Dearly offline,
The Wikimedia Summit was last weekend in Berlin, which I attended on behalf of WOW. It focused entirely on the idea of a Charter for our movement and setting up a representative Council that could make global decisions independently of the WMF.
I found aspects of the current charter draft to be
arbitrary and too operational, creating a large body without clarity about what it would do, with little connection to the work of editors on the projects, and with hard-to-change founding documents.
The main focus of the Berlin discussions was to identify changes that attendees felt had to be made to the charter, for it to work. Answers to questions posed ['what do you see as deal-breakers to approving a charter? / how would you improve the current text?"] were workshopped over two days in groups. Then there was a final filtering into 46 condensed suggestions that those in attendance voted on, and this filter removed some important points of feedback. Given how the whole progressed, it would have benefited from input from a broader group [at least sharing regular photos back with our groups? I would try this next time] and from having already responded to the most common feedback given on the charter
talk page.
I don't feel the conclusion of the process worked. Some of the condensed statements were underspecified, overcomplicated, or costly for little benefit. Some common points -- for instance, that the charter had to be simpler; or that a supermajority should be needed for ratification -- were filtered out entirely. Only one proposal even mentioned unaffiliated editors + groups, and translated that concept as 'unorganized volunteers' which, considering the wealth and depth of on-wiki organization, is not accurate at all. The emotional build-up to the vote, and the presentation of proposals in isolation, as though there were no tradeoffs involved, contributed to every proposal getting majority support.
As an alternate example of how we could make progress in global governance, I drafted a
minimalist charter that captures tasks I heard people expect such a body to do, and would stay flexible while we try to actually address those tasks in the coming year. This is a wiki document: if the idea appeals, please edit it.
The drafting committee's plan is unchanged: to revise the charter draft once more, then hold a movement-wide vote to ratify it in June. The ratification would include a vote of affiliates (one vote per affiliate?), and a simultaneous vote of all editors (one vote per person).
Other movement thoughts
Many recurring topics at the Summit seemed healthy: WMDE was adamant about helping others learn to manage movement-governance events like the Summit, and about not hosting themselves in two years' time. The spirit of peer support and mentorship was very strong.
And some recurring topics felt unhealthy: mainly a sense of dependency. Some affiliates said they felt they could not do anything without WMF approval and grants, but did not want to feel any obligation to learn how to develop independent support and partnerships. Some committee members felt they could only function with WMF-assigned staff and substantial budgets, based on a bureaucratic model of governance that has not worked well for us.
WOW interest
There was much interest in offline wikis among other attendees, and people who said they would reach out in the coming weeks. We might think about running an online workshop on getting started with offline wikis, before Wikimania. Jan Ainali interviewed me and others about our groups, for a podcast series; I will let you know when it comes out.
— SJ