Thanks Victoria for your candid description of the perspective from a Bot member
I can agree on you negative viewpoint on how the movement charter was envisioned at the start. But I also believe you miss the excellent job done by the Movement Charter Drafting Committee to neutralise this and make the charter feasible and respectful re the role of BoT
For me it is a tragedy, as I actually see the movement charter and the proposed actions from BoT as being the same in factual content, but oh,how different in cultural context
For me the charter is a vision statement, very loose when t comes
to details and if it had been accepted, an implementation plan
work/project would have been needed to take it further. And this
work would hade taken it even more close to the BoT proposal
The BoT proposal is for me all too incomplete and full of holes, even if basically good (which I also see being true for the charter). So for the BoT proposal to become a reality, much more work is needed involving volunteers competence and insights. I think it will take a year and two to get there, if now any volunteer is willing to put their time and effort in getting it "right".
So I see i as it has become a lock-down, on an issue with no real conflict and where both the Bot and community competence is needed to get where we all want to go.
All unnecessary as just another wording from the board, would had stopped this lock down (like "we approve the charter but believe it is too loose, so demand it it evolved further into how to implement it before we give full approval")
I notice that only I have given feedback on the BoT proposal, and
on just one of the issues on
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 [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.
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 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
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, 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 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.
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
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