AffCom still grappling with WMF Board's criteria for new chapters
What is AffCom? The Foundation's volunteer Affiliations Committee, created by the Board of Trustees 10 years ago, advises the Board on the approval of new WMF affiliates—chapters, thematic organisations, and user groups. AffCom's membership is large: currently there are 22 members, comprising 12 voting members, most of them with strong connections to an affiliate, and ten non-voting "advisers". These advisers enable the WMF to monitor and exercise a degree of control over AffCom; they include two board liaisons, three staff liaisons, and three staff observers.
On 19 August, the WMF's Affilliations Committee ("AffCom") announced that the Board of Trustees had established three additional criteria for new applications by user groups to become chapters and thematic organizations ("thorgs"), instructing AffCom to take these criteria into account.
These new criteria reflect the next development in a process set in motion by a 2014 Board resolution, which required that applications to become a chapter or thorg would require at least two years' prior status as a user group. Previously, any group of Wikimedians had been able to apply to move straight to chapter/thorg status. The 2014 decision proved highly controversial at the time, as it changed the rules and effectively put new chapter/thorg applications on hold until February 2016. According to AffCom's schedule, some of the user groups since established have now become eligible to apply. AffCom first discussed the criteria by which such applications would be evaluated at its July meeting.
The new criteria are:
- Diversity of Activities: Chapters and thematic organisations are expected to plan and conduct a variety of different programs and events; to balance online and offline projects; to strive for continuous activity; and to conduct programs and events at least once every two months.
- Planning and Evaluation: Chapters and thematic organisations are expected to set specific goals and targets for programs, projects, and events before executing them; to measure the results of programs, projects, and events against those targets; and to report on those results to the Wikimedia Foundation and the wider Wikimedia movement.
- External Partnerships: Chapters and thematic organisations are expected to engage in programmatic partnerships with external groups and organisations (for example, cultural, academic, or government institutions, and so on) to promote the Wikimedia movement and to add and improve content on Wikimedia projects.
Questions on the Wikimedia-L email list have challenged the announcement on several fronts, ranging from the unclear duration of the “trial period” to the suitability of a two-tiered system in which existing chapters and thorgs will be treated differently from new ones. While AffCom’s chair, Carlos M. Colina, has engaged on the list, the Committee has yet to supply responses to many of the issues raised.
The existing 41 chapters and one thorg need only comply with the pre-existing requirements (items 4–9)); these are less specific, involving general big-picture expectations for mission alignment, geographical focus, legal incorporation, governance, a minimum of 20 active contributors, and "capacity". In effect, the new criteria will create a two-tiered system of standards and accountability, in which there are substantially lower standards for existing chapters and thorgs than for newly recognised chapters and thorgs.
The number of user groups has grown from nine to 64 since the Board’s 2014 decision. User groups are a simpler, less formal, and more flexible form of affiliation. Despite the official position that user groups are "equal players in the Wikimedia movement", they enjoy fewer privileges than chapters and thorgs do. Unlike user groups, chapters and thorgs are eligible for annual operating grants, which can involve significant amounts of donors' money; this may explain the strong attraction by some affiliates to the relatively expensive model followed by some European chapters, which involves paid staff and "bricks and mortar" city offices. Chapters and thorgs have the privilege of nominating two of the 10 WMF trustees, whereas user groups do not.