[Foundation-l] Questions about new Fellow

Sat Jan 22 10:40:10 UTC 2011

Hi all,
As an active wikimedian from India, I am just sharing my personal take on
the whole thing

1) Achal as Fellow : Some of the folks commented that it was inappropriate
for Achal Prabhala selected for this position, also being a member of the
Foundation Advisory Board. I think it is the designation as fellow that is
misleading in the first place...and unlike the Board of Trustees, AFAIK,
Advisory Board has no real powers but is yet another formal group of
volunteers. We already have a lot of Foundation employees who are former
volunteers and who got recruited to staff by becoming known for their
volunteer work. I was wondering why there was no hue & cry earlier ? If
somebody is doing good work within the scope of objectives of the
Foundation, let us appreciate that. Think of the transparency of the whole
stuff that whatever he is planning to do is well announced and even has an
open grants page which is out there for public viewing.

2) Achal & India : Achal was always a guiding force in the Wikimedia
movement in India, not necessarily as an Adv Board member. He was always
supportive and encouraging our various individual volunteer efforts in
India. His efforts and support behind the Wikimedia India chapter is
self explanatory in one of the mails that I had forwarded to the foundation
list earlier. MZMcBride laments "*Achal has a growing influence on
Wikimedia, particularly its new operations in India*" . With no disrespect
to MZMcBride, may I ask, "*So what ?*". If somebody is doing some good work,
let them get due credit for this. What next ? Jimmy Wales has a growing
influence on Wikipedia and Wikimedia ? I would ask Achal to take this a
compliment :) Btw having known Achal personally for  some time now, he is a
not a person who goes around and professes the good work he is doing and I
believe, that is the reason why he is not recognized for what he does.

3) Importance of documenting oral citations: Keegan & some others have
already done that earlier. Let me dare not to say that again and again. And
let us not jump into conclusions on things we don't really know and
understand.

Personal mudslinging is something that is uncalled for in a public list like
this. If there is a problem or gap in the process of grant request and
approval, in general, let us discuss that which is more productive.

Regards
Tinu Cherian

On Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 2:26 PM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 10:21 PM, Wjhonson <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > You are mistaking the problem.
> > It's not that a piece of knowledge is not googleable.
> > It's that a piece of knowledge is not published whatsoever.
> >
> > Never published.  Anywhere.  At any time.  Ever.
> > That's quite a different animal.
> >
> >
> >
> All disapproval of the Fellowship process appointment in this case, I fully
> understand D. Gerard's (IMO, misworded) point and what Wjohnson's point is
> as well.  If we intend for the WMF to actually spread free knowledge, these
> sort of documentaries are important.  David's point would ring true with me
> about the "teen en.wp" admins (to paraphrase) if I assumed that they knew
> of
> the efforts since the fall of the Soviet Union to document Bulgarian folk
> songs and stories.  I own a few field recordings and have followed the
> "west's" interest in this cultural documentation.  I would expect a great
> proportion of this mailing list to know of these studies, because this
> isn't
> run of the mill editing that is discussed here.
>
> The point is that financing a grant to document oral history is important.
>  Ask American musicologists what we would do without Alan Lomax's
> recordings
> and the work of the Smithsonian in the 1920's and 1930's recording folk,
> jazz, and blues.  Don't knock it until you try it.
>
> --
> ~Keegan
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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