Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/mapping/Purpose
Section 2: Purpose / Problem Statements
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Over the past 24 years, the Wikimedia communities have created globally successful and relevant platforms for advancing free and accessible knowledge. With this success and global reach comes greater responsibility requiring more alignment, collaboration, and clear accountability. Emerging external trends, such as the development of artificial intelligence and a changing regulatory environment, make it even more urgent for the Wikimedia movement to become more efficient and impactful in its governance and structure of accountability.
A movement charter could help address some of these needs and challenges by:
- Ensuring alignment around a common purpose
- Providing stakeholders with clear roles and responsibilities
- Advancing the movement with clear decision-making
A movement charter could also help the movement address key problems, particularly when framed around the question, “What does the world need from all of us, now?” Some key problems a charter can help solve include:
- Roles and responsibilities within our movement. There are often not clear roles and responsibilities between the different movement stakeholders. What is the ideal relationship between projects, movement organisations, and the Foundation? What would those roles and responsibilities look like, and how would they provide clarity on decision-making?
- What is needed by the movement ecosystem. How do we make collective decisions about how to focus resources on key priorities, clarifying what we will do and won’t do? How are the different movement entities held accountable to each other? How are different members of the ecosystem building communities and increasing editors, readership, and expanding engagement?
- Movement governance. How can current governance structures be reconfigured or reimagined to help address issues around movement governance? Can a movement charter help to clarify the processes by which volunteer leadership positions are recruited and selected throughout the movement?