Thank you for organizing the call, and creating a space for discussing the Wikimedia Foundation Board liaisons reflections and the perspectives on the movement charter draft.

We have heard different requests for changing the timeline of the ratification vote - asking the board to vote earlier, or to vote later, or to delay affiliates and community vote, or to have the affiliates and community vote only if the vote of the board is in favour of ratification. During yesterday's call, some of these options were mentioned by the participants, and we were asked to check on the option to delay the vote. While there was no consensus on the call on any specific option, I committed to check whether a change in the timeline is feasible and discuss with MCDC whether it would be the right choice. Clearly, such a decision must be made extremely quickly, hence the narrow timeline.

As promised, I checked the feasibility of a delay with the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. All the committee members that have spoken so far, which are the majority, believe that the process should not be changed, unless there is a very good reason. This process with the current timeline has been advertised for several weeks, including posts on various projects, and it would not be fair to other voters. Nataliia and I support this position. We are also all in agreement in encouraging participation in the vote, as we are all interested in getting as much constructive input from the voters as possible.

From an operational capacity perspective, any delay now would also require postponing other planned movement-wide processes with an impact that goes beyond the movement charter.

Another request that we heard clearly in the Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) call was to have a clear commitment from the board on next steps. Having concrete next steps is part of our recommendation to the board; and more specifically our recommendation talks about moving forward this year by shifting some of the functions that have been proposed for the Global Council to global, community-representing bodies, and iterating over those models. Just to clarify, our letter contained our reflections and recommendations as liaisons, with the overall goal to make progress more quickly, and without undertaking more multi-year-long processes with uncertain outcomes.

We are also in conversation with the MCDC about what would be the future of the movement charter itself if the currently proposed charter doesn't pass the ratification. Despite the concerns about the current draft, we all support the goals intended by a charter. It is not a new topic for the MCDC, who has been considering scenarios for a long time, but feels that at this moment MCDC's focus should be on the ratification vote.

To use this opportunity, I just wanted to remind you that the next Conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees will be on 27 June at 18:00 UTC (check your local time), and you can use that opportunity to come, and ask questions. The 90-minute call will take place on Zoom, with simultaneous streaming to YouTube, and the recording will be uploaded to Commons. Please email askcac@wikimedia.org to get a link to join the call. You can also request interpretation or ask any questions ahead of time using the same address.

Il giorno ven, 21/06/2024 alle 22.40 +0200, Wikipedysta Nadzik ha scritto:

Hello everyone,

Given the current situation and discussions around the BoT-MCDC liaisons' statement about their intention to recommend that the BoT not ratify the Movement Charter and still move forward with the community vote, I decided to organize the Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) meeting on 23 June (THIS SUNDAY) – meeting link on Meta.

TL;DR – Quick catch-up

Board of Trustees liaisons to MCDC (Natalia Tymkiv and Lorenzo Losa) announced they will not recommend the BoT to ratify the charter in its current form and will recommend the development of new concrete and time-bound next steps to "evaluate progress". The reason stated is that the "proposed Charter does not address the significant concerns" raised by the Board earlier this year (February and May).

Each of the 3 voting blocks: community, affiliates, and the BoT needs to approve the Charter to ratify it, meaning that each of them has the power to veto the Charter if they vote against it.

Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network (SWAN) meeting on 23 June There are two meeting times to cater to two major time zone blocks.

The two times are:

03:00 UTC, 2024-06-23 (Asia-Pacific friendly time) – Check your timezone
16:00 UTC, 2024-06-23 (Europe-Africa-Americas friendly time) – Check your timezone

The agenda is:

Update on the Movement Charter process
Discussion on the Wikimedia Foundation statement on the Movement Charter
- Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/Board liaisons reflections on final Movement charter draft

For the signup and meeting link, go to the SWAN page at Meta-wiki:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Wikimedia_Affiliates_Network/2024_06

The Movement Charter vote is scheduled to start in just 76 hours! Join us at the discussion.

Cheers,
--

Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz (He/him)

Wikimania 2024 Poland – Team Lead

Wikimedia Europe Board Member

Wikipedia Administrator

User:Nadzik

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