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Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Proposal: Drafting a Movement Charter/Meeting notes

< Strategy | Wikimedia movement | 2018-20 | Transition | Proposal: Drafting a Movement Charter

04/21/2021 10:18:48 Exchange on writing Movement Charter - 1800UTC 20 April 2021 - SCROLL DOWN BELOW

Exchange on writing Movement Charter - 0200UTC 21 April 2021

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Attendees:

  1. Anna Torres
  2. Christophe Henner
  3. Kaarel Vaidla
  4. Kevin
  5. Erlan V (Alhen)
  6. Addison
  7. Andrew Lih
  8. Carmen Alcazár
  9. Biyanto Rebin
  10. Iván
  11. Yair Rand
  12. Sam Klein
  13. Cornelius
  14. Matthew
  15. Rosie
Agenda
  • Brief introduction to the proposal - AT (5mins)

2. Open discussion (55mins)

Kevin: Supporting the idea of limiting the scope to developing the Movement Charter
Pharos: It would be good to look at other groups that have done ratification.
Pharos: There is a danger of "caving" people. Providing people things that they can support. There probably needs to be some research in advance to look at some models that could be used.
Addison: We are talking about ratification processes for the Movement Charter and also about a ratification process for the UCoC, so maybe it would make sense to look at ratification process that could fit with both processes.
Pharos: It seems that timelines are different for UCoC and Movement Charter process, so maybe it does not make sense to have the ratification together. These seem to be 2 differen processes.
Addison: Generally, the idea would be to work towards having a similar ratification process for both as not to reinvent the wheel.
Andrew: Ratification is a rather new concept for the community. There needs to be research done on the ratification and WMF staff can possibly support here to support this research: What ratification looks like? What are the best practices?
Andrew: This research can give us a structure to look at that would provide a path forward and help us avoid obstructionism.
Andrew: Idea is to have referenda / RfC at the milestones to look for community input and validation, so everything is not seen as one monolith, but to ensure that we get the buy in from the communities at each step. It would be great to look at the best practices to assess whether such approach could work.
Possible sample milestones: referendum on the composition/selection of the MC drafting committee; referendum on the MC drafting process; referendum on the ratification of the MC
Christophe: I agree that it would be good to have step-by-step process. At the same time looking at the Movement Charter and Universal Code of Conduct processes it feels that the timelines will be different and the scope of the processes is different. Power distribution, money distribution, and fundraising will take up many months to resolve. Example: for Funds Dissemination Committee it took a year to have these discussions.
Christophe: We need to be mindful of the difficulty of the conversation ahead and take the time needed for these conversations. Establishing Movement Charter will also include complexities of the Global Council and its relation to existing movement entities, e.g. affiliates. As a result, it probably is not a 6 month process to set up the Movement Charter.
Kevin: Echo to Christpophe's point - this is the process that could have broad reaching impact and so this process would need to have time taken. It is not the situation where doing something will be good in any case - some actions might actually make things worse, so it realy makes sense to take the time to do it well.
Kevin: There are processes that are similar to ratification in our communities in consensus processes. There are different profiles that participate in these community consensus processes and these processes are functional.
Kevin: We should not reduce the threshold to ratify the movement charter in order to deal with the fear that it would not be approved. We would need to ensure that it would truly be the Movement Charter with wide support.
Yair Rand: Movement Charter process will probably take the time and looking at the complexity of topics like power distribution and resource allocation - every topic would need a dedicated sub-group as it would not be possible to divide the things up.
Yair Rand: Figuring out the process to bootstrap the process, i.e. to have the initial decision-making process in place. Communities have their decision-making processes, namely RfC. This is not affiliate and Wikimedia Foundation process and I would like to see the organizations to come to the same page with the communities.
Yair Rand: Rather than make the community fit to the organizational processes, it would be better to fit the organizations to community processes.
Alhen: Example of the Fedora Council who are working on the Code of Conduct. The Linuz community has a very different way in organizing things. We should not be worried about making mistakes, but should focus on doing things. We need to do it well in the first time, but probably this is not going to work because of the diversity of Wikimedia movement. It is impossible to get to everyone and we need to ensure we get as many people as we can. We also need to understand the time constraints and find the best people.
Alhen: We need to also consider cultural context. Creating the Movement Charter is politics and so many Latin America community members will not get involved, for example. We also need to consider these aspects.
Andrew: As English Wikipedians active on meta we (probably erroneously) believe that RfC is a well functional process. Probably we should look at data on how well the RfC's function. Whether they get wide range of people involved or is it just a process where people accept what "elite" decides? This research should go beyond Wikimedia experience to other FLOSS communities.
Anna: Hearing the need to look at different models and do this research with the support of the strategy team in the WMF.
Andrew: Elections are very involved process. There needs to be proficiency of English to participate in these discussions. Even as an English speaker with writing skills, elections are rather intimidating. In this way elections become exclusionary, because people do not have the appetite to engage in the election processes. We need to have reality check regarding this. Perpetuating existing elections systems has the risk of perpetuating existing power centers
Yair: Central elections will have the same issues that we have with the elections of the Board of Trustees. It could be possible to have the local elections, e.g. where Portuguese and Japanese Wikipedia elect their own representatives. This means that it will be your community that already knows you, instead of opening yourself up to a large number of people you don't know.
Pharos: Maybe it is possibel to find the middle ground between one electio and a number of elections. For example, it would be possible to have election for some of the seats and it would be essential for the process to function. We could use the process of the Steward elections. It also seems that the optimal approach is not just having the people appointed who have been in the committees in the past.
Biyanto: In the past we have not been able to make everyone happy. There are many options that people propose - it would be great to define the best options and so we can start making progress. Regarding the election and appointment probably there will not be everyone happy with the model we go with, but we could try to find what could be the best option, e.g. UN Security Council.
Biyanto: We should also keep in mind the uniqueness of our community. Wikimedia is a multilingual global community. It is impossibel to have everyone included in the process.
Christophe: From the discussions I am hearing, these options are not mutually exclusive options, but rather sound like different steps in the process addressing different aspects. Looking at different processes it seems that one proposal works well for starting the process, then expanding the group that is being involved and wide representation seems like a final stage approach. Maybe we would need different approaches for different stages of the process.
Pharos: At first the proposal was a signed statement, but then moved towards a general statement: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Committee It would be great if we could edit the proces together, so everyone is invited.
Kevin: Note about elections. Having centralized elections might make it really difficult for the people who do not speak English. We are having the discussion right now in English with a need of speaking it live, which seems like even more difficult. Affiliates are stromg in rallying the people together, but the role does not seem on the same level as community members actually working on the content and so it seems that the online community members should have more seats on the committee.
Kaarel: WMF commitment to do the research and support the committee in doing the right research. It might take time to set up, but it will definitely be valuable when we are working on developing the movement charter.
Kaarel: The important aspect here is facilitating the convergence between different viewpoints or at least finding solutions for tackling concerns that have been surfaced.
Addison: Break through the barriers that cause us to go in the circle. There seems to be agreement that regarding the scope of the Charter Drafting Committee we are agreeing. We seem to have answered one question and so we are in a position to answer other questions.
Andrew; Example of a committee for Wikimania 2021 that was not appointment, but self-nomination. A level of diversity was reached that probably would not be possible with the election process. Similar process could be used for the Movement Charter process. Probably an approach that diversifies the selection method seems to be the best approach.
Anna: The diversity does not only have the geographical aspect. We need to consider other aspects of diversity, e.g. on this call there are only 2 women. Sometimes it is difficult for women to participate in such discussions and we need to ensure that people are empowered to take part.
Alhen: From experience as a teacher the general approach is to change one thing at a time. We try to change how to run elections and how to appoint people. We should nto try out too many things, rather improve the same method little by little. If we are trying to make it perfect the first time we are not going to advance.
Alhen: Would like to see gender equality in these processes, but without introducing unnecessary complexity.
Yair: When looking at election and selection processes, order makes a difference in terms of diversity. Starting with elections create legitimacy and it would be easier to fill the diversity gaps with the selection process. Having selection first does not seem to work in that way.
Pharos: Proposal of an ambitious timeline. There could be a community wide election in a month's time - it could be done fast if we want to do it fast.
Anna: Would like to bring the question on the table, how we can converge the steps regarding the Global Council. Any further ideas regarding this aspect for the Drafting Committee and future Global Council.
Andrew: Taking into account that we are having the elections of the Board of Trustees. It seems like a lot of overload of the community if we are doing Movement Charter Drafting Committee and BoT elections at the same time.
Pharos: The balance can be discussed further, but there generally seems to be 3 different groups.
Andrew: What is the scope of the movement charter? Are we clear what the Charter actually needs to define?
Anna: There is a list of the scope in the recommendation https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Ensure_Equity_in_Decision-making There are some roles and responsibilities defined.
Andrew: Probably it would make sense to have individual units explained to make it more clear what the Charter would need to consist of.
Sam: It would be great to have the people annotate the Charter and categorize the items, so the elements inside the Charter could be unpacked and make the existing work also better recognized. This could also help to get people involved, dealed with the politics of having a constrained shortlist of people working on this.
Andrew: The list in the Movement Charter recommendation list is big, but it is abstract and would need to be unpacked. It would be great to see what is the current movement landscape and how it compares to the plans regarding the Movement Charter and its scope.
Christophe: Agree with the idea of doing the inventory in the movement or "inventory of existing power dynamics." At the same time, everything should in one way or another be covered by the Movement Charter, even if we are not making any changes to it.
Rosie: Regarding reviewing and inventoring all the aspects of the movement to have them included under the Movement Charter. It would be good to include that perspective in the upcoming discussions. It is probably the right way to go, but probably not everyone understands it in the same way.
Pharos: I do believe that we can do all 3 proposed parts of online communities, affiliates, and Wikimedia Foundation appointed people (s)elected in May.
Rosie: The question of reimbursement has come up in a previous call. Has it been addressed today?
Kaarel: Regarding the compensation it is possible to have reimbursement or compensation for the participants of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. We just need to be clear regarding the hidden implications of providing compensation in the volunteer movement as well as understand if this is the right mean to support inclusion and participation.
Anna: Closing words from Anna and grattitude for participation. Also a note regarding the SWAN call at the weekend: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network
Chat notes
05:01:53 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: goooood morning
05:02:21 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: gettingreasy can't talk yet
05:03:02 From Anna Torres to Kaarel(Direct Message): Kaarel, can you take notes?
05:03:11 From Anna Torres to Kaarel(Direct Message): I am not sure I can do all at the same time
05:03:12 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: I will be good in 5 but don't wait on me
05:03:21 From Kaarel to Anna Torres(Direct Message): Yes. The same Etherpad?
05:03:26 From Anna Torres to Kaarel(Direct Message): Yes.
05:06:21 From Kaarel to Everyone: Note taking Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Discussion_about_Charter_drafting_group
05:12:18 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: that's quite optimistic Richard :)
05:12:43 From Yair Rand to Everyone: IIRC, the strategy team's best guesstimate for the charter was 12-18 months after the drafting committee is formed
05:13:10 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I say we aim for 6 months tops!
05:13:19 From Anna Torres to Everyone: +1 to Richard
05:13:26 From Anna Torres to Everyone: I am also optimistic
05:13:33 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: can you hear me?
05:13:39 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: no Christophe
05:13:43 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: Christophe, I think you're muted
05:13:44 From Anna Torres to Everyone: Nop
05:13:47 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: crap
05:13:55 From Anna Torres to Everyone: you are next Christophe
05:13:57 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: we are not like other communities Andrew
05:14:06 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: not like other F/LOSS communities
05:15:09 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: yes yes yes
05:16:39 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: L235 - I know we think that :)
05:16:53 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: L235 - Even if we are not “like other communities” does that mean we have nothing to learn from others?
05:17:54 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: we have plenty to learn! There are differences in how we ought to be governed that flow from our distinct structures and roles, though
05:17:56 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: L235 - The risk is that we fall into the NIH syndrome - that we think we are such a special snowflake that we don’t think we can learn anything. From other experiences
05:18:11 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: I agree that 12-18 months feels more realistic with the Global Charter drafting process
05:18:23 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: L235 - Right, but I’m not aware of even the basic level of research about how others have done something like this
05:18:40 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I try to base my Wikimedia strategy on 5,000 years of history :)
05:19:05 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Richard - Yes we need your Big Book of Strategy experitise
05:19:16 From Anna Torres to Everyone: +1000
05:19:34 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: Great points Christophe
05:19:54 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Hi Biyanto!
05:21:09 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: Hello Anna! I’m still reading the Meta page and learning from the discussion here :)
05:21:09 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: oooooooooh
05:21:21 From Anna Torres to Everyone: Biyanto :3
05:21:32 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: hahahahahahahahaha thank you Addison I didn't think of that :D
05:21:41 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: duely noted thanks
05:21:50 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone:  :)
05:22:27 From Yair Rand to Everyone: +1
05:24:18 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: I think of this as forming a Wikipedia constitution and normally constitutional conventions are larger groups like Yair says
05:25:41 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: RfC are not something that means the same thing in all our communities.
05:25:50 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Yair - Agree, the RfC process is not a great fit for integrating the different constituents as mentioned such as affiliates and other stakeholders
05:26:17 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Christophe - True
05:26:25 From Alhen to Everyone: what's an RfC? :/
05:26:35 From Jaan-Cornelius Kibelka to Everyone: Request for Comments
05:26:39 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: Request for Comments
05:26:41 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Christophe - I’m not sure we’ve ever really analyzed the efficacy of RfC as something that properly engages the whole community well
05:26:47 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: I agree that affiliates don't fit well into an RfC. I also think RfC empowers individual editors more than projects. That has positives and minuses
05:26:49 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: Alhen: An RfC is a "request for comment", basically a proposal that goes before the community and gets "votes"/consensus decision
05:27:06 From Alhen to Everyone: I wonder how many know about it
05:27:19 From Alhen to Everyone: how many people*
05:27:23 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Andrew no we never, plus RfC are public comments, there is an argument in favor private voting too
05:27:54 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: Hi! Welcome!!!!!
05:28:07 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Ahlen - Agree that I worry the RfCs of the past have not been properly engaging the full breadth of the community
05:28:27 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Christophe good point
05:28:35 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I think we should make a better interface for RfCs so voting is easier
05:29:18 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Ahlen - Good point, I’d love to learn more about how other Linux groups, OSM, etc. do their community policy making
05:29:23 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Hi SJ!
05:29:52 From Sam Klein to Everyone: *wave* !
05:30:43 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: Hi SJ!!!
05:30:57 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: SJ typically knows of some really interesting projects and groups I never heard of, so I’d love to hear if he might be able to relate some communities to look into for examples of how to make a “movement charter” and how they ratify them
05:31:14 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: interesting the Fedora Council is 80% appointed by Réd Hat basically ^^
05:31:59 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Ahlen same with the French on that last part ^^
05:31:59 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @ahlen - Very useful
05:32:18 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: and probably for most of the editing communities
05:34:36 From Sam Klein to Everyone: (thanks Andrew! I am thinking on it ...)
05:34:52 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: by the way, across the year there has been research on how other orgs operates. It's somewhere on meta I think. I did spend time back then studying on how UN ratified their Charter and remember someone did it for greenpeace IOC and some others
05:35:45 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: +10000000
05:36:01 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: Sometimes people/folks in RfC who’re native English speakers using too much flowery sentences and a lot of anecdote that we (non-native) can’t understand and make us afraid to jump into the discussion, because we’re afraid of misunderstanding.
05:36:20 From Sam Klein to Everyone: Christophe: yes
05:37:54 From Sam Klein to Everyone: the approach of the UN SDGs was also interesting. (esp as a follow-up to the MDG process)
05:38:06 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Yair - Oh sure, for IGC yes. I’m talking about a smaller MC drafting committee
05:38:08 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: so you want to organize 500+ elections? ^^
05:38:17 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: for the working group
05:38:27 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: edit: for IGC and GC, yes. For a 20-30 member drafting committee is harder.
05:39:04 From Alhen to Everyone: I've pictured something like the Galatic Senate the first time I heard about the council. (StarWars, yes)
05:39:05 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: I think the best way to move forward is to make it happen soon. We can’t make everyone happy with the result, but if we don’t move forward by having a selective/elective trusted community members for Movement Charter process, it will be postponed forever. The best option is from Richard 7X3 system
05:39:13 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: Sam yes it is! And with 50 years iit hold à lot of learnings on what fails
05:39:41 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: the ratification process is super interesting too, though it basically à back channel négociation basically
05:39:42 From Yair Rand to Everyone: my GC formula proposal had 38 elections for 60 people
05:40:14 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: Or we can use geographical area like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council#Non-permanent_members
05:40:54 From Yair Rand to Everyone: Biyanto: I think that wikis are a more natural grouping here
05:41:23 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Yair why 38?
05:41:36 From Yair Rand to Everyone: Christophe: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yair_rand/Global_Council_distribution_formula
05:41:53 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: thanks!
05:41:55 From Yair Rand to Everyone: some wikis electing multiple delegates
05:42:51 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: I went straight to your formula, it's interesting thank you :)
05:42:54 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Good point Biyanto - diversity in the committee made by a diversity in selection methods makes sense
05:42:57 From Cornelius to Everyone: Elections always benefit the most popular and privileged ones. I doubt that's the profile of members we're looking for.
05:43:30 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: I wonder if all those proposals aren’t actually complementary and are just steps
05:44:19 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Perpetuating existing elections systems has the risk of perpetuating existing power centers
05:44:34 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: +Cornelius, I prefer we combine selection/election, to have an affirmative action to make sure the unheard voices can be heard
05:45:19 From Anna Torres to Everyone: +1 Andrew
05:45:29 From Alhen to Everyone: a profile may be designed to ask communities who they want to send. Does it make any sense?
05:45:34 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Committee
05:45:52 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Cornelius actually today I am not it's one hours too early ^^
05:46:11 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: ooops did not see it was a direct message :D
05:46:13 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: Not having elections can perpetuate other power systems and it runs the risk of lacking legitmacy
05:46:26 From Yair Rand to Everyone: sorry, that was left up from earlier
05:49:30 From L235 (Kevin, he/him) to Everyone: thanks everyone - got to run, great to see everyone :)
05:49:44 From Anna Torres to Everyone: Thanks Kevin!
05:50:34 From Sam Klein to Everyone: Andrew: I'm a fan of the Earth Charter, the universal declaration of human rights, and the convention on rights of the child : different drafting methods, but universal focus and similar language and cultural breadth. (worth adding to the existing histories on meta)
05:50:39 From Biyanto Rebin to Everyone: I need to do something else too. Thanks you so much for arranging the meeting! :)
05:51:29 From Anna Torres to Everyone: Bye Biyanto! Miss you! Take care!
05:51:41 From Alhen to Everyone: byeeee
05:52:03 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: When we have a chance I can describe how we used a hybrid system for creating the Wikimania 2021 committee
05:52:23 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: can we converge we miss discovering foods from the world at in person meetings ?
05:52:36 From Sam Klein to Everyone: 😅
05:52:36 From Alhen to Everyone: +1
05:52:51 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Andrew that would be great indeed I did not realized, but we have that expérience already
05:52:56 From Alhen to Everyone: nobody here has tried Bolivian coffee
05:53:58 From Sam Klein to Everyone: *has tried Bolivian mate*
05:54:35 From Sam Klein to Everyone: Addison: ++
05:54:51 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: thank you Addison :)
05:55:19 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Vanj Padilla (Philippines)
       Anna Torres (Argentina)
       Susanna Mkrtchyan (Armenia)
       Winnie Kabintie (Kenya)
       Lea Lacroix (France/Germany)
       Yamen Bousrih (Tunisia)
       Gnangarra (Australia)
       Bodhisattwa (India)
       Lodewijk/Effeietsanders (Netherlands/U.S.)
05:56:16 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: i disagree that they're not different. wikimania steering committee doesn't need to be seen as legitimate by a wide range of stakeholders
05:56:37 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: they're quite different
05:57:02 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: i agree that elections shouldn't be the only way
05:57:53 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: very good point anna
05:57:55 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Addison - Please, of course Wikimania should be seen as legitimate by a wide range of stakeholders
05:58:16 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Anna: ++++
05:58:38 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: If I don't like an individual Wikimania I can just ignore it and continue doing whatever I was doing in the movement before then. The same will not be true of a Movement Charter
05:59:08 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: @Addison - I feel that’s really being fatalistic
05:59:37 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
05:59:50 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: +1
05:59:52 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: @andrew i can just as easy turn that around on you :)
06:00:47 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: +1 to Ahlen to be precise ^^
06:00:52 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Feel free to, but I’m putting forth practical examples and meta-processes for consideration
06:01:30 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I would like to propose an ambitious timeline!
06:02:53 From Yair Rand to Everyone: do we know that they (wmf) want to pick people at all?
06:03:14 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: @pharos i'm curious to kevin's point why, outside of 7/7/7 sounding good, you think that is the right proportion of affiliate representation. I geneuinly don't know what the right number is
06:03:15 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Do we have a good outline of what the scope of the MC is currently projected to be?
06:03:37 From Alhen to Everyone: good question
06:03:43 From Cornelius to Everyone: That's indeed slightly ambitious. Organizing Movement wide, multilingual elections takes a bit longer.
06:03:55 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: the main idea is just that one side doesn't overdominate
06:04:08 From Sam Klein to Everyone: Yair: fair question.
06:04:25 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: @Andrew no that is part of the process, though to be it should tackle all power dynamics topics.
06:05:06 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: Andrew - good point about the ambition of having multiple elections
06:05:16 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: agreed
06:05:58 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: the 7 board appointees are intended to be board/foundation members?
06:06:16 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I hope some of them are community members!
06:06:30 From Sam Klein to Everyone: the sooner we can invite the whole community to contribute planks for a charter, the better. the committee seems most important for deciding how to curate + settle on a universally shared subset of those. but it doesn't need to be a prerequisite for collective thinking about it.
06:06:33 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: I would hope they would appoint people not staff and not board too
06:06:45 From Yair Rand to Everyone: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter
06:07:03 From Kaarel to Everyone: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Ensure_Equity_in_Decision-making
06:07:04 From Sam Klein to Everyone: having granular ideas about what could be included will help refine / converge on that scope
06:07:09 From Yair Rand to Everyone: it's not super-specific, but it pretty clearly puts forward several points
06:07:14 From Kaarel to Everyone: Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, e.g. for
       Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
       Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
       Giving a common direction on how resources should be allocated with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
       Defining how communities work together and are accountable to each other.
       Setting expectations for participation and the rights of participants.
06:07:42 From Alhen to Everyone: Great
06:07:42 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: ye, I was trying to keep the "all-stakeholders" idea in mind
06:08:07 From Sam Klein to Everyone: to start, inviting everyone who participated in earlier approaches to a charter to refactor and synthesize those into a catalog of possible elements
06:10:20 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: thank you again anna for your work facilitating this discussion
06:10:29 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: it's 5:10am I am sadly not at my best :D
06:10:45 From Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight to Everyone: Hi there. Sorry to join the 2nd session late.
06:11:39 From Erlan V to Everyone: equity in decision making means to me equity on access to information
06:12:16 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Christophe - I like how you phrased it - “an inventory of existing structures"
06:12:23 From Yair Rand to Everyone: "Lay the values, principles and policy basis for Movement structures..."
06:12:52 From Sam Klein to Everyone: "inventory of existing power dynamics"
06:13:13 From Andrew Lih to Everyone: Thanks Anna!
06:13:16 From Kaarel to Everyone: Please review and improve the notes: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Discussion_about_Charter_drafting_group
06:13:24 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: I loved both discussions thank you so much ^^
06:15:00 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: oooh interesting! I have been knee deep in that, that I forget it might not be share. Thank you so much Rosie!
06:15:14 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: shared*
06:15:39 From Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight to Everyone: Thank you, Christophe.
06:16:07 From Yair Rand to Everyone: gc by june, collation of sum of all knowledge completed by july
06:16:18 From Sam Klein to Everyone: 🌍🌈⛵❤️‍🩹😶‍🌫️🌛
06:16:35 From Yair Rand to Everyone: no, that didn't come up
06:16:35 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: we didn't unfortinately
06:17:09 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: no we did not, we mention it in our letter. but I fear that question is mostly dépendant on Foundation finding how to do it legally speaking
06:17:28 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: Is it really a legal issue?
06:17:42 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: I think it's a social one really
06:18:24 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: Ha! So there is to some extent but it ends being linked to social ones.
06:18:39 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: are you compensating or reimbursing costs?
06:18:51 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: maggie at her office hours talked about how reimbursement is hard in some countries and so then those countries would be disfavored
06:19:00 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: depending what you do it creates different constraints
06:19:31 From Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight to Everyone: Honorarium is another option.
06:19:42 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: honorarium ?
06:20:03 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: reimbursement as done for WMF board members should be an absolute minimum, but I think we should consider more
06:20:15 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: looked it up, didn't know about it :)
06:20:31 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: time for breakfast!
06:21:07 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: this is something we can and should do, pay for child care where it applies
06:21:19 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: it should be a basic part of reimbursement
06:21:24 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: <3
06:23:01 From Richard Knipel to Everyone: thanks Anna! :)
06:23:09 From Iván to Everyone: thanks Anna!
06:23:10 From Addison / Barkeep49 (he/him) to Everyone: here here anna
06:23:18 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: thank you !!!!
06:23:28 From Christophe Henner to Everyone: thank you Anna :)
06:23:50 From Yair Rand to Everyone: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network

Exchange on writing Movement Charter - 1800UTC 20 April 2021

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Attendees
  1. Chris Keating
  2. Christophe Henner
  3. Nicole Ebber
  4. Alice Wiegand
  5. Richard Knipel
  6. Douglas Ssebaggala
  7. Kaarel Vaidla
  8. Nosebagbear
  9. Cornelius Kibelka
  10. Lane Rasberry / bluerasberry
  11. LiAnna Davis
  12. Chico Venancio
  13. Christoph Jackel
  14. Yair Rand
  15. Lorenzo Losa
  16. Anna Torres
  17. Claudia Garad
  18. Daria Cybulska
  19. Ester Bonet
  20. Francesc Fort
  21. Ivan Martinez
  22. João Alexandre Peschanski
  23. Marc Miquel
  24. María Sefidari
  25. Mehrdad Pourzaki
  26. Oscar Costero
  27. Quim Gil
  28. Ramzy Muliawan
  29. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
  30. Sandra Rientjes
  31. Ursula Zage
  32. Hogü-456
  33. Caleidoscopic
  34. psychoslave
  35. Daniel Mietchen
Agenda
  • Brief introduction to the proposal - CH (5mins)
  • https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Proposal:_Drafting_a_Movement_Charter
  • can the association of chapters charter be used as a starting point? https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Charter
    • what are the advantages and disadvantages?
    • is it sufficiently democratic?
    • is it sufficiently inclusive of the global south?
    • can we charter grantmaking processes to be fair across disadvantaged wikimedians?
    • how can we codify an elected instead of appointed governing group?
    • do we need to recruit drafters from groups underrepresented in the strategy process?
    • what are the tasks necessary to complete a suitable charter?
  • Ratification proposals
    • There are a couple more on discussion pages that I have seen that I will attempt to find and add in shortly.
  • Three-way ratification proposal:
    • A majority of all local communities that assess consensus
    • A majority of all editors who participate in these discussions
    • A majority of the WMF Board
  • Three-way+Affiliate proposal:
    • A majority of all local communities that assess consensus
    • A majority of all editors who participate in these discussions
    • A majority of affiliates who assess consensus
    • A majority of the WMF Board
  • Supermajority proposal
    • Two-thirds of editors who participate in the ratification discussion


  1. Chris Keating / the Land started the meeting. Chris said that a few people put some thoughts together to break the deadlock in advancing the movement charter. The writers posted on meta, and there has been some discussion on meta and much more conversation off meta. This talk is an attempt to create a space to start a discussion from a broader perspective. Goals of this talk are to establish points of alignment and advancement toward consensus.
    1. Chris continued: I will be facilitating but only lightly. The floor is open for people to speak out briefly. There is one hour and the intent to leave within an hour.
  2. Christophe Henner: It was "not the intention of the authors to be the drafting committee"
    1. Some of us were frustrated that there were standing recommendations from one year ago to establish a global council and that these plans have not gone forward.
    2. I was expecting that there would only be us original 10 here tonight and there are 35 in the room. This is great because it shows that people are excited
    3. the wiki community spirit is to include all points of view so everyone should speak their comments. There is a need for tough discussion because we are talking about all the powers in the movement.
    4. if there is some task which can go to subcommittee or small group for deeper discussion then that is customary in the wiki movement, and anyone can form a focus groupo
    5. the organizers of this talk do not have an endpoint in mind except for Wikimedia community empowerment and for the talk to move forward
    6. no one has particular plans about how much activity happens on meta versus off-wiki, or who does different aspects of the tasks
    7. "When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, you wind up not cooking anything"
  3. Chris Keating: let's take comments from people who have them
  4. Chico Venancio: it only makes sense to have a committee which is deciding something. Otherwise, any gathering would just be a discussion. If we have a committee then we want to avoid a loose RfC and end with a recommendation. The wording of the charter which may be a constitution is a very important thing. Who should hold the power to decide the wording? My biggest question around this proposal is how do we address the need to have more community participation. We need to have more participation than we have had in any other part of the movement. If we do not have a mechanism which guarantees that the community can be heard, then it does not make sense to have a committee.
  5. Alice Wiegand: I would like to respond to Chico: I agree with everything you said. If this is the charter of our movement, then the community has to have a say in it. This drafting group drafts the text and the designs. We could design this process to be more agile than how we usually work, such as by doing parts in committees and then coming together to put the pieces together. This present drafting committee is trying to advance the process.
  6. Nosebagbear: I am sharing these comments.
    1. (comments in chat) 1) Prior community (and WMF) agreement to the structure, not just WMF agreement that it seems like a good proposal 2) Clear specification of WHAT ratification will look like, rather than just that "it will be there" 3) Structure of representatives, all to start at same time, almost entirely elected by community 4) Post drafting amendment process, not merely yes/no ratification
    2. I would like to get clarity on what kind of community ratification process there will be. I do not think we should just accept any sort of ratification, because we could otherwise get to the end of the project and have a closure process which is not acceptable. [Note by nbb, need for ratification and amendment method to be laid out before commission begins]
    3. In comments: "No-one has just proposed a ratification and amendment method. Have someone script one and trigger a meta RfC on it and the rest of the commission"
  7. Anna Torres: please everyone speak slowly
  8. Lane: Wants to move these notes to Meta with a compatible license. Any objections please speak out or put them in the chat.
  9. Christophe Henner: we do not yet have a charter committee to design different parts of this process. Drafting the charter is complicated and we cannot plan this entirely in advance yet we need some progress now.
  10. Pharos / Richard Knipel - I advocate for some election processes to soon be part of the establishment of the global charter:
    1. Three different ways to select movement charter group: affiliates, community at large, foundation
    2. ...
  11. Chris: there is a discussion ongoing in the chat
  12. Nosebagbear: I advocate for safeguards on the ratification process. I would not want the masses of online Wikipedia community members to be outweighed by just a few small subgroups. there are some people advocating for various consensus indicators, like for 2/3s approval, but I think these are details to discuss later. What I want agreement on is that there is community approval of the process, clarity on what level of amendment control participants would have in the end
  13. Alice: I am a non-native speaker, can you please summarize?
  14. Chris: Correct me Nosebagbear, but I think he said that there should be a pre-defined ratification process. Also I think he wanted an amendment process in place. Also he wanted some talk of division of power, so that small projects could not overrule big ones and vice versa.
  15. Nosebag: that seems like a good summary
  16. Lorenzo: assuming that the final draft will hopefully have a very large support, we can easily define a ratification process that is strict enough to make most people confident. For instance, we can require for ratification that the draft is approved by all of the following: a majority of voting on-wiki contributors; a majority of Wikimedia affiliate organizations; the Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees. If any of them do not approve then the charter should not be ratified.
  17. Chico: There is the proposal that we should appoint some people and trust them. We do not have this kind of trust within our community. We should not pass over legitimacy and try to get legitmacy later.
  18. Lane: I have a comment about the process. On the talk page there are comments and apologies about a lack of diversity in organizing this. The Wikimedia Foundation just published a finance report about grantmaking which shows where they have been sending money. One issue is that 95% of the 100 million dollars goes to the Wikimedia Foundation and is not transparent, and the other issue is that the Wikimedia Foundation chooses to not fund lower and middle income countries. Africa, South Asia, and South America seem to get less than 1% of the overall budget, it has been this way for years, and there is no evidence of the Wikimedia Foundation making plans to fund communities. The Wikimedia Foundation allows the press to put a lot of blame to the Wikipedia volunteers for lack of diversity, when in fact, they have been deciding where the money goes and which communities to develop with funding. I know that volunteers want more diversity in funding, and if the Wikimedia Foundation criticizes community discussions like this one for not having diverse participation from minority communities, then I think we can fairly respond by saying they themselves have chosen to avoid funding those communities. We have appropriate representation now in this conversation from engaged Wikimedia communities and I feel that groups like this one fairly speak for the entire movement. I want to see positive language in discussing our conversations, just as the Wikimedia Foundation pays its staff to publish positive information about its activities.
  19. Joao : I disagree with the small group formation of this talk. There are other discussions like SWAN which have been more open and inclusive. I am frustrated by this process and find it un-democratic. I feel like communities and various affiliates are taking power to which they are not entitled. I would like to look at the proposal which has developed from other processes and we should follow them.
  20. Douglas Ssebaggala: I know that the members have put a lot of work into planning this. I have two questions: are the people who are drafting this representing a group or are they individuals. The second question is what would the wikimedia community do to participate in this process.
  21. Marc Miquel: I would not have anticipated some of these interpretations of the proposal that we put forth in this last week. From my perspective, there has not been progress on the charter for the last year, and now we are trying to get some advancement. I want discussion and progress. Next I want to respond to Chico's comment about getting legitimacy. I also want legitimacy, but no matter how well we try to please everyone, there will always be people who argue it. I feel that we must make some progress and try to make positive changes rather than stay without movement indefinitely without plans to change.
  22. LiAnna: There are a lot of elements to the movement strategy and the movement charter is especially important and needs as many voices participating in it. I and many other people in this call have participated in many other facilitated sections and that the Wikimedia Foundation has issued summaries of these things. However this has not resulted in a plan for getting to a movement charter. Where I struggle is with this current proposal that would have appointed members rather than elected members. We have reflected in past discussions that elections are important and that elected representatives are the accepted way that the Wikipedia community supports processes. I think we should have discussions of what kinds of skill sets we want on the drafting committee. We want to define what the necessary elements for this and this could include the diversity needs for this.
    1. MC needs to be constructed with as many voices as possible
    2. defining ratification important
    3. having trouble with appointed members
    4. who ro what kind of skill sets should be on the MC drafting committee
    5. Do we have people with skills, time and capacity to do so
    6. Need deep community consultation, include people who have not been part of the MC process so far
    7. ^^ feel free to re-factor or delete if already noted down :)
  23. Chris: It is great that so many people are ready to discuss this. We did not intend to take ownership of this process, and we only made a proposal to advance discussion when there was a lack of progress in establishing this committee for a long time.
  24. Nosebagbear - the community, meaning direct community representation, needs to have majority support. I think there is a clear case for affiliate seats, but I expect that for the Wikimedia community 51% of appointees (nbb: preferably elected, not appointed) to the seats need to be elected community members at large. I think we need a mix of view points from large communities and small communities. I proposed casually a structure of 3 WMF appointees, 7 from the Wikipedia community, and 2 from affiliates.
  25. Kaarel from the WMF: I have been looking at the proposals on the meta pages and my thought is that there is a lot of alignment in what the community is saying and what the Wikimedia Foundation has wished would happen. There are some arguments but in my view these are due to talking past each other and not actually because of disagreements. I would like to map out the open questions and find our points of convergence, be constructive, and find consent if not consensus. We can provide support if requested
  26. Yair Rand: (I think this paragraph got mixed up? -YR) About composition: there is a lot of talk about needs. Some of the discussions are should we have one group to do drafting and another group to run the global council, if we should have particular representation, or if we need skills. Something that is still unclear to me is what power the Global Council will have in the end. We have had so many appointments to so many groups in the strategy process with so many valuable contributors focusing so hard on various planning aspects, when we do not have agreement to where this planning is going. The Movement Strategy process led to some recommendations, but it did not lead to granting authority or power to anyone in particular. The wikimedia Foundation does not see it as their place, for example, to fill in every need identified in the strategy process, and they will expect community participation. If we have committees then we are ensured to get diverse representation from even smaller communities, as there would always be room on some important committee for people to join and be heard. I disagree with a lot of the parts of the proposal discussion till now.
  27. Ivan Martinez: Very few resources are spent on getting more diverse participation. I am in the Latin American community and very little support comes to such people. There are privileges for English speakers to get resources and other groups have less access. Many people may share their personal opinions but do so while claiming that their view represents large groups of hundreds of people. We need to establish ways to get more participation from more people. I think our colleagues who are working on this proposal are trying to pull the rope to progress. It is challenging and demanding to find the right way. If there are segments of the community who have major concerns which cannot be resolved then we can have amendments
  28. Daria: I have spoken up in the chat and I have nothing to add by speaking. In every step of the process the same issues come up including limited participation.
  29. Chris: last comment then we wrap up
  30. Chico: There is the claim that the election proposal is new, but that idea seems weird. Pharos produced an election proposal recently, but that was a direct result of other recent discussions where people agreed that there should be an election, and there is also a Wikipedia history of having elections for such positions. We already have good consensus that we have leadership appointments that often come from elections. When Ivan talks about community and how individuals sometimes speak on behalf of entire communities, I feel a bit attacked because I am trying to bring out ideas from people who did not previously have opportunities to speak but who could not. There are in person committee discussions, telegram chat, and conversations in many other places where people from my community had no representation in discussion at the table. Wiki is supposed to be a process and not just a result. The Portuguese community was explicitly removed from the strategy process.
  31. Anna: We made a proposal but we did not intend to override anything. Pharos has a proposal, and perhaps we could take that and any other proposals and merge them to make something stronger. I would like all community members to collaborate to make the strongest proposal together. If the majority of people want to carry out elections then we should plan elections. For me I would prefer other ways of starting, because we are not at the point of of having a decision making body and we only want a drafting committee which needs to move quickly after one year of no progress and lock down in much of the world. Of course we need ratification later and the council needs its own appointment process.
  32. Chris: We are 10 minutes past our scheduled time. All of this is helpful. I feel that there are more concrete thoughts around major issues which need to be resolved. I also feel that there is a fair bit of consensus around two proposals, the one for this meeting and the one presented by Pharos. Thanks more conversations soon.
    1. [nbb: I would note that Chris stressed there was consensus about **certain** aspects. he definitely didn't say just fair bit of consensus about the two proposals]
  33. Chat (for referrence, please review and delete if you don't want what you wrote in the minutes):
  34. 20:02 Karaoke waiting moment! Let's start :)
  35. Christophe Henner 20:12 Everything must be up to discussion to me, not should ^^
  36. Nosebagbear 20:13 Go ahead "have a say" is insufficient
  37. Nosebagbear 20:15 Or is it on my end? 1) Prior community (and WMF) agreement to the structure, not just WMF agreement that it seems like a good proposal 2) Clear specification of WHAT ratification will look like, rather than just that "it will be there" 3) Structure of representatives, all to start at same time, almost entirely elected by community 4) Post drafting amendment process, not merely yes/no ratification
  38. João Alexandre Peschanski 20:15 Alice, could you please clarify what you mean with "this is not us". Are you saying you won't be part of the proposed drafting committee?
  39. Chico Venancio 20:16 @Alice, my point is this proposal would empower a group to decide very important things without any guarantee of community buy-in.
  40. Christophe Henner 20:16 Not as a group, but as individuals we might apply to be part of it. That said, some of the people of the group have already said they wouldn't have the time to commit to that work.
  41. Alice Wiegand 20:17 @chico, maybe I#m too optimistic, but I don't see that the drafting group would decide anything
  42. Chico Venancio 20:18 +1 to nosebagbear. A clearer process would be very important. @alice the wording of the draft...
  43. Lane Rasberry 20:18 +1 for that process, there could be a ratification subcommittee of 3 people who suggest something. If that happened, there may be quick consensus and that would settle that issue
  44. Nosebagbear 20:19 No-one has just proposed a ratification and amendment method. Have someone script one and trigger a meta RfC on it and the rest of the commission
  45. Nosebagbear 20:19 No, because if we just move forwards then it becomes tough to stop if you only later find a bad outcome is coming. The safeguards have to be there before
  46. Chico Venancio 20:20 exactly
  47. Nosebagbear 20:20 To use the earlier analogy, better to have no meal than a poisonous one
  48. Alice Wiegand 20:21 @nosebagbear, that's why in _my_ thinking there should be a process of small steps, check-ins and feedback implemantation
  49. Christophe Henner 20:21 We can design them in my opinion, perhaps we can agree on saying that before the work on the different topics starts the ratification process must have buy in from communitees. So that there is a safeguard. You can have a step by step approach instead of trying to design 3 years of work at once.
  50. Lorenzo Losa 20:22 I think we can easily define reasonable criteria for ratification. E.g., there must be a majority vote among active editors, by affiliated, and by the WMF board of trustees (all of them). As I hope any draft will have a very high support, the details are not so important IMHO. But it should be spelled out.
  51. Richard Knipel 20:24 we should probably also think about ratification of different articles, rather than the document as a whole
  52. Marc Miquel 20:24 I do agree that the MC process should be defined in a way to amplify its legitimacy and inclusiveness of all the movement actors. But at the same time, I reckon that while we are waiting for this process to be designed (by whom?) things stay the same - one year after.
  53. Ivan Martínez 20:24 +1 to Christophe, everything not desirable in Policy design needs to be come in a form of safeguards. We can suggest any safeguard in the process to tackle any community matter concern IMHO
  54. Chico Venancio 20:24 @Marc, sure, lets move. We have other options, why go with this proposal than the others?
  55. Chico Venancio 20:25 there has been at least Pharos 7 7 7 proposal and RFC proposed. Why not those and yes to this?
  56. Nosebagbear 20:25 On my side, I think it's insane that the community - by far the most important actor, would not have an active majority of seats 3/7/2 would be good for me (or something in line with those proportions)
  57. Christophe Henner 20:26 If I may, I hear a lot of fear about the ratification part. But I fear we would spend months on the technicalities of the ratification. Would it be ok to agree on high level principles like "the ratification need to be representative of all communities", "ratification process should allow for amendments during the drafting", etc  ?
  58. Nosebagbear 20:26 That would be too high level. I don't think it should take months
  59. Claudia Garad 20:26 @Chico: Which other options? We have one other suggestion for how to constitute the group but no other process proposal afaik
  60. Nosebagbear 20:26 I've heard about six proposals, I could just write them up and see which is most popular
  61. Chris Keating 20:26 please do!
  62. Christophe Henner 20:27 But it has already taken 12 months ^^
  63. Chico Venancio 20:27 @claudia, at least two other proposals were presented before this
  64. Marc Miquel 20:27 @Chico I'm not attached to this proposal details, because i think there are very few. We can agree on some common aspects from the two proposals (or a third if there's one), and then appoint some people and trust them.
  65. Claudia Garad 20:28 @Chico do you have links? So we know we talk about the same thinsg?
  66. Nosebagbear 20:29 Well said, Chico Sad, but true Additionally, with trust being a limtied substance, it needs to be preserved for things that absolutely do need it
  67. Yair Rand 20:30 +1 Chico
  68. Nosebagbear 20:30 It's also worth noting that this project is not in a bubble - there are other meta discussions that also demand the same trust and are even more controversial, such as UCOC
  69. Lane Rasberry 20:31 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking/Reports/2019-2020
  70. Chico Venancio 20:32 @claudia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January#Proposal_for_expeditious_7/7/7_committee_and_community_ratification_of_Movement_Charter
  71. Yair Rand 20:33 eh, we had participation even when there was no funding for anyone. the point you're making is important, but I don't think fixing it will spontaneously fix geographic participation.
  72. Ramzy Muliawan 20:35 To present an ESEAP perspective, there are at least several communities that has never been reached by the Strategy processes and/or being underrepresented in the governance ecosystem, to the extent that they are disconnected with the wider Movement. The idea of "having a seat on the table" is quite foreign for them, and it would be worth to think of these folks when you're searching for a base of legitimacy for the future IGC-GC. [sorry wouldn't be able to speak, it's 1AM here in Indonesia :)
  73. Nosebagbear 20:35 I do share that concern that affiliates are acting in a very power-grabby manner on the IGC discussions
  74. Christophe Henner 20:35 Thank you Ramzy I would like to reminder that I am not affiliated to no organized group at this time :)
  75. Chris Keating 20:36 nor am I!
  76. Christophe Henner 20:36 Chris² are free :D
  77. Nosebagbear 20:36 Chris, I've dropped in three proposals into the etherpad - I'll hunt down the others post-discussion.
  78. Douglas Ssebaggala 20:37 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Proposal:_Drafting_a_Movement_Charter#Our_commitment_and_our_request
  79. Chris Keating 20:38 important question: what needs to happen in the community
  80. Chico Venancio 20:40 We had other proposals, this line of thinking doesn't make sense
  81. Ramzy Muliawan 20:40 Nosebagbear: I wouldn't call it as far as power grab, it really depends on the historical role and power that Affiliates hold over/with different project communities. Affiliates at ESEAP region, for example, pretty much represents THE community itself; something that seems to be foreign for folks at the Global North. Different fora plays different role in different region, and slicing them to one-size-fits-all categories of "Fdn"/"Aff"/"communities" would seem to be an unnecessary gatekeep.
  82. João Alexandre Peschanski 20:40 @marc: i don't understand why the proposal that was out there is disregarded
  83. Chico Venancio 20:40 https://xkcd.com/927/
  84. Nosebagbear 20:40 No, because "those not wanting to have a change" is also a valid viewpoint, so going from those who are ultra-pro IGC is basically targetted canvassing
  85. Christophe Henner 20:40 Yes and that is why we also included Richard's in our letter because we do not believe they are mutually exclusive ^^
  86. Marc Miquel 20:41 @João i don't think that there was anything contradictory between the proposals. i personally like that one. they can perfectly merge. the idea was widening and continuing the conversation.
  87. João Alexandre Peschanski 20:42 the proposal does not consider elections, which is for me a key point
  88. Chico Venancio 20:42 for many of us. And central to 7 7 7 proposal.
  89. Christophe Henner 20:43 @João it does, it specifically references Richard's 7/7/7 proposal that does include elections :)
  90. João Alexandre Peschanski 20:43 +1 LiAnna
  91. Chico Venancio 20:43 it was born of a similar discussion in a SWAN call. 7 7 7 grew out ideas expressed in this proposal. I find it weird to be mentioned the other way arround.
  92. João Alexandre Peschanski 20:44 @christophe: then i am confused. are you supporting the 7-7-7 proposal, including elections from the community?
  93. Christophe Henner 20:45 Please be mindful of the people that have not spoken yet. We should leave space for everyone to speak up :)
  94. Christophe Henner 20:46 Otherwise it's a 6 persons discussion with an audience. And be mindful of your speech speed, we're not all native
  95. Nicole Ebber 20:47 Logistics: Please note that I copy the messages from this chat over to the etherpad. Please review and delete if you don't want what you wrote in the minutes. https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Discussion_about_Charter_drafting_group
  96. Kaarel Vaidla 20:47 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January
  97. Nosebagbear 20:50 It's a good list - but I would say we've agreed on ratification, but haven't yet agreed on ratification (and amendment) style
  98. LiAnna Davis 20:50 I disagree with the seeming assumption that elections won't result in qualified people vs appointments will. I think if we can reach consensus of what skills we want people in this group to have, we have smart people in our movement who can identify which candidates provide those skills.
  99. Nosebagbear 20:51 I agree LiAnna - give a "here are things I think we need", and people who match them will have a better chance in the election
  100. Daria Cybulska 20:53 the thing I'm playing in my head is - this conversation is building on all the previous steps of the strategy process. but are we trying at each step to gain full consensus of the community, or even address the gaps and omissions of previous steps? (but at the same time the Charter is critical for future governance so perhaps we do need everyone's agreement...)
  101. Chris Keating 20:53 I have never seen voters in any previous WMF-related election pay any attention to a person specification, to be honest ;)
  102. Nosebagbear 20:53 But the skillset for "drafting a charter" and "overseeing movement strategy progress* are not the same
  103. LiAnna Davis 20:53 Elections are critical for rebuilding trust in the strategy process from the vast majority of people in our movement who have become dis-engaged or have never yet been engaged. Those of us on the call are not representative of our wider community because we ARE engaged in the strategy process.
  104. María Sefidari 20:53 I think there might be a slight overestimation of the number of people willing to go through a full elections process in order to be able to contribute to drafting a charter, tbh
  105. Alice Wiegand 20:54 which in itself will be a lot of work
  106. psychoslaves d’outre raison 20:56 Yes Ivan, history is mostly the active minority throwing its agenda at the silent majority… :-/
  107. LiAnna Davis 20:57 If our existing candidates don't possess all the skills, then we add appointed people! But I don't see that starting with appointments helps build trust and legitimacy with people who aren't currently involved.
  108. Nosebagbear 20:59 Major concerns have already been raised, I'd be concerned to see it moving forwards before they were fixed
  109. Christophe Henner 20:59 Ivan I feel better that now I see you too are going for longer hairs though I can't grow such a mustache :(
  110. psychoslaves d’outre raison 21:00 How much time per week is expected from those involving in this process vs how much time the avergae contributor can provide for this specific task?
  111. Lorenzo Losa 21:00 I'm not sure whether we are all using "elected" and "appointed" in the same way. If we select someone on a meta page based on endorsements, what is that? And what if someone is selected by affiliates?
  112. João Alexandre Peschanski 21:01 @ivan: i am confused, because i read the proposal we are discussing here as in opposition to what Richard has synthesized from our discussions in the SWAN meetings. I quote: "The full group should be diverse, but not be bigger than 20-25 people in total. We see potential in the principles of the 3x7 option put forward by Pharos as a way to expand the initial group but would recommend starting with a core of appointed members to kick start the work as early as possible."
  113. Lorenzo Losa 21:01 I think there is more to say than "elected" vs "appointed"
  114. Christophe Henner 21:01 @Psychoslaves, hard to say exactly but based on the strategic process, at least a few hours a week over a long period of time. That is why we mentionned stipends, because not everyone is in the capacity of doing that for free.
  115. Nosebagbear 21:01 I'm not sure the weekly time is likely to be the limiting factor. One continual issue with the strategy working groups was enough time to make the proposals, but not enough to ensure both clarifications and answers could be given when the drafts were made public
  116. João Alexandre Peschanski 21:02 +1 Chico -- i might be confused, but my feeling is we are moving backwards
  117. Christophe Henner 21:04 Communities please, there is not yet one community but a gathering of a lot of diverse communities and most of them are not part of the process yet.
  118. Ivan Martínez 21:04 Dissent is not an attack, Chico. Sorry if you felt attacked, ttaht was not the intention of course. @Joao my main point is going just only move forward about the proposals and not the concerns we have about doing the proposals. just that.
  119. psychoslaves d’outre raison 21:04 Well, that is nice to put stipend in place, but will that help more engagement from people that would not engage otherwise? It's not just about money, people can't all easily modulate their work schedule.
  120. Chico Venancio 21:06 @ yair > sorry, explicitly? how/why/when? after not being chosen, more than one member of the portuguese community were asked to be appointed to WG, that was vetoed.
  121. Christophe Henner 21:06 @psychoslave no it's only one of the things that needs to be done. Actually, even before the constraints you're mentionnning, which is very very real, how do we hear the voices of those thousands editors that shy away from all those discussions voluntarily. I have no answer, and I believe it's a lot of work to find a solution.
  122. Marc Miquel 21:07 +1 i'm all for merging. let's use this energy we have.
  123. Christophe Henner 21:07 Stronger together \o/ +1 to Anna :)
  124. Chico Venancio 21:07 @Lane Rasberry: This included portuguese people, their affiliate was not de-recongnized.
  125. João Alexandre Peschanski 21:07 i have to go --sorry. :( my sense is that we should move forward with elections. right procedures from scratch
  126. Chico Venancio 21:08 but probably. WMF never gave a reason, and all decisions are made behind closed doors. Derecongnition probably played a major role.
  127. Oscar Costero 21:08 I think we can agree that perfect is the enemy of good. I say thanks to the people trying to need to move the discussion forward, even if they are differences in the proposals (that can be fixed, like a wiki)
  128. Hogü-456 -456 21:09 I think it is not good if you have for such discussions a time limit of one hour. Please make sure that you have next time for such a meeting more time.
  129. Yair Rand 21:09 deciding which draft is brought for ratification is a major decision as well
  130. Chico Venancio 21:09 @yair > deciding which draft is brought for ratification is a major decision as well very much so.
  131. Nosebagbear 21:09 We are Wikimedia, words *are* our decision-making. Even a draft proposal that is subject to ratification is an extremely powerful tool - the exact phrasings matter, and thus huge care should be on the mandate of those on the IGC
  132. Ivan Martínez 21:10 +1 Anna :) thanks for bring to the table the exhausting process we are facing in our particular contexts. we have at this moment less energy than other moments I think
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