Dear colleagues,
This is
1 to introduce a reworked concept for Wiki-Smart Humanity ([[m:WISH]], https://w.wiki/QGD ) project page
2 to update you on the groundwork in Tatarstan and around Russia for growing local and regional public support for Wikimedia community projects, as well as discussions about funding Outreach and other local activities (since my previous report back in early April https://w.wiki/MFm )
3 to inform you of the upcoming pilot regional procurement tender initiated by one of our partners as the easiest way for them to incentivize multilingual article creation and improvement regarding important regional phenomena of Tatarstan.
Below you will find detailed description of for each point above. Comments would be greatly appreciated.
regards,
farhad
P.S. I am in an uncharted territory, so very grateful to all Russia and international colleagues that help me with listening, advice and ideas. Tatar is a non-dominant language community, though in a much better shape than many others around the world - this opens my eyes to the reality that long-term preservation of currently living human languages (over 7000) and their inherent riches of cultural knowledge would require significantly more effort, funding and attention than needed to have enWP, ruWP, trWP and all others in official state languages of UN member countries (about 50) to describe everything that's currently missing. We are talking about amounts that no fundraising will ever bring - something that can only be achieved by staying true to the powerful Wikimedia Vision and aspiring to win the hearts of our existing and potential volunteers for them to be ready and willing to help us with something much more precious than money.
--
Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
1) [[m:WISH]] (https://w.wiki/QGD) is community-supported (myself so far) undertaking to collect and chart initiatives that bring us closer to Wikimedia vision:
- various initiatives that help making all forms, types and categories of knowledge equally well described in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, - as well as those that help make everyone a Wikimedian.
No individual or even a group can give equal attention and priority to everything in the world, but we can chart initiatives that help us to move towards the world where things are more equal. This started as a Meta-page for the project around regions, languages, and different topic-specific initiatives I started in Wikimedia Russia wiki, but Meta offered a great chance to bring together similar initiatives that exist elsewhere.
2) I am in Kazan (Republic of Tatarstan / Russian Federation), so that's where I start with regarding the Russia-regions' specific part of m:WISH - https://w.wiki/WDk My first priority is to make editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects something widely respected, so I'm working with institutional partners.
Locally I am still in touch with or contacted since last update:
* Tatarstan Presidential Administration (description https://w.wiki/WDz )
* Municipality of Kazan (description https://w.wiki/MFH / stats by Wikimedia projects https://w.wiki/JZh in Russian)
* Tatarstan Tourism board (description https://w.wiki/WDD / lists https://w.wiki/WDC )
* Tatarstan Investment Promotion Agency (description https://w.wiki/MFL / articles for creation list https://w.wiki/PSU ) and
* Tatarstan Ministry for Culture (proposal in Russian https://w.wiki/R7g)
Russia's Wikimedians helped me in reaching out to Moscow Trade and Industry Chamber Committee on cross-regional and international cooperation, as well as National Tourism Union - I spoke about Wikimedia opportunities for growing international awareness about regional realities (https://w.wiki/Qht in Russian) at their joint Online meeting on "Tourism post COVID-19" https://mostpp.ru/guilds_news/budet-li-turizm-posle-covid-eksperty-obsudili… - very much interested to see how Tatarstan project will evolve to learn and copy
3) We've advanced most with Tatarstan Investment Development Agency (TIDA)
WHY:
TIDA has English-speaking staff with global exposure (came across Wikipedia before), the head of the Agency has an MBA from UK, and she happens to know and trust me with interpreting various important events for over 10 years.
PARTNERSHIP:
* March 19 in-person meeting https://w.wiki/WEP to present the idea https://w.wiki/MFL
* Issues discussed
- developing articles for creation lists and Wikidata element creation for them first in agency specialization area, then to cover all phenomena of importance in Tatarstan
- 3+8 target languages for TIDA
- presentations, training session to staff and various stakeholders and WiR-type ongoing consulting
- ways to prepare the ground to have targeted Tatarstan Presidential or Government grants to local Wikimedia community, to avoid Wikimedian-in-Residence positions (complicated for TIDA and other agencies) and otherwise available procurement tenders (perceived low efficiency due to too much red tape and legal complexity vs. Wikipedia's strict policy compliance requirements for content)
* current Wikidata based multilingual (3+8) priority articles for creation list https://w.wiki/PSU
WHERE WE ARE:
TIDA will be announcing a pilot public procurement tender for multilingual Wikipedia content creation (at this stage Tatar, Russian, possibly allow for English) any day now. It's expected to be organized at Tatarstan public procurement entity's https://goszakupki.tatarstan.ru/eng/ (CC-BY 4.0) dedicated procurement portal http://portal-zakupok.tatar in line with Russian Federation Public Procurement Law (FZ 44). It's expected to amount for RUB 1 million (USD13900) & open to bidding for by any legal entity or private proprietor that would like to apply.
References:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_procurement_in_Russia
* Full text of Federal Law 44 Inofficial English translation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Antimonopoly_Service portal - https://en.fas.gov.ru/netcat_files/File/44-FZ%20eng.pdf
HOW DID WE GET THERE:
1 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_Map_November_2019_Huge.png - we need to get whole of the map bright and info available in all languages.
2 TIDA is interested to help with Tatarstan, would like to advance with small trial steps, being guided by those with experience and readiness to help them. They are capable and comfortable to organize a procurement contract first, meanwhile observing how others work on topics in the area they feel comfortable with
3 I am keeping Wikimedia Russia informed of all my contacts and progress, so during April 2 Online Meeting https://w.wiki/LsZ WMRU director Vladimir Medeyko https://w.wiki/WFi stated that our partnership or its individual experienced members should take part in TIDA-originated and other similar regional procurement procedures
4 Once TIDA got the approval to initiate procurement (approvals by Tatarstan Ministry of Finance, then Prime Minister, then President of the Republic, May 29, communicate to [wikimedia-ru] Russian-language list https://w.wiki/W7q & English-language Telegram group https://t.me/WikimediaGeneral/15582 ), I inquired with Wikimedia Russia colleagues and identified three respected editors from Russian Wikipedia (that have extensive experience with Paid editing and disclosing COI), who then agreed with my request to take part in the upcoming bidding procedure & provide a detailed response to preliminary request by TIDA:
* Anna Biryukova - https://w.wiki/WEZ
* Dmitry Erokhin - https://w.wiki/WEa
* Dmitry Rozhkov - https://w.wiki/WEb
OVERSIGHT
I was unable to identify previous Wikimedia experience (and thus templates) for large scale cross-project and multilanguage declaration of Paid Editing & disclosure of possible Conflicts of Interest, as well as providing for Community Oversight of such projects, so I'm trying my best to keep the caravan moving whilst assuring everybody is informed and feels in control.
TIDA and others agreed with my request that:
1 / Project is advancing stage-by-stage (first only Russian and Tatar, possibly some English)
2 / We do things publicly, including open statements on mandatory compliance with sourcing and other Wikipedia quality standards in the tendering procedure
3 / I keep Russia & International Wikimedia Community informed at all stages
4 / When preparing tender documentation, TIDA analyses links to specific policies that I provided them with in the project description, experienced Wikipedia editors' comments and other available experience
5 / I don't take part in either preparation or the tendering process to avoid COI as both initiator and an acquaintance of various parties, and my role of impartial communicator (3),
6 / As an interested party (citizen of Kazan, Tatarstan & Russia, as well as project initiator who wants to see this experience then scale globally), I am ready and willing to consult all parties, and open to engaging at the later stages (article analysis, improvement, translation, Wikidata Elements or Commons categorization etc.)
MOVING FORWARD
* I was informed that Russian Government Procurement Law does NOT allow setting too stringent qualifications for bidding participants, so the process will only set content qualification criteria. Keeping in mind how these can be interpreted by those without any prior Wikipedia experience (let's assume some copyrighting or PR company is willing to bid), I asked our partner to be ready that they might end up with a contractor who is unable to prepare content in line with target language Wikipedia communities' policies, practices and other expectations. TIDA seems to understand this and is willing to mitigate this possible outcome by breaking the process into stages, for necessary improvements to be done at later stages. I also calmed them down that whoever wins the bidding is better be ready to play well, as this case will most likely end up at the radar of Russia's and international Mass media, might be investigated and then forever described in Wikipedia.
* I will post the link to this on English-speaking Facebook groups and Telegram channels of Wikimedia movement
* I will inform respective Wikipedia language section's Village pumps once procurement contract details are out (Russian and Tatar for certain, possibly English).
* Meanwhile, I start hearing similar interest from Tatarstan's Tourism Board (to be continued)
-------- Пересылаемое сообщение --------
30.05.2020, 15:26, "Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin" <frhd(a)yandex.com>:
Dear Richard and WREN colleagues,
I have good news to share and a request for comment - one of my counterparts in Tatarstan receiving regional department of finance approval for funding Wikipedia related services via tendering state procurement contract in line with Russian regulations.
Details below, grateful for any advice.
regards,
farhad
--
Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/ Тел.+79274158066 / skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
We will start with them by making sure that https://w.wiki/SBF list entries (plus a few more Wikidata entities to be created) are equally well developed and sourced in Tatar, Russian and English, after which the intent is to venture into other domains (images, data, etc.) and 8 more languages of initial interest to them.
I'm now thinking on how to structure all this in a way that our first engagement with the regional government entity is seen as a mutual success, as this is an important step to get backing of Tatarstan President necessary to have local GLAMs and Education entities more willing to consider cooperation with Wikimedia.
In parallel, we are discussing a WiR position for training their staff, organizing events for their local and foreign partners, and moving their investments portal to CC-BY.
I seem to be the only experienced local Wikimedian to be both active internationally and proficient in regional language (Tatar), so I am still undecided if I should concentrate on getting local partners happy or, instead of doing the raw writing and sourcing work they are ready to pay for, I better concentrate on making sure global Wikimedia community is comfortable with this activity. I understand that myself and other Wikimedia Russia members serving as eyes to assure material meets Wikipedia and wider Wikimedia principles and policies would be good, with international oversight from outside of Russia likely being an important component as well.
On top of this, I am also talking to Tourism, Youth Affairs and Culture departments, as well as Office of the President for their Tatar language related initiatives, was recently invited to join an Advisory Committee on Preservation and Development of Tatar language.
-------- Конец пересылаемого сообщения --------
Given the large reserves that the WMF carries, and the savings from
cancelling events such as Wikimania 2020, I would have thought that the WMF
was one organisation that could afford to pause its fundraising for a few
months. At least in countries where the economy is in freefall.
In a few months time lots of people will still be in a financial mess. But
the large number of people who are currently going to be worried about
their financial future will hopefully be divided into those who have kept
their jobs. or got new ones and those who were right to be worried.
Hopefully some of those who come through this financially OK will be in a
position to donate.
WSC
On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 11:25, <wikimedia-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
> wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Annoying ads (John Erling Blad)
> 2. Re: Annoying ads (Benjamin Ikuta)
> 3. Re: Annoying ads (Robert Fernandez)
> 4. Re: Annoying ads (Pierre-Yves Beaudouin)
> 5. Re: Annoying ads (Nick Wilson (Quiddity))
> 6. Re: Annoying ads (Samuel Klein)
> 7. Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta)
> 8. Re: Annoying ads (Paulo Santos Perneta)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 4 May 2020 16:55:50 +0200
> From: John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Annoying ads
> Message-ID:
> <CAJcMX2=
> 5GgwUNkrfG6EjJsn6sB1rBF1H_FnyPhPd_Wjr5otu0A(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Often I surf Wikipedia without being logged in, and so I did right now. I
> got the usual banners, but this time they popped up repeatedly in several
> locations. This quickly gets extremely annoying, and I find it unwise.
> Create one banner, and stick with that. Several banners are simply way over
> the top.
>
> /jeblad
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *****************************
>
Hello, all.
I am Maggie Dennis, Vice President of Community Resilience &
Sustainability, working directly under the General Counsel of the Wikimedia
Foundation.[1] I've served in various roles at the Foundation over the past
9 years, always in and about the Trust & Safety team. I'm also a volunteer
— Moonriddengirl — editing mostly on the English Wikipedia (though much
less than in the past).
Back in June, we held the first of a series of quarterly office hours which
were intended to provide a space for folks to talk to me directly about
issues involving "community resilience and sustainability", which includes
the Trust & Safety team's activity as well as initiatives such as the
Universal Code of Conduct and the Human Rights role for which we’re
currently hiring. You can read the notes from the previous call here!
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2020-06-04>
[2]
As with last time, in order to meet the request of some to make these
meetings more personal, we're going to again host the meeting on Zoom,
taking questions from the Zoom chat, Telegram, and IRC, as well as
collecting them in advance over email.[3] The meeting will also be streamed
to YouTube, since we will only be able to host a limited number of people
in the Zoom itself, and this recording will be available to watch after
we're done.
As with last time around, finding one hour that works for everyone is going
to be really difficult, though we will once again be taking detailed
(anonymized) notes from the call which we'll be posting onto Meta-Wiki.
I'll be fielding questions from Wikimedians in good standing (that is, not
Foundation or community banned), and will follow up with anything asked
during or prior to the meeting that I can't get to during the meeting in
writing after the call.
The caveats from before remain in place, which I will repeat for
convenience:
-
I can't and won't discuss specific Trust & Safety cases. Instead, I can
discuss Trust & Safety protocols and practices and approaches as well as
some of the mistakes we've made, some of the things I'm proud of, and some
of the things we're hoping to do.
-
I will not respond to comments or questions that are disrespectful to
me, to my colleagues, or to anyone in our communities. I can talk civilly
about our work even if you disagree with me or I disagree with you. I won't
compromise on this.
I'm still not sure if Zoom is a permanent solution for these office hours,
though it has in the past been a good option to provide both text and audio
options for those who are interested in contributing. It's also software
that the Foundation's IT folks are familiar with and can help with in a
pinch should we run into any turbulence. :)
We don't yet have direct links set up for the call — those will be provided
when they are available. If you want the link to get in, please ask for it
at answers(a)wikimedia.org, at least an hour in advance of the meeting's
start (please use "Trust & Safety" as the subject line - it’s quicker and
easier to remember than Community Resilience & Sustainability). The link
will be sent out via email during the hour before the meeting.
The meeting will be on October 15 at 18:00 UTC — here's a timezone
converter to work out when that is for you:
https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1602784823
I hope to see you there.
Best,
Maggie
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mdennis_(WMF)
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2020-06-04
[3] Zoom link forthcoming; Telegram link:
https://t.me/joinchat/DOlGIB1FRLUWqW9iB3qfTQ;
directions for participating in IRC:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#How_to_participate; email
questions to answers(a)wikimedia.org with "Trust & Safety" in the subject line
--
Maggie Dennis
Vice President, Community Resilience & Sustainability
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Dear all,
I am writing to share some good news! After two years of brainstorming and
planning, our instructional website in Arabic is out! This is yet another
step for Wikimedia Israel in developing instructional tools.
We’re thrilled to introduce Wiki Warsha ويكي ورشة <http://wikiwarsha.org/>!
Wikiwarsha.org <http://wikiwarsha.org/> is a multimedia instructional
website designed to introduce Wikipedia to Arabic readers, to invite new
editors to write and edit content on Arabic Wikipedia, to assist teachers
in school activities, and instructors in editing workshops.
Warsha is the Arabic word for ‘workshop’, the website includes short
instructional films, texts and images and is divided into 13 informative
and instructional lessons:
-
Wikipedia homepage structure
-
About Wikipedia articles
-
Create account
-
Sign in to a registered account
-
Create a userpage
-
Create a new article
-
Edit an article
-
Formatting the article
-
Request edits approval on Arabic Wikipedia
-
Adding image
-
Adding internal and external links
-
Adding references
-
Adding categories
In addition to those lessons, the website contains informative sections
about copyright issues, FAQs, good article criteria, and talk pages, all in
order to facilitate understanding how Wikipedia communities function.
For further details and info:
warsha(a)wikimedia.org.il
Michal Lester
Bekriah Mawasi [[user: bks-WMIL]]
Michal Lester
Executive Director
Wikimedia Israel
Dear all,
We’re really happy to announce the second edition of the Coolest Tool Award
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award>!
Tools play an essential role at Wikimedia, and so do the many volunteer
developers who experiment with new ideas, develop & maintain local & global
solutions and enhance the experience for Wikimedia communities.
There are incredible many great tools out there. It’s time to celebrate
this & to make the great work volunteer developers do more visible to
everyone :-)
The Coolest Tool Award ceremony will take place virtually this year, given
the current circumstances around events and travel. We will provide more
details soon about the specific logistics and dates.
The award is organized & selected by the *Coolest Tool Academy 2020*
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award#Coolest_Tool_Award_2020>.
We plan to recognize the greatest tools in a variety of categories, for
examples you can look at last year’s categories
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award/2019>.
As no one can possibly know all the cool tools out there, we’re looking for
some help & inspiration: Please point us to the tools that you think are
great - out of any reason you can think of!
Please use this form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5ZmXXamn9sRsagEiiZcUZDn1Ga0sF3Xm…
to recommend tools *by October 14, 2020*. You can nominate as many tools as
you want by filling out the form multiple times.
This survey will be conducted via a third-party service, which may subject
it to additional terms. For more information on privacy and data-handling,
see the survey privacy statement:
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award_2020_Survey_Privac…
Thank you very much for your ideas & recommendation(s)!
We will continue to spread the word over the next 1-2 days, but if you get
the chance, please feel welcome to share this information with others too!
Thanks :-)
Joaquin, for the Coolest Tool Academy 2020
--
Joaquin Oltra Hernandez
Developer Advocate - Wikimedia Foundation
Hi everyone,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, following the recommendation of
staff, has resolved to pause the Movement Brand Project until the next
calendar year.[1] We recognize that much of the Wikimedia movement’s
activities, events, and key collaborations have been put on hold or
restructured due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have received formal
requests to pause Movement Brand Project activities to reflect this
need.[2]
The Board remains persuaded that there is potential value in making change
to our branding system in service of our goals of engaging more people in
our mission. However, we also know that change moves at the speed of trust.
We have asked staff to meaningfully engage with community concerns and
address the request for equitable decision-making within the process. We
also ask members of the community to use this pause to consider how equity
may ask us to let go of some aspects of our past, in order to create space
for what could be. Making these decisions together, with so many passionate
perspectives, will be challenging, but building this capacity is essential
for how we grow together as a thriving global movement.
In the meantime, we will establish a small ad-hoc Board committee to liaise
with staff, and develop a process of collaboration and decision-making
appropriate for the Movement’s brand. This committee will constitute
Trustees James Heilman, Raju Narisetti, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov. We
hope and intend for this committee to include a small number of community
representatives from affiliates, open letter signatories, and emerging
communities, and Foundation staff to be designated by the Executive
Director. We’ll update you with more details on the committee soon.
In 2021, using insights and recommendations gleaned through the ad-hoc
committee, the Brand Project team will restart collaboration and
communicate next steps accordingly. This resolution was ratified on
September 24, 2020.
Kind regards,
María Sefidari
[1]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Pause_of_Brand_Development…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_open_letter_on_renaming
--
María Sefidari Huici
Chair of the Board
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi everyone,
(Apologies for cross-posting.)
As part of the upcoming celebrations surrounding Wikipedia's 20th
birthday[1], the Wikimedia Foundation is publishing a short optional
survey[2] that will help us understand the needs of people who would like
to host a birthday event. The survey is expected to take three to five
minutes to fill in and will remain open until 23:59 UTC on Wednesday, 30
September 2020.
Before taking the survey, please review the privacy statement policy[3].
We would also like to announce that the Foundation will be supporting
Wikipedia 20 anniversary celebration events through multiple grant programs:
* Rapid Grants[4] to support celebration events up to 2000 USD.
* Additional funding for Conference & Events grantees (e.g. for a regional
or thematic conference) who wish to incorporate a celebration event to an
existing conference.
* Conference & Event Grants[5] to support celebration events for more than
2000 USD.*
*Round one applications for conference & event grants [5] is now open until
28 September 2020.
On behalf of the Wikipedia 20 team, Samir Elsharbaty
[1] Wikipedia 20 meta page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20
[2] Survey link: https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4GyxYcdRSSM5M8J
[3] Privacy statement:
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_20_Community_Feedback_Surve…
[4] Rapid grants page on meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid
[5] Conference grants page on meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Conference
Samir Elsharbaty (he/him)
Brand Associate
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Dear all,
I would like to share with you some updates on Wikimedia Foundation Board
governance, concerning board composition, annual planning, and more.
The past few weeks and months have been difficult for many of us as
COVID-19 changes our schedules and lives, but we are being really true to
the vision of “the world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge”—on the whole the visits to Wikimedia projects
have increased by more than 30% over the past month. It is impressive that
the volunteer communities continue to produce the information that informs
everyone through graphs and data seen by millions and careful synthesis of
the medical and administrative facts. Wikimedia volunteers’ work is present
in top stories on the novel coronavirus. We volunteers do this despite the
need to tend to home chores, take care of kids and the elderly, probably
feeling depressed or fearing for our jobs, economy, health and the lives of
relatives and friends all over the world.
In these circumstances, it may seem odd to be hearing about board
governance updates, but those are still important, for the long-term
thriving of our movement. I joined the Board because I wanted to explore
ways of improving understanding between the Foundation and the communities,
and to help the trustees provide what was needed to our communities. No
Board will ever do this perfectly, and I know, as do we all, that there
have been occasions in the long years of the movement on which the Board
had not supported the Foundation and communities in the ways we all hoped
and needed. We as Board members want to play our part in building a
Wikimedia that will sustain our mission far into the future. Please forgive
the length of this message—it is a lot of things to share in one letter.
== Designing a better Board for Wikimedia ==
One of the most significant initiatives the Board worked on collectively
over the last year was to run an official Board governance review. In large
part this review was a response to direct requests for clarification from
the community over several years. I will explain a few of the
recommendations that came from this review, and the changes we are making
based on these recommendations.
In early 2019, the Foundation Board Chair and Executive Director
commissioned Board Veritas (named Taylor Strategic Partnerships at the
time) to review how the Board might more effectively support the goals of
the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement. Board Veritas was
chosen because of their expertise in the governance of U.S. nonprofits with
global operations and internationally diverse boards, as well as their
background in developing strategic comparisons with other not-for-profit
boards.
The resulting recommendations [1] centered on increasing the Board’s
effectiveness in fulfilling its governance responsibilities, including
improving the process for selecting Board members; developing greater
clarity around Board roles, responsibilities and accountabilities; better
leveraging the talents and skills of trustees in service to the
Foundation’s mission and strategic goals; improving trust and interactions
between the Board, the ED/CEO, and staff; and strengthening strategy and
program oversight.
The Board began taking steps to respond to the recommendations right away,
at a special meeting in July 2019 [2]. At that meeting, we lengthened the
terms of Board officer and committee chair positions from one year to three
years, and we tasked the Board Governance Committee with the preparation of
proposals for how to implement additional changes.
We will have more to share in the near future when the Board will be
engaging broadly on the outcomes, but the first big planned change is
expanding the number of seats on the Board, from 10 to 16. This includes
increasing the current number of seats sourced from the wider Wikimedia
community (including affiliates) by three, for a total of eight
community-sourced seats. The majority of the Board and I feel that this
overall growth is necessary for us to increase our capacity to meet the
governance needs of the Foundation—and better reflect the growing and
diverse communities we serve with the increased number of voices from
community sources.
== Community-selected Board seats ==
The voting process to select nominees for three Community-selected Board
seats was intended to open candidate submissions soon. In normal
circumstances this selection process occurs every three years and would run
this month. However, we feel that the widespread global impact from the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting strain on resources make it
unwise and unreasonable to continue the voting process on its planned
timeline:
The selection process requires extensive effort from community members (to
read proposals, ask questions, be engaged and informed, and of course
vote); candidates (to write statements and engage with community
questions); the Elections Committee (to run the process, including
responding to questions and engaging across languages); Foundation staff
(to support the Elections Committee in running the process and coordinating
the work across all stakeholders); and the Board (to make high-level
decisions and follow the process, also across languages). Given the public
health crisis and the many extraordinary demands on every person’s time and
attention, we believe we can not expect or require the level of sustained
effort and engagement needed to hold a successful trustee selection.
We do not want to delay the trustee selection process any longer than we
have to, and we will continue to evaluate whether it is appropriate to
proceed based on the best information available to us. It takes time to
plan and run the selection, so once the postponed process can resume we
will still need to work out the best timing for it. It does not currently
seem likely that the process will resume before August 2020, but we are
committed to completing it before the end of June 2021.
In order to ensure sustained community representation on the Board, we are
extending the terms of the three community-selected trustees currently
occupying those seats (María, Dariusz, and James) for up to a year until we
are all ready to run the postponed process. I would like to thank them for
their service to our communities and dedication to our shared mission.
Note: The selection process is mandated by the Bylaws to happen every three
years according to a schedule and process set by the Board of Trustees. The
process last occurred in 2017, so if we determine that it is best to
postpone the process past 2020, this will require a modification of the
Bylaws. The necessary modification of the Bylaws will be part of
forthcoming recommendations as we learn more about when we can all dedicate
the necessary time to the selection process.
== Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan timeline ==
The Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan would normally be completed in April
and posted for your feedback in May. This year, the Board has provisionally
approved an extended and revised timeline for annual planning in order for
us to remain sensitive to global economic conditions and revenue
projections.
We are also adjusting the timelines and expectations for our affiliates
during this time. Our affiliates and user groups hold a lot of in-person
events and are transitioning some of their work online and having to
postpone or cancel some events entirely. We are all having to rethink the
next year and recognize that the adjustment is going to take time. This
pandemic is a changing situation and will affect parts of the globe
differently over time. We need to remain flexible during this time of
uncertainty.
There will be future updates on annual plan progress from the Foundation,
but we wanted to let you know as soon as we could that the usual timelines
are postponed.
== Board meeting minutes & resolutions ==
Some of you have asked for minutes and resolutions from our recent
meetings, as we are behind in publishing these notes. I apologize that we
fell behind in this; once we were behind, it became harder to catch up, and
we have only now been able to read and approve them all. The minutes were
posted and you will find them on the Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki
[3]. I shall update on this thread when they are all up.
Voting online to approve the minutes is not always possible, so we are
approving them during our meetings. The timeline of the expected publishing
of the minutes was too ambitious, and this would need to change. Amanda
Keton, our General Counsel and Secretary of the Board, will see to adopting
the practices needed and having support in place to help us review more
quickly.
== To recap ==
* In early 2019, the Foundation Board Chair and Executive Director hired
Board Veritas to conduct a Board Governance Review, and we are sharing the
resulting recommendations [1].
* We are planning to expand the number of seats on the Board, from 10 to
16. This includes increasing the current number of seats sourced from the
wider Wikimedia community (including affiliates) by three, for a total of
eight community-sourced seats. This change will require changing the
Bylaws, especially regarding the selection pathway for the additional
seats. We plan to present the Board’s vision and hold a community
discussion as part of the process for the Bylaws change.
* We are postponing the trustee selection process by up to a year because
of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by up to a year, the resulting strain on
resources, and the added burden to our communities. And we shall be
modifying the Bylaws to allow for this revised timeline in the selection
process, if needed.
* We are approving an extended timeline for the Wikimedia Foundation Annual
Plan.
* And we are posting the remaining backlog of trustee meeting minutes and
resolutions. After they are all up, I shall update on this thread.
As these are a lot of topics to talk about, please post your
thoughts/comments on the talk page of my message on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_not…
. It would be easier to have a structured discussion there, rather than
dozens of emails in this thread. Depending on interest and our shared
situation we might hold a video “town hall” to discuss more details of some
of these plans with you all.
Also we are currently working on an update to our 2016 statement on
community culture in order to reinforce our commitment to safety on our
projects. We look forward to sharing it with you in May.
Please take care of yourselves.
[1]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Board_Veritas_Governance_Recomme…
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Minutes/2019-7-10
[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings
Best regards,
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
NOTICE: You may have received this message outside of your normal working
hours/days, as I usually can work more as a volunteer during weekend. You
should not feel obligated to answer it during your days off. Thank you in
advance!
