Notes from the WM Summit - Offline-l

28 Apr 2024

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.

Notes from the WM Summit
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024#Final_Outputs_of_the_Wikimedia_Summit_2024>
compiled
by the hosts.
Photos from the event
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Summit_2024>

*Charter thoughts*

I found aspects of the current charter draft to be arbitrary and too
operational
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#In_flux,_incomplete,_tries_to_do_too_many_things_at_once>,
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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter>.

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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sj/Design_chats/Charter/en> 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