Hello Victoria,
I would like to add some context about the Wikimedia Summit output you mentioned in your email, as someone who was involved in organizing this event.
The statements in the final outputs https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024/Outputs[1] were the result of three days of deliberation amongst participants. At the end of the event, a poll was organized to assess the level of support from the participating affiliates for each statement. The working groups had very short time to finalize the wording of the statements before the final poll. Therefore, some of the language lacked clarity, and received a relatively lower level of support in the final poll. This was the case for that statement: “Processes must ensure that unorganized volunteers are significantly represented in regional batches of seats”. The use of the terms “unorganized volunteers” (instead of “unaffiliated”) and “significant” (too vague) were criticized and led to many participants voting against that statement or being undecided. This was addressed on the event talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Summit_2024#What_is_an_%22unorganized_volunteer%22?[2] some time ago.
However, the vision of a Global Council with a strong representation of volunteers received a lot of support amongst the affiliates[3]. Indeed, the proposal to set up a GC with a majority of volunteer seats (12 elected by the volunteers, 8 elected by the affiliates)[4] was approved by the vast majority of affiliates who ratified the Charter.
Best, Eva Martin, on behalf of the Wikimedia Summit organizing team
[1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024/Outputs
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Summit_2024#What_is_an_%22uno... ? [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024/Documentation/Day_2#/m... [4]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:22 PM Paulo Santos Perneta < paulosperneta@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello Victoria,
My reading of the proposed Charter very closely matches yours. As one of the Wikimedians who voted for you in 2021, I'm very grateful that you have not yielded to the immense pressure put on you and other BoT members to approve it.
My impression - perhaps unjust, but I have had it for quite some time - is also that this Charter was seen as a kind of a gold rush by a number of affiliates and other agents, with the corresponding impacts on its writing. With sentences such as "*The Wikimedia Movement holds itself accountable through community leadership as represented within Wikimedia projects*", which opens the door for all kind of judicial trouble, and "*Wikimedia project communities have autonomy to establish policies for their individual projects, so long as such policies are in conformity with this Charter and the framework of global policies*" - which makes the onwiki community policies subject to the charters, while not applying the same to affiliates and the WMF, and a Global Council grossly biased towards affiliate representation, I really can't see how this Charter defended the interests of our communities, and I'm very glad it was sunk.
I also have anecdotal evidence by personal contact that community members voted to support it without even reading it, because they had no time nor interest but were hard pressed to vote, so they gave a *carte blanche* to it. Or they were told it was against the WMF, so we must support it. And so on.
Anyway, I hope the thing is not dead here, and we'll continue finding ways to distribute the power our projects and communities generate in a more equitative and fair way, but at the end of the day I do think we are better without a Charter in the form it was proposed.
Again, thank you very much for your courage and integrity, Victoria, I hope you get reelected to the BoT.
Best, Paulo
Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org escreveu (sexta, 19/07/2024 à(s) 09:34):
Hello Galder,
As the BoT is, by definition, the one directing what the interests of
the WMF are, we must conclude that > all the so-called community-elected and half of the affiliated-elected voted against the interests of their > represented. What interests did they vote for? That's the question that remains unanswered.
It was stated in an early Charter draft that the goal of the Charter was “to take power from the WMF” - whatever that means. Mainly to distribute its entire budget, data centres and programmers be damned.
But somehow, even the idea to further devolve the grant-making process never got any traction because some in the community want nothing less than a revolution, Russian style—to seize the assets and spend them now instead od thinking about the medium and long-term future.
The idea that community-selected trustees - I’m one of them - must have voted to support the charter is false. I’m a part of the online community of the Russian Wikipedia and was never formally involved with any affiliates. The narrative “online wikimedians vs affiliates” mirrors the “wikimedians vs. WMF” - the affiliates are seen as people who don’t create the content but only profit from it. And don’t see how ratifying the charter would change anything significantly for me except spending the money on another bureaucratic body.
After being on the WMF board for the last 2,5 years, I don’t support this idea, but the Charter for me clearly presents an attempt at a power grab by the affiliates. I was struck by the output document https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024/Outputs [1] from the Berlin summit, where a third of the affiliates think that the online community should not be significantly represented on the Global council.
- Processes must ensure that unorganized volunteers are significantly
represented in regional batches of seats.
yes
56
no
31
undecided
18
As a member of the online community, I couldn't have voted to approve a document that supports the creation of a global bureaucratic class UN-style—with no possibility of impeachment of the individual members. My experience in global governance shows that in the proposed form, GC would not work effectively and would be only a waste of resources.
Coincidentally, it also tallies with my fiduciary duty as a member of the BoT of the Wikimedia Foundation - I believe that the monies will be better spent on the infrastructure, overhaul of MediaWiki, grants to the affiliates - almost anything else than a 100 people talking.
You would say that the “online community voted in support”, but this is an overstatement. “The quorum” is only 2% (!) of the eligible voters, and who know how many of them are the affiliates members and the people who were lobbied by the affiliates.
As for the rest, I took part in a WMF staff and wikimedins meeting in London only the last week. I talked to a wikimedian who was going to vote yes, but when I asked them if they know about the proposed numbers of the GC they said no.
Of course, I see a discrepancy in the WMF board's actions: on one hand, the candidates and newly selected trustees are told that they should act only in the interest of the WMF, while on the other hand, the Board just voted against the creation of a body that would have had the same duty of care for the movement as the WMF Board has for WMF.
I did my best to commit the Board to the continuation of the Global Council creation process and salvaging parts of the Charter proposal. The result is buried deep in the legalise but there’s a potential to continue the conversation after the current pilots of the Tech Council and Grants Committee run their course.
But of course, I can only influence the Board actions if I’m reelected. Right now, I feel that by voting against the charter in its current form—both as a trustee and a volunteer—I fulfilled the promise that I gave to about 6,000 wikimedians who voted for me in 2021. Preventing putting an albatross around https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/albatross_around_one%27s_neck the Movement neck is the worthy reason for losing my seat on the board.
By all means, replace me and the other BoT members running for the reelection by the candidates that supported the charter - and see if that changes anything.
Ultimately, the question of ratifying the Charter for me came down to "Is the Charter good enough”? My sincere personal opinion, considering how hard it is to change an existing structure or document even if it's clearly not working, is that it is not.
Kind regards,
Victoria
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2024/Outputs
On Thu, Jul 18, 2024 at 5:45 PM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Well, that's pretty categoric.
While it is worth noting that many of the votes likely came with caveats, or suggestions for improvement - it is also a massive vote in favour of the concept of a Charter and Global Council, and against the idea that the WMF should be the sole body in the movement responsible for, well, anything really.
There is a clear way forward now for the WMF to bring itself in line with the vast majority of the community that it claims to work with as an equal partner, and start working with the MCDC, or whoever there is to talk to if the MCDC is now disbanded, to look at the feedback on the present draft and create a final version. Perhaps we can hear less about how everything has changed since the start of the strategy process 8 years ago (it hasn't), or how there isn't money (there is), or how 'form should follow function' (well, perhaps it should, but also let's not have unrealistic and single-sided expectations where every proposal for change is made to provide a clear and eloquent narrative while the status quo continues to evade scrutiny).
Regards,
Chris (User: The Land)
On Thu, Jul 18, 2024 at 3:40 PM Charter Electoral Commission < cec@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello everyone,
After carefully tallying both individual and affiliate votes, the Charter Electoral Commission is pleased to announce the final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting.
As communicated by the Charter Electoral Commission https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Thank_you_for_your_participation_in_the_Movement_Charter_ratification_vote!, we reached the quorum for both Affiliate and individual votes by the time the vote closed on July 9, 23:59 UTC. We thank all 2,451 individuals and 129 Affiliate representatives who voted in the ratification process. Your votes and comments are invaluable for the future steps in Movement Strategy.
The final results of the Wikimedia Movement Charter https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter ratification voting held between 25 June and 9 July 2024 are as follows:
Individual vote:
Out of 2,451 individuals who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 2,446 have been accepted as valid votes. Among these, 1,710 voted “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 73.30% voted to approve the Charter (1710/2333), while 26.70% voted to reject the Charter (623/2333).
Affiliates vote:
Out of 129 Affiliates designated voters who voted as of July 9 23:59 (UTC), 129 votes are confirmed as valid votes. Among these, 93 voted “yes”; 18 voted “no”; and 18 selected “–” (neutral). Because the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast, 83.78% voted to approve the Charter (93/111), while 16.22% voted to reject the Charter (18/111).
Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation:
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees voted not to ratify the proposed Charter during their special Board meeting on July 8, 2024. The Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Natalia Tymkiv, shared the result of the vote, the resolution, meeting minutes and proposed next steps https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter#cite_note-1 .
With this, the Wikimedia Movement Charter in its current revision is not ratified.
We thank you for your participation in this important moment in our movement’s governance.
The Charter Electoral Commission,
Abhinav619, Borschts, Iwuala Lucy, Tochiprecious, Der-Wir-Ing _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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