Dear Bodhisattwa,
this is an issue which has been raised at the strategy transition group I
was part of, and also during the events following these discussions which
were intended to shape the specific process to draft the Charter.
Basically, the choice was between two options - either have a (relatively)
small group elected/appointed fast which would not be fully representative
but would be efficient and would draft the Charter quickly, or to go for
representation at the expense of the time and possibly also size of the
group - if it includes everybody needed for representation it would be
unworkable. The decision, which I personally also supported, was to go for
speed and efficiency at the expense of representation. I see your
arguments, and they have merit, but we can not do everything at once. It
was clear that the community elections would favor North American and East
European candidates, as for example the board elections always do. There
was some hope that affiliates would elect more candidates from the rest of
the world, which is indeed what happened (I am not an affiliate member and
I am not familiar with the specific selection process). The WMF mitigated
that even further by appointing one person of Indian background (even
though residing in the US if I am not mistaken). There are other safeguards
in place - I assume the draft Charter will be up to the community
discussion, and if there are omissions they will be noticed. But the main
idea was to elect/appoint people who understand what they are doing and who
would implement what is best for the movement, taking into account that the
Charter is for evetrybody, and not their personal vision. Those drafting
committee members I know fit this definition. This is now our turn, as a
community, to make sure that we read the draft - when it is out - carefully
and make sure it is acceptable for everybody.
Best
Yaroslav
On Mon, Nov 1, 2021 at 7:08 PM Bodhisattwa Mandal <
bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Samuel,
On Mon, 1 Nov 2021 at 21:35, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't believe the idea is for anyone to explicitly represent their
geography, affiliations, or organizations -- rather to draft a meaningful
and empowering starting point for us all.
People develop their perspectives based on their environment, culture and
surroundings and it is almost impossible for anyone to understand
comprehensively about what is going on in other places without dealing with
their real situation there. It doesn't matter how honest or how experienced
a person might be, an Western European will have hard times to understand
all the real issues in South Asia, A South Asian will have little
understanding about what is really happening in Latin America and that is
why geographical representation is needed. If the question or process is
about something global, then it is needed even more. To draft a document
for us all, it is essential to get voices from as many as possible, if not
all. How can a movement charter be drafted if it does not echo the concerns
of all our existing communities clearly?
We chose to follow popular elections which have always brought North
Americans and Europeans on the top of the table and historically abandoned
other parts of the world, even though there are capable people in those
parts too but do not have the voter base. We have seen it repeated in this
election process too. Here we had 7 seats through community elections, so
its almost futile for Global South candidates to compete there, the proof
of my statement is that only 1 candidate from the Global South actually
made through this election. So, they only have 6 affiliate selected
positions from 8 Wikimedia regions (and 1 Thematic hub), where they have
minimal chance because 6 seats from 8 regions count to < 1 candidate per
hub. So, regions like South Asia, ESEAP, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc. was
extremely lucky to get 1 candidate in the committee, 2 is not at all
expected. Don't you think that this is a totally unfair process from the
start for under-represented communities and affiliates? No wonder, people
here are getting aloof from the movement strategy process.
Of course broad geographic and project backgrounds, and good language
diversity (within the drafting group and through
available tools to support
work with others) are important for this work. But please don't exclude
any participant from that, based on the experimental mix of selection
processes. We are all wikimedians. Runa and Jorge for instance have been
advancing the global movement towards free knowledge, culture and tools for
a very long time. And having a translation expert actively involved should
help amplify different voices :).
Sorry for my English, I am not a native English speaker, so maybe there
is a misunderstanding. I have not excluded anyone as you are saying. Runa
and Jorge are amazing people in the movement but I was talking about
geographical representation of the communities and they are appointed by
WMF as their representative, so geographical representation does not stand
there.
PS - There are still many, many systemic gaps and biases in our
communities and our knowledge. The focus on elevating and connecting
regional hubs may help address this, and I dearly hope to see thriving hubs
in Asia. But I wouldn't say the next billion participants, editors, and
learners will come from any one region; rather from underserved communities
everywhere in the world! (And by stats like readership
<https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/animations/wivivi/wivivi.html>,
communities in Africa are still the least reached, including proportional
to connectivity.)
More than 4 billion people live here in South Asian and ESEAP countries.
If our next billion readers will not come from here by 2030, then where
will it come from? These are developing countries embracing technology at a
high rate. (Anyway, my opinion concerns Africa too. There is only 1
representative from the entire Sub-Saharan Africa.)
Regards,
Bodhisattwa
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