The Wikimedia NYC Board of Directors is deeply concerned by and opposes the constitutional changes proposed to the Bylaws of the Wikimedia Foundation, that in several ways mark a sudden reversal of direction from the community-focused, decentralized model promised by the 2030 Movement Strategy process. The Wikimedia NYC Board has posted a statement of opposition[1] and continues conversations internally. User:Pharos is also facilitating two meetings of the Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network this weekend - anyone with an affiliation is welcome to join, even if they are not an official liaison or representative.

Megs
--


On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:25 PM Yuri Astrakhan <yuriastrakhan@gmail.com> wrote:
I second that. It always amazed me that the community that has built the entire site does not have the majority in deciding the future of the site, and this seems to make it even less so.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 2:03 PM Brion Vibber <bvibber@wikimedia.org> wrote:
From what I've read in the thread above I agree with Yair, and would add that this feels like a big power grab against the community.

I believe that Wikimedia Foundation must reject these proposed bylaws changes to preserve our open, democratic nature, and hold elections to fill all seats.

-- brion
former CTO
current software architect

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 5:12 PM Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello.  With my list-moderator hat, I am relaying two messages from Jimmy
Wales, sent from an address he apparently hadn't used before,  that were
unintentionally caught by the mailing list filters and could not be let
through.  I paste them below.

   Asaf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jimmy Wales <jimmywales@fandom.com>
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:12:55 +0100
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
On 10/7/20 6:32 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:

The replacement of an explicit voting process with an unspecified process +
schedule seems unnecessarily vague.

I agree that the vagueness is not good.  To make sure everyone is aware:
there has been no discussion and I'm unaware of anyone
on the board who would be in favor of *removing* elections.  I think the
current wording here is awkward and may have been designed
to not be super prescriptive about how exactly we might move to a process
with a community-driven and community-approved "rubric"
combined with elections.  To remedy this defect seems quite easy - a future
revision should explicitly include as much detail as is possible,
and certainly should mandate elections.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jimmy Wales <jimmywales@fandom.com>
To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 05:13:08 +0100
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Call for feedback about Wikimedia Foundation
Bylaws changes and Board candidate rubric
On 10/7/20 10:03 PM, Yair Rand wrote:

(Another minor point: The change from the description of the appointed
seats from "non-community-selected, non-chapter-selected" to
"non-community-sourced" seems to imply that the Board is prohibited from
filling these seats with any community members. Previously, there have been
community members in these seats.)

I think this is a very good "catch".  I'm sure that wasn't the intention of
the rewording.  I didn't
write it and of course I can't speak for anyone else.  I can say that there
has been no discussion
at the board level of anyone suggesting that we should not be able to
select community members
for these seats.

Indeed, my personal view is that as we pursue board expansion, it is
crucial that we try as hard as
we can find to fill the appointed seats with as many deeply experienced
community members (who
have other relevant skills) as we possibly can.

In terms of this proposal, I think that a minor change to clarify this
minor point is a great idea!

I think the ambiguity probably arose with the change from "selected" to
"sourced" - a change that, itself,
deserves great scrutiny.

===============

(end of Jimmy's two messages.  Future posts from Jimmy's new address should
go through.)

   Asaf
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>