I have responded inline below:Hi Bobby,Since you have decided to discuss this off-list, I am happy to discuss it off-list as well.I've already clearly lined out what the purpose of the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is about from my previous e-mail to you, and Zeineb's e-mail clearly states that having a Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is not something from one individual but it was a decision taken by the conference, and I can tell you now that this was something that was also suggested by the first Wiki-Indaba in Johannesburg in 2014.
:You have failed to explain how the scope and roles of the committee were developed and designed. It's a different thing for some selected attendees of the conference in Tunisia to agreed on the need to establish a steering committee and to actually be involved in the process of developing, designing, defining its goals. Are members of the African Wikimedia Community involved in the process of developing, designing, defining its goals and scope?The Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is a way to organize ourselves within the African continent, not to work outside WMF's ambit or force people to report to us. In fact I remember that in Ghana we even agreed that representatives from WMF should form part of the WIScom. There are no hidden agendas or nefarious intentions aimed at hampering progress within the African Wikimedia communities.:Nobody is saying that the steering committee is not a way to organize ourselves within Africa continent, neither did anyone thinks the committee will work outside the WMF's ambit but I am saying that the committee roles are overstretched. For example LOC and the WMF had been doing fine with handling scholarships. Do you think there is a problem with how it has been handled by them in the past. AFAIK, nobody has faulted the process and if a committee must handle it, it should be "Wiki Indaba Scholarship Committee" while the Steering Committee can play an advisory role.Now when I read your e-mail closely, I can see that you are against the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee, but you don't clearly state how we need to organize ourselves as African Wikimedians.:Claiming that I'm against a Steering Committee for Indaba is counterproductive and nothing but ad hominen attack and this does not in anyway address the substance of the issues am raise.
And you do not tell us how do we help other Africans turn their ideas into actions or how do we help them increase their communities! You don't even state what you think should happen after the Wiki-Indaba conference, or how do we coordinate projects done by African Wikimedians.This is part of the problems I'm raising . I do not see any evidence that people were carried along in the strategic design and development of the scope of the committee.
Hence one begins to wonder if you truly understand why do we have the Wiki-Indaba conference at the first place. Instead you see the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee as an unnecessary bureaucracy, and you are giving the impression that all is actually well within the African Wikimedian communities, which is not true by the way.:Here you have needlessly decided to engage in personal attacks. I am not going to drive my bus in that direction as it is not helpful to anyone.Paying close attention to your e-mails again I think your bone of contention really lies with one individual within the Wiki-Indaba Steering committee and the work he does in his country. Do you want to expand on this?: I found this statement particularly problematic and appears to be off-topic. I am not concerned about a particular person and I don't have a problem with having a Steering Committee for Indaba.
If you want people to contribute to developing a strategy on how to help other Africans turn their ideas into actions or how you can help them increase their communities or you want them to state what they think should happen after the Wiki-Indaba conference, or coordinate projects done by African Wikimedians, open a discussion on that preferably on the steering committee page and invite people to comment.Regards,IsaacOn Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 9:33 AM, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Bobby,I plan to respond comprehensively to your response later today as I am busy at the moment.Regards,IsaacOn Jun 11, 2018 9:27 AM, "Bobby Shabangu" <bobbyshabangu@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Isaac,I've already clearly lined out what the purpose of the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is about from my previous e-mail to you, and Zeineb's e-mail clearly states that having a Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is not something from one individual but it was a decision taken by the conference, and I can tell you now that this was something that was also suggested by the first Wiki-Indaba in Johannesburg in 2014.The Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee is a way to organize ourselves within the African continent, not to work outside WMF's ambit or force people to report to us. In fact I remember that in Ghana we even agreed that representatives from WMF should form part of the WIScom. There are no hidden agendas or nefarious intentions aimed at hampering progress within the African Wikimedia communities.Now when I read your e-mail closely, I can see that you are against the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee, but you don't clearly state how we need to organize ourselves as African Wikimedians. And you do not tell us how do we help other Africans turn their ideas into actions or how do we help them increase their communities! You don't even state what you think should happen after the Wiki-Indaba conference, or how do we coordinate projects done by African Wikimedians. Hence one begins to wonder if you truly understand why do we have the Wiki-Indaba conference at the first place. Instead you see the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee as an unnecessary bureaucracy, and you are giving the impression that all is actually well within the African Wikimedian communities, which is not true by the way.Paying close attention to your e-mails again I think your bone of contention really lies with one individual within the Wiki-Indaba Steering committee and the work he does in his country. Do you want to expand on this?Kind regards,Bobby ShabanguOn Mon, 11 Jun 2018 05:55 Isaac Olatunde, <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Bobby,As you may already be aware, I know what Wiki-Indaba is all about and if you dig out some thread on this list or have been following discussions on this list, you will notice that I bided for Wiki-Indaba 2016 on behalf of my country, Nigeria.That being said, we do not want a situation where people will need permission from a committee to help countries that needs help.We do not want people to use the committee to promote personal agenda. I already noted that the goals of "Activating African Communities"[1], a personal project run by one of the three members of this committee are what we are seeing on the Wiki Indaba Steering Committee.We don't want another level of bureaucracy. I personally cannot give a progress report of my project to any committee except the WMF and or a committee constituted by WMF to handle such things.Again, Wiki-Indaba scholarship committee, LOC and WMF should handle how people are selected for scholarship.Regards,IsaacOn Jun 11, 2018 2:01 AM, "Bobby Shabangu" <bobbyshabangu@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Isaac,Thanks for your questions and comments, and I think they are important to bring forth so that we clarify them and get an understanding of what the Wiki-Indaba gathering and subsequent Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WIScom) is all about.Remember the conference brings together old hands of Wikimedia and newbies and Wikimedians with some experience but needs capacity building, we also have free knowledge advocates and mission aligned institutions including sponsorships like our friends the Goethe-institute, and some Embassies and university reprentatives. Projects and challenges are shared by Wikimedians here and solutions are identified, but how do we track if those solutions are being implemented and are working? How do we provide support? How do we give conference attendees the right tools to run their project? This is where the WIScom comes in. To provide simple actionable solutions that will bring together Wikipedians within the African continent after the conference.So, to simply answer you, Wiki-Indaba is not about the conference but is about Wikimedians within the African continent. And although helping Wikimedians organise the conference will be part of what WIScom do, but WIScom is not necessarily about events management (the conference) but it's more about people management (Wikimedians).We don't want meta or this mailing list to be the only way for us to communicate but we want to also include a Facebook page and Twitter handle for Wiki-Indaba where our friends the Goethe-institute or Creative Commons or some Wikipedian in Malawi or Central African Republic can know about us and receive the same assistance.Please read more about why we have the conference on the link here:Kind regards,Bobby ShabanguOn Sunday, June 10, 2018, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Zeineb,Thanks for sharing this information. However, I do have some questions and comments. I have listed them below.1. You wrote "Support Wikimedians within The African continent who wants to run Wikimedia projects but don't know where to start or how to go about doing that, as well as finding out about the progress of projects run by Wikimedians within the African continent and diaspora" How is this related to Indaba? I believe an Indaba steering committee should primarily focus on the business of Indaba which is the African regional conference.2. While I do agree on the need to support individuals that one to run Wikimedia projects in their countries, I do not think we need a committee to do that, even if we do, I don't think Indaba steering committee should be the one to handle this. This appears to be out of scope.3. "Finding out about the progress of projects runs by Wikimedians in Africa and diaspora " is a go thing, I also think this is out of scope for Indaba steering committee " Reports/Progress reports are often published on Meta Wiki for everyone to see and people are welcome to contact project coordinator if there is a capacity in which they which to help. I do not think we need a committee to do that and if we must have a committee, I don't think Indaba Steering Committee is the appropriate committee to do that.4. In your page you wrote "Management of scholarships application and awarding process " In 2017, I proposed here "Indaba Scholarship Committee " like "Wikimania Scholarship Committee" but it does appeared that the LOC with support of the WMF handled the process. Thus, it might be a good idea to have a separate body like the one proposed above, WMF and LOC to handle this process.I do think the roles of this steering committee are overstretched and we do need to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy.Regards,IsaacOn Jun 10, 2018 12:01 PM, "Zeineb Takouti" <zeinebtakouti@gmail.com> wrote:Dear African Wikimedians,I hope this email finds you well.As you will remember that during our Wiki-Indaba conference in Tunisia it was agreed that we need to put together a steering committee that will be responsible for capacity building which includes amongst other things providing support to countries who wish to host Wiki-Indaba conference in the future, support Wikimedians within the African continent who wants to run Wikimedia projects but don't know where to start or how to go about doing that, as well as finding out about the progress of projects run by Wikimedians within the African continent and diaspora and letting everyone know through social media etc.Currently the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WISCom) is composed of representatives from countries who were previously host to the conference, this includes Myself, Bobby Shabangu and Felix Nartey. We would like to increase the steering committee, and we are calling for applications from volunteers who are interested to be part of the WISCom. The applications can be done by answering a few questions on this page here .The due date for applications is Friday 22 June 2018.You are free to share this message on other social groups for more participation.Kind regards,Zeineb Takouti
Zeineb TakoutiChef de projet / Consultante JuniorCo-fondatrice et secrétaire générale de CarthaginaMembre de Wikimedia TN User GroupGSM: (+216) 54 394 883
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