[Foundation-l] RfC: Mission & Vision Statements of the Wikimedia Foundation

Organizations often have a "mission statement" and a "vision statement". For a typical distinction, see e.g.: http://www.cfbroward.org/new/tips/1.html At the Board Retreat in October, we revisited our existing "Vision", which is: "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point? Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't -- something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they are relevant, and not just organizational fluff. After some further discussion, the Board has come up with the following Mission and Vision statements. I would like to invite comments on these statements, and perhaps we can identify changes that we can all agree on. I would also like to encourage you to propose alternative statements on Meta (see URLs below). The idea is that, after a discussion and editing period of at least two weeks, the Board will choose a version of the M&V statements. These versions will then be put forward to the community, for a simple "up" or "down" vote. If a statement reaches at least a two thirds majority of support, it will be implemented as such. If it only reaches a simple majority, further discussion and potential revision may follow, at the Board's discretion. A statement that does not reach a majority will not become an official statement of the WMF. The usual voting restrictions will apply (minimum participation period etc.) and will be announced together with the vote. A general note: Our mission statement is perhaps longer than it needs to be, and our vision statement shorter. But in these matters, we can be flexible -- the most important question is whether both statements meet the specific needs of _our_ organization and community. == Vision Statement == '''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.''' Comment: One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by teaching another language like English and then giving access to learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination in our vision statement. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as possible. == Mission Statement == '''The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop knowledge under a free license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.''' '''In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation is committed to making and keeping all information from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.''' Comment: This is a slightly edited version from the Retreat, see the URL below for the original. It was important to us to emphasize that the relationship between WMF and its chapters, in general practice, is more one of organizations with different scope working towards the same goals, rather than a top down chain of command. The last sentence seemed important to emphasize the distinction between "free licensing" and "free access", both of which we are equally committed to. == Comments & edits welcome == In the spirit of "stable versions", the M&V statements above can be found, as protected pages, on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vision You can suggest changes in this thread, or edit the unstable versions: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission/Unstable http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vision/Unstable You are also encouraged to "fork" new versions if that becomes necessary due to lack of consensus on the wiki. Again, after at least two weeks, the Board will nominate the versions to be voted upon by the community. Let me know if you have any questions about this process. You are encouraged to translate the proposed Mission & Vision statements, and to carry this discussion into other languages -- see the language links at the top of the above-referenced pages to get started. -- Peace & Love, Erik Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.