Hi all, As a daft question, why doesn’t affcom say to the affiliates something like "we won’t publish this, but if you want to, then please go ahead and do so yourself”? That way, it’s up to the affiliate to work out what works best in their culture/country/community and to go with that, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Thanks, Mike > On 19 Sep 2018, at 18:27, effe iets anders <[email protected]> wrote: > > As always, it is complicated. While there are benefits to extreme > transparency, there are also very real downsides. Depending on the culture > in the country, being overly public in the 'warning phase' can have the > result that partners will pull out of agreements, donations will be held > back and volunteers good name get damaged (and withdraw from the > organization). Publishing such warnings could very well in effect kill off > the affiliate, and make the warning moot. Another side effect of going > public with such warnings is that people get real defensive. This is > already sensitive when you involve all members, but this gets even worse > when you involve the whole world. > > Efforts of AffCom should not focus (imho) on sanctions or punishing, but > rather on adjusting the processes and practices of the organization to > align with movement values and directions. Diplomacy often requires some > silence - and as long as AffCom still sees hope that the organization can > adjust and repair - I'm all for it that they use silent backchannels. > Admitting to the problem is required to start fixing it - and such > admission is usually easier achieved in private. > > A community that tried to get maximum effective affiliates needs to find a > healthy balance between transparency and diplomacy. Where exactly that > balance is to be found, it a complicated question though. > > Lodewijk > > On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 9:15 AM Isarra Yos <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Also apt to be useful information for other affiliates - oh, they did or >> didn't do blah and it added up to serious problems; we've been heading >> in that sort of direction too and should probably stop, or similar - >> often it's things we can all learn from, so if presented as such and >> handled consistently, there need not be shame in it. >> >> On 19/09/2018 02:49, Pine W wrote: >>> I have several thoughts regarding this and related issues, but my main >>> feeling is that we should not hide news that would be in the public >>> interest to communicate, such as the suspension of an affiliate or an >>> investigation into an affiliate's use of trademarks, simply because it is >>> bad news or embarrassing news. >>> >>> There are good reasons to keep certain information private, such as >>> preparations for pending litigation or personally identifying information >>> that has not been made public. The potential for negative publicity if >>> information is published, such as the suspension of an affiliate, isn't >>> sufficient justification for keeping information private. >>> >>> Good governance is difficult to do if relevant information is kept >> private. >>> One of the benefits of having news regarding official actions be public >> is >>> that the public can evaluate the performance of the officials (in this >>> case, Affcom). Transparency is a useful deterrent against favoritism, >>> negligence, and other problems in public service organizations in >> general. >>> I generally want transparency regarding both the official actions of >>> affiliates and the official actions of Affcom. I would like Affcom to set >>> an example of being transparent by default, whether news is good or bad. >>> >>> Pine >>> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> New messages to: [email protected] >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: [email protected] >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
