive way of discussing, we have also made a jamboard. Check here for more details.

--Pharos (talk) 18:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Project Grant Open Call

This is the announcement for the Project Grants program open call that started on January 11, with the submission deadline of February 10, 2021.
This first open call will be focussed on Community Organizing proposals. A second open call focused on research and software proposals is scheduled from February 15 with a submission deadline of March 16, 2021.

For the Round 1 open call, we invite you to propose grant applications that fall under community development and organizing (offline and online) categories. Project Grant funds are available to support individuals, groups, and organizations to implement new experiments and proven ideas, from organizing a better process on your wiki, coordinating a campaign or editathon series to providing other support for community building. We offer the following resources to help you plan your project and complete a grant proposal:

Weekly proposals clinics via Zoom during the Open Call. Join us for #Upcoming_Proposal_Clinics|real-time discussions with Program Officers and select thematic experts and get live feedback about your Project Grants proposal. We’ll answer questions and help you make your proposal better.

Program officers are also available to offer individualized proposal support upon request. Contact us at projectgrants@wikimedia.org if you would like feedback or more information.

We are excited to see your grant ideas that will support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Put your idea into motion, and submit your proposal by February 10, 2021!

Please feel free to get in touch with questions about getting started with your grant application, or about serving on the Project Grants Committee. Contact us at projectgrants wikimedia.org.
RSharma (WMF)MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Sunday February 21 Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network meeting

 
We are a mosiac.

The Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) is a developing forum for all Wikimedia movement affiliates to share ideas on the Wikimedia 2030 strategy process. It expands on the model of the All-Affiliates Brand Meeting to help lay some of the groundwork for a future Global Council.

Following up on the August, September, October, November, and January SWAN meetings and June's All-Affiliates Brand Meeting, as well as strategic and outreach topics of mutual concern to all affiliates, this month we are meeting on Sunday February 21, and you are all invited to RSVP here.

To help set priorities for the SWAN agenda, and also to help manage which global conversations should be a focus in general, we have set up and invite everyone to participate at this SWAN priorities form.

Possible topics include Community Board seats, Interim Global Council, Strategy prioritization follow-up events, Branding, Universal Code of Conduct, Grant strategy, and WMF CEO search. That is a lot of things, which are most important to cover in our upcoming SWAN meeting?

--Pharos (talk) 18:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

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