Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Working Groups/Roles & Responsibilities/Minutes

This page contains summaries of meeting minutes for the Roles & Responsibilities working group, one among the nine working groups involved in the Wikimedia Movement 2018-20 Strategy process. The full versions of these minutes are accessible on Google Drive, but given their extensive length and detail, only their summaries are being shared here for the time being.

2019

October

25 October

New roles were introduced per Core Team proposal and emails (writers, connectors and reviewers). Most of the present members expressed their interest in continuing in at least one new role, with three as writers, three as reviewers and one connector. Those not present were encouraged to express their considerations.

Apart from the first recommendation (considered more primary), all of the rest are equally important. The network/hubs idea, though, will be put into a separate recommendation with more detail, to further manifest the model.

Per the workshop with Christian Koch, a prototype video will be created to communicate the model/recommendations in a more digestible manner. The video will be very short and concise (about 5 minutes). WG members are invited to help with co-writing the script, providing local examples or recording brief interviews.

4 October

Tunis Debrief Harmonization failed because the process wasn't clear. Participants were enthusiastic and did their best for the process to succeed.

Day 1 was spent on discussing three thematic areas (R&R, CB and Diversity & Inclusion), day 2 on structures and day 3 on principles. The end was better than the beginning, as the principles conversation was useful although it ended without reaching any formal agreement and without harmonizing principles.

Next Steps The Core Team will send out a survey to consult WGs on the next steps. The "principles" is an ambiguous word for those who were not present in Tunis and requires further clarification and support with concrete examples.

The R&R recommendations are too abstract and hard to digest. Christian proposes to add a storytelling narrative to them, perhaps in video form. The narrative will focus on especially misunderstood topics in the recommendations (decentralization, self-management and decision-making on the lowest level).

Several members expressed their willingness to work on this task, given the current break, and they are inviting others to join as well.

September

16 September: P&T Team

During the call, Toby and Erica (from the Product & Technology team at the WMF) answered many questions about how the team functions and plans the Movement's priorities, and expressed interest in receiving more community input and have a more collaborative and open structure.

13 September

As the last meeting before the Harmonization Sprint, support for the group representatives at the Sprint was largely discussed. It was agreed that remote participation wouldn't be really feasible. The joint, overlap calls with Diversity and the Product & Technology team at the Foundation were explored. There was a feeling of confidence about preparation for the Sprint.

6 September

The meeting started with two brief presentations: by Fransesc, who visualized community conversations with great color-coded maps (for both Quotiel and Situla), and by Szymon, who summarized the feedback received on Metawiki. Some updates from liaisons with CB and P&T were presented.

There was quite a bit of discussion on the Hybrid Model document, which ended up by agreeing to create a one page summary for reading convenience (see below). As for recommendations, WG members will spend the weekend reviewing them and leaving a time stamp on each (also below). The final remarks were about going forward to Harmonization.

3 September: Joint Call with CB

Members from Capacity Building and Roles & Responsibilities working groups (3 each) met to discuss potential connections between their two groups. Basically, the CB WG calls for a bit of centralization but leaves room in the thematic hubs to adapt for local contexts. The idea of coaches in R&R model may help with match making each organization that needs help to the one that can offer it. R&R will fully endorce CB recomendation on the hub, while CB recognized the role of coaches. Further discussion in Tunis.

August

30 August

Status of Recommendations All recommendations were quickly reviewed to check their status and the kind of improvements they need, as the final versions must be delivered by September 9th.

• Recommendation 5 (now goes first): in draft form but doesn't need much editing
• Recommendations 1 & 2: going well, not finished yet.
• Recommendations 3 & 4: not ready yet.
• Recommendation 6: in draft form, many comments to be resolved.
• Recommendation 7: heavily imported from Capacity Building documents.

Straw Poll The Poll's purpose is to porivde guidance to the decision, rather than to give a final word (i.e. not a 'popularity contest'). Consensus was to merged Situla and Quotiel into a single, hybrid model based on extensive feedback that saw them as very similar at their essence. The Hybrid Model is to be recommended by itself in Tunism along with the other recommendations.

Format It’s not necessary to use the standard template in formatting recommendations. The template can be useful in providing some insightful questions, though.

Merger of Situla and Quotiel The merging process is to start by mapping out the differences between the two models. Integrating P&T rec 5 (on decentralization) into the Hybrid Model, as well as the Capacity Building unit, was proposed. The function and conflict resolution on a local level by the Ombuds Council. The Global Support System is to control the distribution of fund in the Movement. Staff involvement in the Governing Body was controversial.

Next Steps The Hybrid Model and the recommendations (to go with it) are to be finalized by next week. Another action is to integrate the feedback from Wikimania.

Christian offered to be reached out for feedback/criticism on recommendations, to provide insights from community conversations and from Katherine's call in November 2018.

Call with Katherine Margeigh combined plenty of proposed questions to ask during the call with Katherine, which is supposed to 'close the loop' with the earlier call with her in November 2018. The call will start with an individual, brief review of the recommendations, then a presentation of the new Hybrid Model and of its improvement and potential obstacles. Claudia and Anna will present the discussion.

23 August

Models Presenting 2-3 models at once will cause confusion and a lack of focus. In order to get more detailed, specific feedback, it’s critical to narrow them down to only a single model. Due to time limitation, members will be asked to fill a Straw Poll to vote for the best model.

One approach, proposed by Chris, was as follows:

1. Fill up the surveys by each of the R&R members;
2. complete the overlap documents;
3. everyone from the R&R to fill up a poll regarding merging existing models;
4. conduct a Straw Poll to decide which model is more favorable to stick with;
5. have a call in the upcoming week to agree on next steps.

Recommendations The Harmonisation Spring is quickly approaching, and time should be managed carefully. One thing to think about is how to support the R&R members attending the Sprint. Another is the charter, which is a needed resource, yet care should be taken not to make it too big or encompassing.

Recommendation 5 will be re-labeled as 1. All members will be assigned particular recommendations to develop and finalise within the next 2-3 weeks: one through seven were already assigned to at least one person of those present in the call, while those absent should choose the rec. they would like to work on ASAP.

Contact with other WGs The overlap documents must be completed as soon as possible, as they will allow a deeper comparison with other WG recommendations once a single model has been settled on.

Since many of the WG liaisons went inactive, other members will be assigned the responsibility to reach out to WGs with which there has been no recent contact. Risker will create an email template for this purpose.

7 August: Wikimania Design Session

Wary about lacking outside voices (truly new voices/people who have never heard about the Movement Strategy Process)

• The Core Team will work with Strategy Liaisons who will encourage community members to attend the Strategy Sessions

6 August

Do we stay with 1, 2, or 3 models? (Sprint attendees feel: either One with consensus support or two different models, that are acceptable to everyone)

• Move the regular call from 30 August to 23 August. This call will decide WHICH models are further developed
• Then until? 6 September to iterate the models - group sign off on 6 September call

Do we develop the recommendations we have further?

• These can be workshopped further between Wikimania and 6 September and then signed off on 6 September
• Need to decide (at Wikimania in-person meeting?) who is workshopping what

Do we have new recommendations?

• If there are new recommendations then WG members should propose them before 23 August
• These can be workshopped further between 23 Aug and 6 September and then signed off on 6 September

Sources of input Community Input (latest Conversations report + Wikimania)

• All to review the feedback

Pre-Mortem

• All to review the feedback

Other WGs Recommendations

• Review other WG recommendations
  • Chris to create a template to write up other WG fit with us - please comment

Summary Understanding of pre Wikimania meeting is to arrive with:

1. Good familiarisation with all the models
2. Good familiarisation with the premortem
3. suggestions for process between wikimania and 9th sept

Meeting itself

1. Approximately 2/3 of meeting to look at premortems, approx 1/3 to consider overlaps with models
2. Use some of the time to identify overlaps with other WGs…
3. Those going to the sprint will push to finalise the material for harmonisation, but the group will decide process for supporting the harmonisation team (anna chris erina) over 3 weeks between wikimania and 9th sept

Pre-mortem feedback preview Please prepare by reading through the gathered pre-mortem feedback.

Please also read the recommendations of other groups which will be published next week

2 August

Wikimania session planning. Receive feedback from the design calls with the Core Team on which models to take at Wikimania. It was agreed, though, that only the recommendations will be presented at the conference, while the models will be left aside as though not to overwhelm the audience. The models can still be communicated to participants in handout form, via survey or on Meta wiki. Some members were not comfortable about not presenting the models, to avoid misinformation or misunderstanding, but the majority thought there would be no enough space for them, as the presentation will be limited to allow room for dialogue and conversations with attendees.

July

30 July - Whose Knowledge

Key Points/constraints

• Despite the intention to equity towards change, it’s unclear who will write the Charter, in consideration of the equity lens, and how these new models can be articulated.
• Compensation of volunteers from other parts of the world not considered in the recommendations/models.
• Decentralisation does not show up in the recommendations, larger EU chapters might be taking on more responsibilities, leaving out user groups in the global south.
• No decision on the implementation of scenarios.

Working Group mitigation

• Working closely with other working groups like Diversity, and developing a possible timeline for implementation.
• WG aware about what is available, what works and how to improve this (advice from an external advisor).
• Volunteering culture “not a thing” in some parts of the world (Capacity building WG have a recommendation related to this - from Orla).
• Decentralisation will surface if models are aligned together. Situla model considering the magnitude of how such a body can be (10 ~100 experts).
• Decentralisation already considered with communities in South Asia which have strengths like Wiki source, and not in the EU.
• WG still needs ideas on how this can look like at a concrete level.
• WG already considering the movement as being decentralized but lacking a uniting factor to allow central decision-making.
• Considering the harmonisation sprint in Tunis to make the alignment between Quotiel and Situla.
• Easier for people to discuss models which are more practical, rather than abstract recommendations.

Whose Knowledge ideas

• Include a structural layer of equity in the recommendations and models, starting with the current situation where power and privilege is not equitable.
• Keep the conversation with the Resource Allocation Working group (they have equity in their recommendations).
• Clearly articulate equity e.g Staff coming from current volunteers, role of communities that are not Wikimedians.
• Capacity building for marginalised communities that would like to join the movement.
• Be more explicit e.g decision making at a lower level, redistribution of funds to the global south.
• How can you compose regional hubs with equity?

29 July

Next steps:

1. Review the recommendation format, and flag for the group
   1. AT: Happy to help, or join someone. Suggests participants at WIkimania to be involved.
2. Finalise the doc for submission to CT (holding onto the scenarios/models, but submitting recommendations and rationale)
   1. AC: Willing to work on this today, will send the link on email when done.
   2. CG: Engaged today, but can help when informed to comment
3. What will be done at the R&R meeting pre-wikimania
   1. This will be an agenda for the general call on Friday
4. Wikimania presentation to be reduced from 90 minutes to less (Anne+Zeineb)
   1. Can be further discussed at the regular call on Friday

19 July

Steering group update (insight on other wg’s recommendation - need to ensure that our work is circulated in order to stretch and provoke)

The last SG meeting was a lot about where different WGs were at the moment. AT shared the current 3 models, coming out of the f2f, and going forward to Wikimania for community consultations. Some WGs are more advanced, e.g. P&T shared by Anna, CB has some, Diversity is quite advanced, RA is meeting currently in Madrid. Many recommendations in and out of the current status quo.

It’s important that R&R draft recommendations are shared with everyone so other WGs can build recommendations together and around current thinking/scenarios. AT has been in touch with diversity. It’s important that R&R draft recommendations are shared with the other WGs. Suggestion that Chris’s presentation for the RA WG be shared with others.

Proposal: using of Chris’ presentation with other WGs Butch shares from his call with Capacity Building WG - they prefer for a repository (capacity building hub) at a local or regional level. Progress on ‘standardisation’ of our models and next steps - each of the 3

Suggestion: to wait until early next week before sending them out, particularly squirrel.

Pre-mortems (list link). Column D needs to be populated (who will send out)

June

28 June

• Anna Rees updates group on logistics, all the information is in this practical information document in the folder for the Utrecht meeting.
• Dinners: Are kept flexible, nothing pre-organized, will be paid by us and be reimbursed afterwards via the per diems,
• Printing key documents in Utrecht: Chris will make the list, Nicole takes care of the printing on site
• Idea to invite WMNL board for dinner
• Scenario:
  • From Butch
• From Bodhi

21 June

Updates on various visa status in preparation for for the face-to-face meeting.

Familiarization with recommendations before the in-person meeting. Social events require a dedicated role to organize them. Progress in the research conducted by Christian. Overlap with other WGs is to be explored, Capacity Building suggested a joint call, most of the research by RA is also relevant. Whose Knowledge suggests communities that are equitable can be included in R&R model.

21 June - Joint Call with CB

• If we want to make capacity building to be effective, we need a group of people to do long term effort on capacity building. But we are not sure whether this should be in where, maybe foundation maybe somewhere else, so we are thinking to create a unit for capacity building, does this make sense with R&R working group?
• People give us feedback that the current capacity building related content is not accessible, especially it mainly only produce in one single language, mostly English. We are thinking about to recommend language liaisons in affiliates to support the content of capacity building to get localized (or prepared for internationalization). Does this make sense or aligned with R&R’s Working group’s discussion?
• (In retrospective, I feel it’s the different side of point #3) The current 3 organizational forms does not fit all, in some countries you can’t get recognition, you can’t get fund, this hurt Capacity Building. We are thinking about to partner with other organizations to make the recognition or funding possible without the need of build a legal entity / bank account from scratch. Is there any discussion in R&R Working Group to
• We would like to know if you are touching current affiliate system, what kind of it? It does need to involve capacity building; if not, it also does need capacity building… (relate to point #2, which we set affiliate as the basic unit of language liaisons)
• Centralization & decentralization, depending on the function, there is a reason for both sides... how do you think about whether to make capacity building related roles into? A more decentralized or centralized mechanism?

7 June

Georgina's last call with the group.

F2F Meeting: RA extended an invitation to one of the R&R members to their in-person meeting, considering doing the same in R&R face-to-face meeting. Katherine Maher's attendance is not crucial in the presence of a BoT member to provide the Foundation's perspective, but communication will be arranged to check her availability to join (as she will be already in Europe at the time). The group would like to have Chsitian, their external consultant, attending the meeting.

Community Constulations: The document is super important because it shows the WG is listening to communities, as well as for pointing to blind spots.

Expanding Scenarios: The working group process document is critical in the in-person meeting (and to expand with any missing models). Need for a clear planning of the meeting. More calls to be potentially scheduled before the meeting.

May

24 May

Anna had a call with Christian (external consultant) on the structure of recommendations, and the consultant will be present for the in-person meeting. Kelsi is keen to provide helpful feedback to the WG. R&R may need to harmonize the scenarios before presenting them to the community, so that hey will be understood and read. Wikimania representatives will be Risker and Zeinab, while Chris and Erina will go to the Harmonization Sprint.

WG members are asked to provide feedback to Kaarel's recommendation format template. Some were hoping to finish the tasks 4, 5 and 6 before the F2F meeting to ensure familiarity with the models for everyone. Exploring overlap with RA.

20 May - Update

Chris, Anna, Mareigh and Claudia had a first kick-off call with Christian Koch our external expert. Minutes are here.

13 May

The team members working on tasks 4, 5, 6 and 7 have all had calls to review task details, answer questions about any aspect of process that remains unclear

• Calls have happened with: Bodhi, Chris, Kirill, Anna, Lukas, Erina, Butch, Zeineb
• Goal is for these tasks to be finished by end of May

TASK 6: Please use this template when summarizing reading.

10 May

Update on Interviews and other tasks
Anna, completed the interview with Edgar, now in the process of translating the interview from Spanish to English. Margheigh can be available to arrange a call for any Working Group member who needs clarification about alternative models created in berlin for the Working Group task sheet. The Working Group task sheet was updated with tasks assigned and Working group members selecting areas and tasks that they will be working on in the next two weeks.

Feedback from the community
Cashflow and affiliates’ autonomy on projects seems outstanding in the community conversations feedback. These expectations will need to be balanced while developing recommendations. Working Group members were invited to suggest questions and provide comments to the community for engagement. Butch is holding conversations with the Phillipines community, and also planning for Strategy Salons There’s need to filter the negative grudge against the Foundation so that constructive feedback from communities can be ensured.

April

26 April

Debrief from the meeting with Claudio

• The discussion with Claudio Ruiz, the Creative Commons Strategy lead was based on a list of questions from the Working Group members.
• The results from the Creative Commons Strategy are being implemented in the current network governance of creative commons,
• Some Wikimedians were involved in the Creative Commons Global Strategy process in areas like research.
• Claudio is happy to introduce new people and organisations to the Movement Strategy Working Group members who will be at the Creative Commons Summit in Lisbon to keep the conversations flowing.

New Working Group member applications A majority of the Working Group Members agree to have alternative ways of participation for the new members like interviews, advisory roles is - eg an interview, ‘advisory’ role…

Update on progress with external expert and Whose Knowledge The Core Team provided guidance on expert consultation, and availability of Whose Knowledge to the Working Group. Claudia will wait till early next week for Working Group members to mention reservations, if any of what should, and should not be shared (for external research).

Briefing on process & facilitation of generating tasks, subteams

• All Working Group members were advised to get familiar with the 'steps and outputs which were translated/mapped into tasks for Working Group members to form sub-teams.
• A suggestion was made to have some of the tasks answered during Strategy Saloons around June 2019.
• All Working Group members advised to add responsibilities to the digital version of the diagram started in Berlin for the various functions we have currently (at the Foundation). Specific responsibilities are shown as "post-its" under each function.
• Completed copies will be shared with other Working Groups so that they can build it further

Input from community members

• The Working Group is free to modify the scoping questions to make them clearer for the community.
• The Core Team is meant to restructure the meta pages in terms of content and visualisations
  • The Core Team will be sharing input from the community early May

Face-to-Face meeting

• Wikimedia Netherlands can provide a venue for an in-person meeting. The Working Group is waiting for a final confirmation from the Core Team to proceed with next steps.
• If a venue is to be selected outside Europe, Argentina was suggested as an option

Attendance at September Sprint The Core Team needs to clarify if it’s 2 or 4 members to represent a Working Group at the harmonisation in-person sprint in September.

12 April

Creative commons and CC summit The Working Group will look at the Creative Commons Participants’ list and highlight a mini interview for whoever goes to the Creative Commons Summit, the process for Working Group funding is on meta

Requests for expert input A document was created for members’ input about expert consultation, commissioning and next steps.

Project planning for new work packages and engagement The Working Group needs to align on a pathway with tasks, names or subteams, and deadlines, as was the case pre-Summit in Berlin. Everyone needs to be able to locate themselves within the ongoing work, seeing where their tasks fit into the big picture, and using their skills, energy and time effectively.

• One of the proposed approaches is an excel ‘gantt’ type chart, started for importing the material from the Summit presentation.

Overlap with other Working Groups and Current status quo Each liaison provided a status update from contacts with their Working Group to identify/address any overlaps.

• All Working Group members to add responsibilities to the digital version of the diagram started in Berlin to show the various functions in the Movement currently and the entities performing those functions.
  • Copies of this will be shared with other Working Groups so that they can build it further

Community conversations and making the questions to the community clearer Butch is consulting with the ESEAP community regarding the revolving models of Governance. ESEAP might have an event in June where Scoping Documents will be discussed in depth with the country community representatives and inputs will be taken into account while drafting recommendations.

• The Core Team is still working on this. Roles and Responsibilities agreed to wait until the Core Team reorganises meta pages to make scoping questions more salient.

In-person meeting A request has been sent to the Core Team regarding the next in-person meeting, all members have been asked to fill in the details on the spreadsheet. A meeting facilitator will be available in July (first weekend) for a productive meeting.

5 April

In-person meeting Roles and Responsibilities sent a request to the Core Team for an in-person meeting in July, which is still in discussion but will require solid dates and all names of participants. The potential host is Wikimedia Netherlands.

Request for expert input

• Roles and responsibilities liaison for Community Health is communicating about a joint widened conflict resolution research for both Community Health and Roles and Responsibilities Working Groups.
  • Claudia has also done outreach to a colleague.
  • Whose Knowledge has specific roles to the Working Groups, incase of additional Working Group needs, these can be documented and forwarded to the Core Team for consideration.
• Other research sources to be reviewed need to focus on decision making, resource allocation or topics in line with Roles and Responsibilities.

Review milestones for next steps The resource request milestones on the Roles and Responsibilities timeline was completed.

Creative Commons Summit The Core Team published Information about a criteria/process for Working Group event participation, including the Creative Commons summit May 9-11 in Lisbon. Some Working Group members may already be attending.

• Creative Commons has recently gone through a re-strategizing process of their affiliate system with big changes and experiences, which the Movement Strategy Process might benefit from, some of the Roles and responsibilities Working Group members were involved in the development of the Creative Commons strategy.
• Creative Commons is aware about the Movement Strategy activities and are willing to engage.

Making community conversation questions clearer The Core Team is looking at significant updates on the structure of pages on Meta including designing a process for discussion and responding to the question, not fine-tuning them (questions), this will be done when old material has been archived, questions will be translatable.

• The community Survey will go out mid-end of April.

March

21 March

Liaisons with other Working Groups

Members from Roles and Responsibilities selected Working Groups that they will liaise with to determine immediate next steps, and key questions to engage. Overlaps, and group opinions on findings will be discussed on Friday at the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin.

Working Group	liaison person/people
Partnerships	Nataliia
Revenue streams	Anna T
Capacity building	Georgina
Community health	Butch
Product & Technology	Anne
Diversity	Lukas
Advocacy
Resource allocation

Scoping community questions will be sent to the communities in a survey, if Scoping discussions from organised groups like ESEAP, happen, they can be documented, or conversations forwarded and shared with Kelsi, the community Liaisons Coordinator.

Wikimedia Summit schedule and Wikimania

Scoping documents, in English and the some other languages will be shared with all Wikimedia Summit participants in handouts and posters. All other logistical needs should be sent to the Wikimedia Summit organising team before Tuesday, external expertise for the Working Groups will be determined during and after the summit.

The design for Wikimania will depend on the outcomes and progress of the Working Groups. The Plan currently is to have the first draft of the recommendations at Wikimania to be discussed with the participants and community. Not planned to have all WG members there, but representatives from each group.

Next meeting

The next meeting would be 3rd April 3.30 CET to discuss activities post Wikimedia Summit but this date might not work for Orla for facilitation support, so a new time will have to be agreed upon.

13 March

The discussion was about call-planning process, Wikimedia summit and further reading, Scoping Feedback, Moving forward and Survey update

Call-planning process: Roles and responsibilities Working Group coordinators met with the virtual facilitator to discuss expectations; Post and pre planning meetings will be scheduled before some of the facilitated calls

• Claudia offered availability, and nominated Anna to be part of these planning meetings.
• Any other Working Group coordinators or members can join to set expectations and provide briefing to the facilitator for upcoming meetings.
• Orla suggested 1630 cet (1530 UTC) on Tuesdays, the group will be informed once the planning meeting is scheduled.
• A majority of the members preferred using Blue Jeans, and Orla will consider Zoom when there’s need.

Further reading: The Wikimedia Community engagement team has shared materials that they felt were relevant for the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group discussions

• A suggestion was made to have a reading and compiling team for a list of required reference materials that can be summarised for the group to read together.
• Margheigh and Georgina will be in charge of creating the reading list
• Lukas and Bodhisattwa, will help compiling the resources/summarizing list.

The Wikimedia Summit: Besides the Summit draft schedule on meta, there will be preparation calls scheduled by the Core Team for Working Group members who will be attending.

• The Core Team will share Scoping documents for other Working Groups to discuss overlaps, areas of working together, sharing ideas with the diversity of participants, determine the need for external expertise, research, and prepare for the analysis phase and recommendations.
• Key accomplishments from the summit will include reality checks with affiliates and organised groups, or possibilities of bringing in new members, there will be additional information on objectives and expectations that will be shared by the Core Team and Summit organising team.
• The Working Group will share occasional updates on e-mail and telegram for Erina to catch up on what’s happening at the Summit, Claudia and Chris volunteered to take lead, other Working group members can join in to send these updates.
• The Core Team will ask the groups to ensure they have a mandate to make decisions right at the summit, for example on bringing new members in, or how to synch the cross group work and questions.

Scoping Feedback and Moving forward: The current break (after scoping submission) is aimed at re-energising the groups after the hard work, and short deadlines during the scoping phase. Wikimedia Foundation legal team will be provide legal advice on scoping.

• The Core Team acknowledged the short deadline for scoping feedback which was not ideal and a challenge to most of the members, but was also meant to be a preparation step for community conversations.
• Chris took lead to have other members provide feedback in time, but other voices could take lead next time.
• The Working Group (everyone) needs to think and give thoughts about answering the scoping questions, brainstorming alternatives, and making the whole process work together. This will be an agenda for the next facilitated call.

Survey update: There were technical problems which got fixed, Anne will save survey results on the drive. If there any particular topics that Working Group members would like to have a focus, please let Anne know, as part of the topics from the survey will be shared with other Working Groups at the Wikimedia Summit.

6 March

The discussion centered on expectations from facilitation, Scoping feedback, Wikimania plans and Researching alternative models

Expectations for facilitation: Orla was introduced as a new facilitator for the group: she provided an overview of her roles to the group and requested the Working Group members to share their expectations from facilitation. Coordinators are scheduling to meet with Orla to plan future meetings.

Scoping document feedback: The Core Team first feedback was provided during the call by Kaarel. The working group can work on revisions based on this feedback, and can consider similar peer to peer reviews that might happen during the Wikimedia Summit after community feedback on the scoping questions.

• The Core Team will provide feedback in writing for proper revision and evaluation.

Wikimania Plans: Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm opened a call for movement leaders to organize different Spaces at the event. The call was shared by the Core Team to make the Working Groups aware and determine if they can contribute to the program.

• Lukas is already creating a proposal around a sustainability for Wikipedia/Wikimedia, related to the SDG theme of the conference. The Core Team and other Working Group members can share ideas about this proposal.
• The Movement Strategy Core Team will work with the Wikimania Organising Team about applying for a space at the conference for Working Groups to present the draft recommendations, gather information to inform the process, and make contact with the stakeholders or agents of stakeholders.

Researching alternative models: One of the principle design approaches for the alternative research models can be a spectrum with different options, that can be gauged for levels of change from incremental difference from what we have now to more radical change

• An idea was proposed to have an assessment for the Movement with other sample Organisations like the Red Cross, United Nations, Green peace, IOC, and others.
• Margeigh will put together a 2-3 slide example to describe this approach and Working Group members can work asynchronously to determine different models.

February

27 February

The discussion focused on these topics: New Virtual Facilitator, Scoping document, Interviews synthesis, Survey update, Re-branding situation and Activities meeting

New Virtual Facilitator: The Core Team is discussing with ICA_UK about a new facilitator for the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group.

Scoping document: Most of the work on the scoping document was completed, minor edits like appendixes, defining equity, knowledge equity, and preparing a final document to be done before sending to the Core Team by Monday 4 March.

Interviews synthesis: A summary of the synthesised themes/main topics of the interviews will be published on meta, comments will be open for posting on the talk page.

Survey update: There were more responses to the survey after the Berlin in-person meeting, the survey will be sent out to more channels before it closes on 4 March, removing duplicate responses and other formatting will be done before the final results are shared.

Re-branding situation: The Core Team had made the Wikimedia Communications and re-branding team aware about the work and discussions of the Working Groups, including Roles and Responsibilities, they will be invited to one of the future meetings to talk about the re-branding message.

Activities meeting: Erina was requested by the Core Team to represent the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group on the progress with the interviews, survey, and scoping in Berlin, at the Wikimedia monthly activities meeting. It was late to inform the Working Group on the mailing list, so communication was made with Erina directly.

20 February

The meeting focused on Working Group meeting coordination and Scoping questions for community conversations

Working Group meetings: Most of the Working Group members can attend the calls, but there’s need to have alternating times for everyone to attend the meeting at least every two weeks. Before the Summit, weekly calls will be held, which will change to bi-weekly after the Wikimedia Summit.

• The Core Team will set up a doodle and ask Working Group members for their preferred option for the platform, and ask for agreement if the calls (or at least the summaries) can be recorded for people who have not been in the call to catch up quickly.

Telegram Chat Coordination: A telegram channel is considered helpful in coordination of immediate concerns, and spontaneous actions and has been created during the call.

• The mailing list will remain the primary channel for communication
• The Telegram group can be joined via a link that was shared

Scoping questions for community conversations: The scoping questions were created during the in-person meeting, and they need to be put together in the scoping document to confirm the wording as part of a final review from the Working Group members.

• The process for sharing all of the 3 questions from the 9 Working groups (27 questions in total) will involve community conversations (which are being designed) that will be shared via different platforms like Meta, Strategy Liaisons will take the questions to their respective communities using the 9 language community channels, surveys, and volunteers. (The answers will come back to the Working Groups).
• There were some questions meant to be answered by other Working Groups like Community Health, while others are to be answered during the community conversation.
• Members will provide comments on which external expertise can be brought in during the scoping, and have a discussion in the next call to make progress on this.
• An outline of guiding questions for scoping was provided by the Core Team.
• Anna Torres shared that IberoConf participants created a letter, available in English, with questions regarding the affiliates model and WMF relations, and would like to discuss it in the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group in one of the next meetings.
  • The letter will be sent to the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group mailing list.
• It would be helpful to see the questions from the other groups to determine if the terminology is the same before they are published, but at the same time to avoid disruption.

6 February

Meeting largely focused on preparations for in-person meeting in Berlin

• Inventory Survey - in progress, emails are now being sent.
• Interviews/Synthesis - some interviews still happening, but largely complete. Agreed to wait for synthesis process for face-to-face meeting. Transcriptions should start to be available by end of this week.

January

30 January

• Interviews c.20 interviews conducted, with several more scheduled. Discussion of transcription methods and hoped to resolve this promptly. MN has begun work on a workspace for synthesis of interviews, will aim to set this up before next meeting.
• Inventory Survey In hand and should be sent in next week or so.
• In person meeting Discussed logistics and agenda for in-person meeting, including facilitation and link with other Working Groups and WMF Legal. A draft programme had been produced by AL (probably facilitator) and received comments from WG members.
• Core Team support Discussion of core team support available for Working Groups.

23 January

• Interviews 13 interviews conducted with c~9 more scheduled or agreed in principle. These should largely be complete by c.30 Jan but some will continue in the subsequent week. Some progress on transcription of interviews but unclear that transcripts would be available from 30 Jan. Discussed process for synthesis of interviews. Agreed to kick this off in advance of the in-person meeting - MN will aim to set up process which WG members can feed into asynchronously. Synthesis to then be further developed at in-person meeting and subsequently published on Meta (after in-person meeting)
• In person meeting Discussion of structuring in-person meeting with Anne Lukens (facilitator). Unclear who would be actually present to facilitate the meeting but developed thoughts around priorities for the meeting. Key priorities include team-building among the WG, developing synthesis document and clarifying vision of future steps.

16 January

• Interviews So far we have conducted 8 interviews with stakeholders to form a 'map' of governance/structural issues in the movement. Interviews are being conducted with members of the WG and others with relevant and diverse perspectives. 6 people (5 WG members plus one from Core Team) are now able to conduct/help with these interviews. 9 more interviews are agreed (either scheduled or awaiting dates). We discussed who else to approach to ensure a broad range of views. Discussion of options for transcription. Interviews should mainly conclude by 30 Jan to enable synthesis to start.
• Survey Questions for the inventory survey are finalised, but need to confirm some technical issues (e.g. data protection policy)
• Working with other groups As discussed last week, we emailed other Working Groups with a summary of our approach and request for input on where they feel existing movement structures are either effective or ineffective in supporting the groups' work.
• Face to Face meeting in Berlin Discussion of facilitation options for the meeting as requested by Core Team. We felt that external facilitation would be valuable so long as we could brief the facilitators about the process we have followed to date and work with them to define an approach to the meeting. One agenda item for the meeting will be to discuss and explore the process proposed by Margeigh based on "Farsighted" to ensure a common understanding and buy-in.

9 January

• Interviews - 4 conducted so far, several more scheduled. Agreed to conduct as many as possible before end Jan with focus on capturing a wide range of viewpoints. Discussed logistics to make these happen & options for transcription.
• Survey - planning to send survey to gather an inventory of movement organisations in next 2 weeks.
• Working with other groups - reviewed draft note inviting input from other WGs and describing work plan, agreed to send.

2 January

• Evidence gathering: MN and CK had conducted a test interview, in process of arranging another. Agreed interview pairs for some of those in the call. All to confirm their availability for interviews (c.50% of working group had indicated availability). Core Team have undertaken to transcribe interviews. All to review the survey framework that MC and AC had created.
• Definitions - mentioned some lack of clarity around key terms, e.g. "equity" - MN to link up with other groups looking at codifying definitions so there is coherency across the strategy process.
• Working with other groups - proposed to contact other WGs to encourage them to consider structural issues when they arise in their work (not wait for us), and to invite input. CK to draft note, to be followed up with personal conversations
• Agenda for F2F meeting - a template document was circulated, all to consider options for how to structure the discussion.

2018

December

19 December

• Logistics -Chris and Butch to attend Wikimedia Summit as WG reps.
• Evidence Gathering - Margeigh arranging test interview. All to confirm availability for interviews. Action points re following up transcription/translation options.
• Process going forward: Reviewed documents from the Core Team. Scoping to conclude by Feb 2019, then begin analysis/brainstorming of options.

12 December

• Logistics. Date for in-person meeting now confirmed - WG members to provide travel details to WMF. Need to select Wikimedia Summit participants urgently - Margeigh to circulate a poll for voting on the 3 people willing/able to attend who are not already participating in other capacities. Future meetings: Agreed to hold calls on 19 Dec and 2 Jan as scheduled meeting for 26 Dec would not be feasible.
• Evidence Gathering - Margeigh has developed an interview script with feedback from Chris (see 28 Nov minutes for further details of the goals of this). We will hold one or two test interviews to validate the script, then roll out interviews between WG members in the next few weeks. The script, and a summary of the issues raised, will be posted on Meta and this may be an appropriate point to ask for broader community input.
• Process going forward Margeigh recommended a process based on that outlined in "Farsighted" by Steven Johnson. WG members to review Margeigh's presentation of this and read up on [1] [2] about this process.

November

28 November

• Logistics. Core team have closed the scheduling poll regarding the in-person meeting but no final decision has been made. Still no decision on who will attend Wikimedia Summit, all WG members to confirm their availability (or if they are going wearing a different hat)
• Scoping / Evidence Gathering. Almost all members have completed the question-prioritisation exercise. The highest-priority questions to answer are:
  • What is problematic about the current structures, and for whom are they problematic?
  • What challenges is the movement facing within current structures that has led to reconsideration of the current state?
  • How can the WMF's governance structures be improved?

Next steps will focus on creating a shared understanding of these questions.

• Margeigh circulated a plan for conducting depth interviews within the Working Group to get frank, in-depth input from the group to develop a map of the issues to be addressed, which could later be supplemented from other sources. This was agreed. Margeigh to draft interview guide for discussion at the next meeting, with the intention that the depth interviews happen during December.
• Anne circulated a proposal to survey existing movement entities to get more details about the nature of their work and governance. There is presently no one place this is all documented and in some cases there is no documentation at all. All to review the proposal before the next meeting.

20 November

Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Process - slide deck for the framing call from Katherine Maher to the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group on the 20th of November 2018

Additional call with Katherine Maher (WMF ED). Katherine gave a presentation with her perspective on the role of the working group, particularly highlighting the need to look at the project through the frames of: intentional vs. organic development; institutional vs. community needs; independence vs. interdependence; node vs. network. Katherine also proposed couple of framing questions: "Do we need a Wikimedia Foundation?", "What is the next big change in affiliate model?" and "Maybe we want to have a governance body for the whole movement?". The framing presentation was followed by a discussion, where Working Group members shared their thoughts with and asked questions from Katherine.

14 November

• Logistics. Now proposed to hold the in-person meeting alongside Resource Allocation and Revenue Streams to ensure joined-up working between these groups. Meeting still to be held in Berlin in Jan/Feb. WG members to fill in scheduling poll. Decision needed on who will attend Wikimedia Summit - but this can wait until the in-person meeting date is confirmed (the in-person meeting should take priority over the Summit where possible).
• Scoping.
  • Anne and Anna have taken input from the scoping document and refined it into a spreadsheet with a number of questions for prioritisation. All WG members to review and mark their priorities for us to review prior to next call
  • Some questions have already received many 'top priority' marks and can be progressed before the next call. Chris and Margeigh to look into ways of gathering broad input into perceptions of strengths and weaknesses of existing movement governance/affiliation model. Anne to build out documentation of the existing WMF governance structure.
• Participation Noted there was a high level of participation overall with almost all WG members giving input into calls and/or documents. Referred to Core Team to confirm onboarding arrangements for new members and address expectations about any longstanding members who have not yet contributed.

October

31 October

(previous meetings have focused on onboarding and diversification of the group)

• Diversification: A total of 5 people have joined the Working group, including people from Africa, South Asia and East Asia.
• Logistics: Agreed to hold an in-person meeting over one weekend in January, in Berlin (easy access to hosting/facilitation, inside Schengen zone so reasonably convenient for visas for people also attending e.g. Wikimedia Summit). We also reviewed timings for regular calls, which will need to be updated to accommodate a WG member in Singapore.
• Scoping: We have created a timeline for orientation/scoping purposes to help answer 'How did we get to the current roles and responsibilities?'. The group has also been working on a scoping brainstorm document for all members to list their questions that might need to be included in our scope. We also have a matrix of existing roles and responsibilities to help us understand the status quo, and identify areas where responsibilities are presently unclear. Action All WG members to add their input to the scoping document and look at/add to/challenge the matrix, by Tuesday 6 Nov. Anne and Anna will then work to consolidate before the next meeting.