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
Hereby I, as a representative of North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User group raise a deep concern about Board of Trustees being not with a community and call for them to resign. But, guys, really? Community voted "Yes", affiliates voted "Yes", and the vote of Board overthrew all these votes? That seems not how it should be in a worldwide volunteer community. I feel as a clown in a circus. -- Nikolai Bulykin (User:Красный) четверг, 18 июля 2024г., 19:40 +05:00 от Charter Electoral Commission cec@wikimedia.org :
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 _______________________________________________ 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
Hi Galder
I think *"**voted against the interests of both the community and the affiliates"* is a very dangerous bow to draw, they also impede future participation in fear of being labelled and discriminated against.
People who had reservations about the charter were free to vote against it without repercussion, both then as they should have been in the future. I will say personally I did not support the charter because I had concerns about the wording having previously experienced sensible interaction with State and Federal courts in Australia as the Affiliate Chair that were easily resolved. I found those protections were not as clear in the charter if anything invited being held accountable and liable where we had no capacity to comply with the Courts. There were other issues around the GC that concerned me too. In total I voted freely based on my experiences.
I know my local affiliate did consult with its members before casting its vote. They considered what individual members had to say to create a consensus, I trust our CEO or Chair cast the Affiliate vote based on that.
BoT is legally responsible to comply with various US government regulations. They must comply with those first, the disappointment is in that they had good representation in the drafting process so these issues should never have occurred this late in the game.
On Thu, 18 Jul 2024 at 23:26, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga < galder158@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hello, This is a very interesting result. Now we know that those voted by the community and half of those voted by affiliates to represent the community and the affiliates at the Boars of Trustees voted against the interests of both the community and the affiliates, while arguing that they were voting for the interests of the WMF. 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.
Thanks to all the members of the MCDC for their huge work.
Galder
2024(e)ko uzt. 18(a) 14:39 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Charter Electoral Commission cec@wikimedia.org):
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
Dear all,
First of all thank you for sharing the outcome of the Wikimedia Movement Charter voting process. I appreciate the effort put into tallying the votes and providing transparency in the results.
However, I must admit I am quite disappointed by the decision of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees not to ratify the proposed Charter. The significant support shown by both individuals and affiliates reflects a strong desire for change within our movement, and it's disheartening to see that effort disregarded.
Could you please provide more context on the reasons behind the Board's decision and what this means for the next steps in the Movement Strategy?
I submit.
Best regards, Kanguya Isaac
On Thu, 18 Jul 2024, 4:40 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
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
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.
19. 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
1.
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
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
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
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/...
Anders
Den 2024-07-19 kl. 10:33, skrev Victoria Doronina:
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 - musthave 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 notbe 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_neckthe 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 isnot.
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 <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, 1,710voted “yes”; 623voted “no”; and 113selected “–” (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, 93voted “yes”; 18voted “no”; and 18selected “–” (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 ratifythe 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/message/CORH7NNW2UTXQLJPLVPIBDBT6IVI2FGH/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ 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/message/7BLCIOWT4O4P4MS6HIGPJXKJW6KJ3GOG/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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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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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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Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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It is really amazing how the current BoT pretends like they alone have the wisdom and overview to decide things, despite a multitude of former BoT members telling them not to hide behind phrases that the legal team of the WMF came up with. Because we can't carry on like this, as stated multiple times by WMF leadership over the last few years, but somehow it all stays the same. The irony of accusing a amorphous blob to incite a communist revolution while being on the BoT of a free knowledge organisation is certainly not lost here either ;-)
So which is it? Revolution and replacement, or just another bureaucratic body that's worthy of a noble sacrifice?
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 13:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know. Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line, first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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-- Boodarwun Gnangarra 'ngany dabakarn koorliny arn boodjera dardon nlangan Nyungar koortabodjar'
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Victoria,
This whole process is commissioned by the WMF. The MCDC is a committee established by the WMF. The electoral commission overseeing the MCDC is appointed by the WMF. The strategic recommendation to devolve power away from the WMF and "ensure equity in decision making" is a recommendation endorsed by a prior WMF board, after at that point 5 years (now 8) of collaborative, deliberative process initiated and funded by the WMF. As part of this process, the WMF made sure that it had a final say over the Movement Charter draft - which you have exercised.
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your own views.
It is not appropriate for you to be accusing 'the affiliates' , who are the WMF's strategic partners in delivering its mission, of some kind of conspiracy.
I am glad that you were able to share your reservations about the content of the Charter and its implications. It is useful to understand Board members' personal thinking and often this is valuable, even where it is controversial.
But you have gone well past the line of communicating your reservations about a particular proposal. With these frustrated emails, you are now undermining the work of the WMF, and its relationship with its own volunteers and its partners. Please stop.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 2:10 PM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know. Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line, first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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Hi,
Dariusz here. As a community-elected trustee with nearly a decade on this board (and also as one not upcoming for re-election), I want to share my two cents. Entirely subjective. Very opinionated, too.
I understand Vicky's frustration with the idea of 100+ bureaucrats. Over and over I tried to explain why this is a bad idea, some MCDC members were receptive, too (e.g. here a quick bit.ly/MCDC-manifesto we drafted with Michal Buczynski, right after the MCDC meeting in New York, to large extent resulting from the disappointment in the direction the thing was going, and proposing a way forward... but proposed too late to change the course).
Instead of a nimble body or bodies, with clear tasks (and a transfer of power, resources, responsibility, etc.), the charter ended up with a parliamentary-style approach. The problem with that is that it consumes a lot of resources, while providing an ineffective solution. Running a meaningful discussion in such a large body is simply impossible. These people would also have to meet in person - from the MCDC discussions I understand that the idea was to make it at Wikimania, because "we already pay for that", but that is a deeply flawed assumption: reserving 100 spots for bureaucrats instead of editors and Wikimedia activists, for whom going to their first Wikimania is actually a big deal, is not saving money at all.
The paradox of the rise of bureaucrats is such that even when initially these bodies attract genuine activists, these activists disentangle and alienate from their base very quick. I've heard an argument that we need a representative body - the more granular the representation is, the more excluded are those who are not directly represented. But even if this is not a problem, I see another, bigger: the idea I've head was to use this large body for "major decisions only". Why on Earth would we not want to ask our community directly for really major decisions?
Finally, as already pointed out, the changes of what will the acceptable threshold be done by the MCDC itself https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Movement_Charter&diff=prev&oldid=26911936 (and not by the WMF) additionally undermined my perception that the process is right. Not counting neutral votes surprises me a bit, but has not affected my decision, as I've found about it just now.
My general opinion remains unaltered: we definitely need more community-driven bodies. We need more shared responsibility. We need to fulfil the strategic promise that the MCDC started with. However, we need to have efficiency, effectiveness, and actual problem-solving in mind at all times.
In my very private view, the failure of this exercise is not the fault of the MCDC members. We (the Board, the WMF) have definitely insufficiently supported the MCDC with tools, knowledge, processes - we took a hands-off approach, not to meddle, but we also should have realized that we actually do need to step in, minding the overall goal.
We need a postmortem to make some sense of it, and I'm not sure what the immediate useful takeaway is, but I really hope we'll be able to start creating community-driven decision-making bodies with proper staff support, and that the overall charter will emerge from action.
best
Dariusz "pundit"
PS As I'm recovering from COVID, I may not reply to any followups in this discussion, apologies! I hope my sharing of my subjective perspective is not inciting too much.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 9:49 AM Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Victoria,
This whole process is commissioned by the WMF. The MCDC is a committee established by the WMF. The electoral commission overseeing the MCDC is appointed by the WMF. The strategic recommendation to devolve power away from the WMF and "ensure equity in decision making" is a recommendation endorsed by a prior WMF board, after at that point 5 years (now 8) of collaborative, deliberative process initiated and funded by the WMF. As part of this process, the WMF made sure that it had a final say over the Movement Charter draft - which you have exercised.
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your own views.
It is not appropriate for you to be accusing 'the affiliates' , who are the WMF's strategic partners in delivering its mission, of some kind of conspiracy.
I am glad that you were able to share your reservations about the content of the Charter and its implications. It is useful to understand Board members' personal thinking and often this is valuable, even where it is controversial.
But you have gone well past the line of communicating your reservations about a particular proposal. With these frustrated emails, you are now undermining the work of the WMF, and its relationship with its own volunteers and its partners. Please stop.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 2:10 PM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know. Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line, first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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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Hi,
On 7/19/24 09:48, Chris Keating wrote:
But you have gone well past the line of communicating your reservations about a particular proposal. With these frustrated emails, you are now undermining the work of the WMF, and its relationship with its own volunteers and its partners. Please stop.
I don't agree with Victoria, but I strongly disagree with this contention and request. We don't hear enough from individual board members, so I appreciate her for at least explaining herself and engaging on this list.
Is there anyone who isn't frustrated at how this process has gone? The board being silent and non-responsive to criticism is usually what actually undermines the WMF.
-- Kunal / Legoktm
Story in the Signpost Wikimedia community ratifies Movement Charter, Wikimedia Foundation rejects ratification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-07-22/News_a...
If you have an opinion on the matter consider sharing it in the English Wikipedia community's own newspaper of record. Submissions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissi... Also say hi at the newsroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom
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On Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 12:31 AM Kunal Mehta legoktm@debian.org wrote:
Hi,
On 7/19/24 09:48, Chris Keating wrote:
But you have gone well past the line of communicating your reservations about a particular proposal. With these frustrated emails, you are now undermining the work of the WMF, and its relationship with its own volunteers and its partners. Please stop.
I don't agree with Victoria, but I strongly disagree with this contention and request. We don't hear enough from individual board members, so I appreciate her for at least explaining herself and engaging on this list.
Is there anyone who isn't frustrated at how this process has gone? The board being silent and non-responsive to criticism is usually what actually undermines the WMF.
-- Kunal / Legoktm _______________________________________________ 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
Chris -
Please don't assume that you speak for the Wikimedia community overall. I actually find your email much more objectionable than any of Victoria's messages.
I do not see Victoria's emails as undermining the work of WMF, nor of WMF's relationship with its volunteers and its partners. I agree with Kunal here. It is rare to hear from Board members on this list, especially speaking informally or not speaking for the Board as a whole, and I very much appreciate Victoria's sharing her thoughts and feelings with us. Could she have written in a less antagonistic way? Sure, but so could you. Although I disagree with how the Board has handled this matter, I actually feel a little better about the Board than I did before I read Victoria's emails. So Victoria's message improved at least one volunteer's relationship with the Board.
However, I think that your email will likely serve to weaken the relationship between the Board and volunteers, because it will likely have a chilling effect, making Board members (and WMF staff) less likely to want to share their perspectives on this email list.
Paul / Libcub
On 2024-07-22 12:30 AM, Kunal Mehta wrote:
Hi,
On 7/19/24 09:48, Chris Keating wrote:
But you have gone well past the line of communicating your reservations about a particular proposal. With these frustrated emails, you are now undermining the work of the WMF, and its relationship with its own volunteers and its partners. Please stop.
I don't agree with Victoria, but I strongly disagree with this contention and request. We don't hear enough from individual board members, so I appreciate her for at least explaining herself and engaging on this list.
Is there anyone who isn't frustrated at how this process has gone? The board being silent and non-responsive to criticism is usually what actually undermines the WMF.
-- Kunal / Legoktm _______________________________________________ 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
Hi Victoria,
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 15:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote: [...]
[...] I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + *affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself* + *the usual suspects*.
Could you please elaborate on your point regarding affiliates' intentions please?
Also, who are the usual suspects? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that.
Thanks,
-- Christophe
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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Having been in an affiliate for more than 18 years and having witnessed several assembly votes, the question of how to evaluate neutral votes has always been a dilemma.
There is no general rule and we cannot say we are shocked at how they are calculated because the neutral votes include the votes of those who do not want to vote against but have doubts, of those who want to vote against but find something to save but also of those who is undecided.
It is important to clarify the rules first and first say that the majority must be that of all voters or of yes/no votes.
But here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Ratification/Voting/Frequen...
I read: "Selecting "-" does not count for or against ratification - it is essentially a neutral or abstain vote - but it will allow you to leave a comment".
It clearly indicates that neutral votes in theory cannot be placed either among the votes against or among the votes for. Therefore they increase the quorum but the majority is calculated only among the explicit votes.
The FAQ seems clear to me.
Greetings
On 19/07/2024 15:09, Victoria Doronina wrote:
I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the**total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know. Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line, first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
I have to acknowledge and appreciate the Board's courage in turning down ratification. I'm sure it was an agonizing decision to take such an outwardly distasteful step, one that will bear consequences for the trustees and their relationships in this world for years to come.
However poor the optics and the reception, I am glad they did what was necessary instead of what was easy. The charter was the latest culminating moment of a long-term challenge to Wikimedia's mission - distinguishing the desire for power and influence among participants from what truly contributes to that mission. Tens of thousands of hours have been consumed by the demands to devolve power and, most importantly, money to elite participants.
The charter enjoyed unsurprising support among those who stood to benefit the most from transforming the mission of the Wikimedia movement into the nourishment of a massive, permanent, and unaccountable bureaucracy. Failure to achieve ratification is a rebuke to those who mistake the purpose of Wikimedia as an experiment in governance and a route to power, influence and comfort for a tiny group of contributors whose output remains a vanishingly small proportion of Wikimedia's value to the world.
Sadly I doubt that many will be dissuaded from their pursuit, despite the promises in this thread that some will feel disheartened at failing here.
Victoria:
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 6:10 AM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know.
It is how referenda in the U.S. state of Oregon work. The choices are "yes", "no", or leaving the question blank. Leaving the question blank is tallied as an "undervote" and is not counted toward the percentage; only "yes" or "no" votes count towards the deciding percentage. (The state defines this term differently from how English Wikipedia defines it, something I'll try to improve now that I've noticed. Undervotes are recorded, if I recall correctly, in relation to the race on the ballot that had the highest participation. E.g. if the race for governor had 10000 votes for candidates and Measure 5 on the same ballot had 9000 votes for yes or no, that would be described as "Measure 5 had an undervote of 1000.") Oregon was the first U.S. state to adopt this form of popular democracy, and was the model for many other states. So I would be somewhat surprised to learn that any other U.S. state tallied it differently. (Of course, many races for *candidates* do require a majority of all votes cast, which would include write-ins; so in electoral votes, it is indeed typical to include votes (actual write-in votes, as opposed to undervotes) that are neutral in terms of the candidates presented. Perhaps a point of confusion?
Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line,
Sorry, this reads to me as an incorrect and escalatory attack on the integrity of the system, as Chris Keating described eloquently. I'd like to add that as a reader who is somewhat distant from these matters, it is especially disconcerting to have a message attacking the system created and administered by the Wikimedia Foundation come from a wikimedia.org email address. It only compounds that confusion that you have chosen (quite strangely to my eye, though I recognize that it's common practice) not to include a signature indicating your job title or role, nor to explain how much you were involved in the project you are now criticizing.
first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Thankfully, the raw data was presented by the committee in the very email you're responding to, and the math is pretty straightforward.
Individual: 1,710 / (1710 + 623 + 113) 69.91% (vs. 73.30% reported by, presumably, the correct calculation)
Affiliates:
93 / (93 + 18 + 18) = 72.90% (vs. 83.78% reported by, presumably, the correct calculation)
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
Same reasoning as above, I am very curious to know whether your strong questioning of the integrity of the process is something that reflects whatever your role is at the Wikimedia Foundation, and if not, why you have pursued it in a public channel where I surely am not the only one confused on that point, and trying to process a whole bunch of heated claims and counterclaims about a complex process.
-Pete -- Pete Forsyth Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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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Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
Chris,
This whole process is commissioned by the WMF. The MCDC is a >committee
established by the WMF. The electoral commission >overseeing the MCDC is appointed by the WMF.
It sounds like you deny the independence of operations and autonomy of the decisions of both MCDC and the Election Committee composed of the volunteer wikimedians.
You are welcome to design and implement a process completely independent of WMF; in fact, I have already seen it happening. Unfortunately, I cannot at the moment find the “ The Charter Lite” proposed by SJ. Hopefully, somebody will provide a link.
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your own views.
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
It is not appropriate for you to be accusing 'the affiliates' , who are
the
WMF's strategic partners in delivering its mission, of some kind of conspiracy.
Please don't try to twist my words, I didn't mention a conspiracy: their opinion is quite public - you can look at the link in my original email.
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
Thank you to everybody who participated in this conversation so far, especially those who were not afraid to publicly express their support for my opinion and those who wrote private letters of support.
As I was politely asked to shut up like a good girl, so that’s what I will do. This is my last email in this thread.
You should also understand that this is why the trustees mostly remain silent beyond the official WMF communications—the conversations inevitably devolve into personal attacks.
I’ll see some of you at Wikimania, where I hope to continue the conversation in person.
Kind regards, Victoria
Victoria Doronina https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/dr-victoria-doronina/ Trustee Sister Projects Taskforce Lead
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Imagine a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Please help us make it a
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:58 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Victoria:
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 6:10 AM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm shocked that "the neutral votes don’t count towards the total number of votes cast"*, *which contradicts the rules of any other referendum I know.
It is how referenda in the U.S. state of Oregon work. The choices are "yes", "no", or leaving the question blank. Leaving the question blank is tallied as an "undervote" and is not counted toward the percentage; only "yes" or "no" votes count towards the deciding percentage. (The state defines this term differently from how English Wikipedia defines it, something I'll try to improve now that I've noticed. Undervotes are recorded, if I recall correctly, in relation to the race on the ballot that had the highest participation. E.g. if the race for governor had 10000 votes for candidates and Measure 5 on the same ballot had 9000 votes for yes or no, that would be described as "Measure 5 had an undervote of 1000.") Oregon was the first U.S. state to adopt this form of popular democracy, and was the model for many other states. So I would be somewhat surprised to learn that any other U.S. state tallied it differently. (Of course, many races for *candidates* do require a majority of all votes cast, which would include write-ins; so in electoral votes, it is indeed typical to include votes (actual write-in votes, as opposed to undervotes) that are neutral in terms of the candidates presented. Perhaps a point of confusion?
Everything was done to get the vote past an arbitrary line,
Sorry, this reads to me as an incorrect and escalatory attack on the integrity of the system, as Chris Keating described eloquently. I'd like to add that as a reader who is somewhat distant from these matters, it is especially disconcerting to have a message attacking the system created and administered by the Wikimedia Foundation come from a wikimedia.org email address. It only compounds that confusion that you have chosen (quite strangely to my eye, though I recognize that it's common practice) not to include a signature indicating your job title or role, nor to explain how much you were involved in the project you are now criticizing.
first reducing the number of the votes required for the quorum from 4% to 2%, and now this. It would be interesting to recalculate the real percentage.
Thankfully, the raw data was presented by the committee in the very email you're responding to, and the math is pretty straightforward.
Individual: 1,710 / (1710 + 623 + 113) 69.91% (vs. 73.30% reported by, presumably, the correct calculation)
Affiliates:
93 / (93 + 18 + 18) = 72.90% (vs. 83.78% reported by, presumably, the correct calculation)
Philip, I'm happy that my irony didn't escape you - the revolutions are not done via convening a bureaucratic body. I think that what we see is the protest vote of the people unhappy with WMF for whatever reason + affiliates who want not just the slice of the pie, but the pie itself + the usual suspects.
Same reasoning as above, I am very curious to know whether your strong questioning of the integrity of the process is something that reflects whatever your role is at the Wikimedia Foundation, and if not, why you have pursued it in a public channel where I surely am not the only one confused on that point, and trying to process a whole bunch of heated claims and counterclaims about a complex process.
-Pete
Pete Forsyth Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 12:56 PM Gnangarra gnangarra@gmail.com wrote:
Eva
A couple of issue yes there was just 3 days to write the outcomes, fair there wasnt the time to polish it. The Movement Charter had how many years? Yet the word is vague, incomplete, and insufficient for what it was going to be.
According to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Quorums_for_current_Se... a quorum was 2346 individual votes (2% of 117,275 eligible accounts). this was not met as stated in this email 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*). The total number of votes cast were 2333, which was 13 short of the required amount
On Fri, 19 Jul 2024 at 19:09, Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Paulo,
Thank you for your kind words and your support. It's one thing to believe that at least a few of my voters support my actions and quite another to hear from someone.
I believe that the contrarian voices were silenced from the start of this process, so it's vital to hear that the BoT did not act utterly contrary to the community's opinions.
Kind regards
Victoria
On Fri, Jul 19, 2024 at 11:21 AM 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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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On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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Maybe to offer a bit of a counter-argument to you, Itzik, that not all is lost, if I may ;-)
I don't think the whole process was a waste of time in the sense that communities and affiliates have shown what they want, and the WMF can now decide if they want to be part of this process or not. Over the last few years the level of cooperation between communities and affiliates has become a lot higher, as a direct result of the strategy process and the simple idea, that yes, working together is actually worth time and money.
The result of the ratification tells us that at least in the visible Wikiverse there is a clear desire and need to create a better framework for Wikimedia that strengthens our understanding of each other and treats everyone working on these projects with the same dignity and respect, while also acknowledging that to be able to partcipate also requires people like us in privileged positions to be more flexible in the way think about participation and how we can create an environment where "equity in decision-making" actually has meaning.
The strategy process itself has enabled many volunteers and staff members to broaden their horizons about other people's situations, how difficult even the most mundane wiki-tasks can be in a different part of the world. The working groups wrote the recommendations, but more importantly, taught many people involved in the working groups about what the challenges are to implement those recommendations. The CEE Hub is a direct result of this process, because many participants in the early stages of the CEE Hub project transitioned there from their working groups.
So maybe the next step should not be to ask what's the point, but maybe to think, discuss and plan how we can shape the future we want to see. To build a structure that organisations, communities and indvidiuals voluntarily join, and not out of fear of missing out, but out of a sense of optimism and hope that together we can overcome the challenges we all together are facing and support each other in those challenges that only some of us need to face ;-)
I for one can't wait to get started.
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 at 10:19, Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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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As a former board member, a big kudos to Victoria for providing her position publicly. Especially, when it is opposed to strong opinions of some within our movement.
On the position that us putting a lot of resources into the movement charter means we "must" approve it is known as the sunk costs fallacy. Yes a movement charter I believe is important but I have many concerns with the current version.
A few examples:
1) We have a legal and support team for the WMF for which we pay many millions a year. Could this infrastructure support this new body or are we talking about duplicating these teams and thus these expenses? And if the latter is this a cost effective structure?
2) What is the problem we are trying to solve and can we state it? Is it that we are trying to keep our communities in control of our movement and by extension movement resources? Ie prevent the take over of movement resources by a small group that wishes to move things in a direction contrary to the desires of the majority? If so, is what was proposed the best and most efficient structure to do this?
Best James
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 3:36 AM Philip Kopetzky philip.kopetzky@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe to offer a bit of a counter-argument to you, Itzik, that not all is lost, if I may ;-)
I don't think the whole process was a waste of time in the sense that communities and affiliates have shown what they want, and the WMF can now decide if they want to be part of this process or not. Over the last few years the level of cooperation between communities and affiliates has become a lot higher, as a direct result of the strategy process and the simple idea, that yes, working together is actually worth time and money.
The result of the ratification tells us that at least in the visible Wikiverse there is a clear desire and need to create a better framework for Wikimedia that strengthens our understanding of each other and treats everyone working on these projects with the same dignity and respect, while also acknowledging that to be able to partcipate also requires people like us in privileged positions to be more flexible in the way think about participation and how we can create an environment where "equity in decision-making" actually has meaning.
The strategy process itself has enabled many volunteers and staff members to broaden their horizons about other people's situations, how difficult even the most mundane wiki-tasks can be in a different part of the world. The working groups wrote the recommendations, but more importantly, taught many people involved in the working groups about what the challenges are to implement those recommendations. The CEE Hub is a direct result of this process, because many participants in the early stages of the CEE Hub project transitioned there from their working groups.
So maybe the next step should not be to ask what's the point, but maybe to think, discuss and plan how we can shape the future we want to see. To build a structure that organisations, communities and indvidiuals voluntarily join, and not out of fear of missing out, but out of a sense of optimism and hope that together we can overcome the challenges we all together are facing and support each other in those challenges that only some of us need to face ;-)
I for one can't wait to get started.
On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 at 10:19, Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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
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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On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 5:36 AM Philip Kopetzky philip.kopetzky@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe to offer a bit of a counter-argument to you, Itzik, that not all is lost, if I may ;-)
(-: Agreed, Philip. We have reached a point in group transition where it is easy to be paranoid, because change brings uncertainty about the future. But we are closer now to meaningful delegation and shared decisions and prioritization. In some arenas the bottleneck is identifying community priorities, rather than having a mechanism for acting on them.
Communities and affiliates have shown what they want,
True to an extent, which needs refinement. Communities have always wanted self-governance, but were the least involved in this charter+council development. Affiliates as a group are dominated by user groups, which are a fairly arbitrary subset of persistent active projects and were not intended to serve a global representation or governance function.
Over the last few years the level of cooperation between communities and affiliates has become a lot higher
Also because of simple community-run mechanisms such as SWAN.
The working groups wrote the recommendations, but more importantly, taught many people involved in the working groups about what the challenges are to implement those recommendations. The CEE Hub is a direct result of this process
This is a good point and a useful frame of reference. I also found the comments on the charter over the past few months from a number of regional networks to be a good sign. Since the time of the working groups, we are missing similar collective evaluations from the Projects; and we are missing a rhythm of peer feedback for those participating in discussion about their ideas, hopes, and concerns (outside of facilitated in-person events, which are costly and exclusive.)
So maybe the next step should [be] to build a structure that organisations, communities and indvidiuals voluntarily join... out of a sense of optimism and hope that together we can overcome the challenges we all together are facing and support each other in those challenges that only some of us need to face ;-)
Well put. Mutual support, resolving unsolved issues, and deduplication of effort are excellent motivation.
---- Itzik wrote:
the board made very clear in their resolution - they don't want any
change of forces
We read the same text and interpret it in very different ways. 🖤 I see an explicit desire for change, and commitment to mechanisms for making it happen, however incremental.
No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the
movement bodies...
Technically, the WMF Board already decides how much money goes to different things. But we still (colloquially) say that the CEO and staff set the budget and spending plans, which are submitted to the community for public comment and to the Board as proposals for approval.
So when the Board plans for a new committee to "have the authority to adjust grantmaking structures... including establishing global or thematic funding goals" and says it will "seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals [for] how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution", that seems to be asking clearly for a comparable sort of proposal for approval. Where such proposals conflict, the Board would have to iterate or otherwise find a compromise.
---- Finally, this seems like a good moment to note that the WMF's fundraising and budget are only part of the whole. Today it manages more than 80% of staff and of funds raised (with WMDE accounting for the plurality of the rest), but we should be planning and developing shared language* for a future where fundraising and support are more distributed.
SJ
* To begin with, we should have an overall visualization of the flow of funds, in-kind support, and time in the movement. If anyone has been working on this, or would like to, please get in touch.
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pundit/Charter I personally was in favor of, but there were others).
The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes".
I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution.
I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste.
best
Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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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Hi, While I can follow the reasoning behind the concerns about the Charter draft (and I personally share some of these in parts), I still do not understand the reasoning for the proposed next steps (appendix):* Why is there no Movement Charter and no Global Council mentioned in the Appendix as they are considered relevant parts of more equal decision making within the Movement Strategy which was also adopted by the wMF? What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? — With this proposal I feel like we're left in vacuum without any idea how and where to progress with these topics together with WMF.* Why are all currently proposed bodies designed exactly the way all parties had problems with over the past decade?** One of them fully selected by WMF staff: “Applications for the PTAC […] Candidates will be selected [by WMF] for an interview on a rolling basis.”, etc. -> “recommendations for Wikimedia Foundation Product and Technology teams”** The other one financially fully dependent on budget allocation -> “will seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals“*: I assume that some of these wordings have legal reasons, but they create more frustration than needed because nobody knows if and how recommendations are heard and many of us carry their baggage. This is getting even more complicated the way the next steps were announced: Maybe there is a general need for the WMF Board to put everything in motions instead of starting conversations with other stakeholders, but for me it feels that by doing this there is not much ground for conversation but the next steps are put in stone just to fill a vacuum none of us ever wanted. Both of these points, the omission of core Movement Strategy vocabulary and the way the experiments are designed and seem to be set in stone, are nowhere close to “equity in decision-making”. I think we can do better, together! Why not also with regard to the next steps?
Maybe you can also emphasize on this. :) It's helpful to read more from the Board perspective for one's own reflections, thanks once again! I'm also looking forward to conversations about it at Wikimania and meeting many of you again. (PS: If you prefer that I move these questions to the Appendix talk page, please let me know.) Best,DerHexer
Am Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2024 um 16:00:06 MESZ hat Dariusz Jemielniak djemielniak@wikimedia.org Folgendes geschrieben:
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft I personally was in favor of, but there were others). The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes". I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution. I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste. best Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina vdoronina@wikimedia.org wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter. The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula:Leave / (Leave + Remain)(the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections). The percentage it differs (51.85%) fromLeave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt)(the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda). So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems. Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony. Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address! I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined. Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate. I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully. PeteEditor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc. _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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
" What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? "
Agreed. I've shared it a while ago on Strategy Telegram channel after the board liaisons first declaration and I repeat it here: We need to know very clearly Foundation's vision on "*Ensure Equity in Decision-making". * I don't want to waste my time on discussing/reviewing/sharing/meeting/voting on new suggestions or appendix before knowing how the party who said "No" is seeing the 4th recommendation.
Best, NANöR
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:47 PM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi,
While I can follow the reasoning behind the concerns about the Charter draft (and I personally share some of these in parts), I still do not understand the reasoning for the proposed next steps (appendix https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix ):
- Why is there no Movement Charter and no Global Council mentioned in the
Appendix as they are considered relevant parts of more equal decision making within the Movement Strategy which was also adopted by the wMF? What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? — With this proposal I feel like we're left in vacuum without any idea how and where to progress with these topics *together with WMF*.
- Why are all currently proposed bodies designed exactly the way all
parties had problems with over the past decade? ** One of them fully selected by WMF staff: “Applications for the PTAC […] Candidates will be selected [by WMF] for an interview on a rolling basis.”, etc. -> “recommendations for Wikimedia Foundation Product and Technology teams” ** The other one financially fully dependent on budget allocation -> “will seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals“ *: I assume that some of these wordings have legal reasons, but they create more frustration than needed because nobody knows if and how recommendations are heard and many of us carry their baggage. This is getting even more complicated the way the next steps were announced: Maybe there is a general need for the WMF Board to put everything in motions instead of *starting conversations with other stakeholders*, but for me it feels that by doing this there is not much ground for conversation but the next steps are put in stone just to fill a vacuum none of us ever wanted.
Both of these points, the omission of core Movement Strategy vocabulary and the way the experiments are designed and seem to be set in stone, are nowhere close to “equity in decision-making”. I think we can do better, together! Why not also with regard to the next steps?
Maybe you can also emphasize on this. :) It's helpful to read more from the Board perspective for one's own reflections, thanks once again! I'm also looking forward to conversations about it at Wikimania and meeting many of you again.
(PS: If you prefer that I move these questions to the Appendix talk page, please let me know.)
Best, DerHexer
Am Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2024 um 16:00:06 MESZ hat Dariusz Jemielniak < djemielniak@wikimedia.org> Folgendes geschrieben:
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pundit/Charter I personally was in favor of, but there were others).
The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes".
I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution.
I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste.
best
Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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
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
--
*Please, note, that this email will expire at some point. Bookmark dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org as a more permanent contact address. * _______________________________________________ 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/...
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Hi DerHexer,
Thank you for your message. I'm replying specifically to say "Yes, please!" to your PS. about putting your comments in the Appendix Talk Page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix. As one of the staff members tasked with soliciting input on and collectively turning these proposals into action, I'd very much welcome that.
In case the above isn't clear, I'll note that the experiments are very much not set in stone, and are put forward as proposals. If you have suggestions for how to iterate on or improve them, I'd welcome that. Yger and Scann have offered their perspectives including some specific suggestions on the Resource Distribution proposal, which I think are helpful.
Best,
Yael *Yael Weissburg* (she/her) VP, Community Growth Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/ M: (+1) 415.513.6643 I work from San Francisco. My time zone is UTC -7/-8. Book a call with me here https://calendly.com/yael_wmf/talking-2024-yael-wmf.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 7:47 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi,
While I can follow the reasoning behind the concerns about the Charter draft (and I personally share some of these in parts), I still do not understand the reasoning for the proposed next steps (appendix https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix ):
- Why is there no Movement Charter and no Global Council mentioned in the
Appendix as they are considered relevant parts of more equal decision making within the Movement Strategy which was also adopted by the wMF? What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? — With this proposal I feel like we're left in vacuum without any idea how and where to progress with these topics *together with WMF*.
- Why are all currently proposed bodies designed exactly the way all
parties had problems with over the past decade? ** One of them fully selected by WMF staff: “Applications for the PTAC […] Candidates will be selected [by WMF] for an interview on a rolling basis.”, etc. -> “recommendations for Wikimedia Foundation Product and Technology teams” ** The other one financially fully dependent on budget allocation -> “will seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals“ *: I assume that some of these wordings have legal reasons, but they create more frustration than needed because nobody knows if and how recommendations are heard and many of us carry their baggage. This is getting even more complicated the way the next steps were announced: Maybe there is a general need for the WMF Board to put everything in motions instead of *starting conversations with other stakeholders*, but for me it feels that by doing this there is not much ground for conversation but the next steps are put in stone just to fill a vacuum none of us ever wanted.
Both of these points, the omission of core Movement Strategy vocabulary and the way the experiments are designed and seem to be set in stone, are nowhere close to “equity in decision-making”. I think we can do better, together! Why not also with regard to the next steps?
Maybe you can also emphasize on this. :) It's helpful to read more from the Board perspective for one's own reflections, thanks once again! I'm also looking forward to conversations about it at Wikimania and meeting many of you again.
(PS: If you prefer that I move these questions to the Appendix talk page, please let me know.)
Best, DerHexer
Am Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2024 um 16:00:06 MESZ hat Dariusz Jemielniak < djemielniak@wikimedia.org> Folgendes geschrieben:
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pundit/Charter I personally was in favor of, but there were others).
The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes".
I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution.
I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste.
best
Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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
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
--
*Please, note, that this email will expire at some point. Bookmark dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org as a more permanent contact address. * _______________________________________________ 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/...
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Hi,
There is a scheduled virtual meeting of SWAN now 28 July at 03:00 UTC Meeting link – https://meet.google.com/jpt-oxnq-pgz
WMF folks including CEO Maryana are in the meeting room.
Kind regards,
Butch
On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 5:50 AM Yael Weissburg rweissburg@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi DerHexer,
Thank you for your message. I'm replying specifically to say "Yes, please!" to your PS. about putting your comments in the Appendix Talk Page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix. As one of the staff members tasked with soliciting input on and collectively turning these proposals into action, I'd very much welcome that.
In case the above isn't clear, I'll note that the experiments are very much not set in stone, and are put forward as proposals. If you have suggestions for how to iterate on or improve them, I'd welcome that. Yger and Scann have offered their perspectives including some specific suggestions on the Resource Distribution proposal, which I think are helpful.
Best,
Yael *Yael Weissburg* (she/her) VP, Community Growth Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/ M: (+1) 415.513.6643 I work from San Francisco. My time zone is UTC -7/-8. Book a call with me here https://calendly.com/yael_wmf/talking-2024-yael-wmf.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 7:47 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi,
While I can follow the reasoning behind the concerns about the Charter draft (and I personally share some of these in parts), I still do not understand the reasoning for the proposed next steps (appendix https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix ):
- Why is there no Movement Charter and no Global Council mentioned in the
Appendix as they are considered relevant parts of more equal decision making within the Movement Strategy which was also adopted by the wMF? What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? — With this proposal I feel like we're left in vacuum without any idea how and where to progress with these topics *together with WMF*.
- Why are all currently proposed bodies designed exactly the way all
parties had problems with over the past decade? ** One of them fully selected by WMF staff: “Applications for the PTAC […] Candidates will be selected [by WMF] for an interview on a rolling basis.”, etc. -> “recommendations for Wikimedia Foundation Product and Technology teams” ** The other one financially fully dependent on budget allocation -> “will seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals“ *: I assume that some of these wordings have legal reasons, but they create more frustration than needed because nobody knows if and how recommendations are heard and many of us carry their baggage. This is getting even more complicated the way the next steps were announced: Maybe there is a general need for the WMF Board to put everything in motions instead of *starting conversations with other stakeholders*, but for me it feels that by doing this there is not much ground for conversation but the next steps are put in stone just to fill a vacuum none of us ever wanted.
Both of these points, the omission of core Movement Strategy vocabulary and the way the experiments are designed and seem to be set in stone, are nowhere close to “equity in decision-making”. I think we can do better, together! Why not also with regard to the next steps?
Maybe you can also emphasize on this. :) It's helpful to read more from the Board perspective for one's own reflections, thanks once again! I'm also looking forward to conversations about it at Wikimania and meeting many of you again.
(PS: If you prefer that I move these questions to the Appendix talk page, please let me know.)
Best, DerHexer
Am Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2024 um 16:00:06 MESZ hat Dariusz Jemielniak < djemielniak@wikimedia.org> Folgendes geschrieben:
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pundit/Charter I personally was in favor of, but there were others).
The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes".
I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution.
I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste.
best
Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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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--
*Please, note, that this email will expire at some point. Bookmark dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org as a more permanent contact address. * _______________________________________________ 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/...
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The next SWAN meeting is starting now
Meeting link – https://meet.google.com/jpt-oxnq-pgz
Wikimedia Foundation representatives, including CEO Maryana Iskander and Board members, are scheduled to appear to answer questions and present their case.
Kind regards,
niedz., 28 lip 2024 o 05:12 Butch Bustria bustrias@gmail.com napisał(a):
Hi,
There is a scheduled virtual meeting of SWAN now 28 July at 03:00 UTC Meeting link – https://meet.google.com/jpt-oxnq-pgz
WMF folks including CEO Maryana are in the meeting room.
Kind regards,
Butch
On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 5:50 AM Yael Weissburg rweissburg@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi DerHexer,
Thank you for your message. I'm replying specifically to say "Yes, please!" to your PS. about putting your comments in the Appendix Talk Page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix. As one of the staff members tasked with soliciting input on and collectively turning these proposals into action, I'd very much welcome that.
In case the above isn't clear, I'll note that the experiments are very much not set in stone, and are put forward as proposals. If you have suggestions for how to iterate on or improve them, I'd welcome that. Yger and Scann have offered their perspectives including some specific suggestions on the Resource Distribution proposal, which I think are helpful.
Best,
Yael *Yael Weissburg* (she/her) VP, Community Growth Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/ M: (+1) 415.513.6643 I work from San Francisco. My time zone is UTC -7/-8. Book a call with me here https://calendly.com/yael_wmf/talking-2024-yael-wmf.
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 7:47 AM DerHexer via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi,
While I can follow the reasoning behind the concerns about the Charter draft (and I personally share some of these in parts), I still do not understand the reasoning for the proposed next steps (appendix https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/Board_resolution_and_vote_on_the_proposed_Movement_Charter/Appendix ):
- Why is there no Movement Charter and no Global Council mentioned in
the Appendix as they are considered relevant parts of more equal decision making within the Movement Strategy which was also adopted by the wMF? What is the vision of the WMF on these parts of the Movement Strategy and how to we make progress on these over the next couple of years? — With this proposal I feel like we're left in vacuum without any idea how and where to progress with these topics *together with WMF*.
- Why are all currently proposed bodies designed exactly the way all
parties had problems with over the past decade? ** One of them fully selected by WMF staff: “Applications for the PTAC […] Candidates will be selected [by WMF] for an interview on a rolling basis.”, etc. -> “recommendations for Wikimedia Foundation Product and Technology teams” ** The other one financially fully dependent on budget allocation -> “will seek the recommendations and insights of this body for proposals“ *: I assume that some of these wordings have legal reasons, but they create more frustration than needed because nobody knows if and how recommendations are heard and many of us carry their baggage. This is getting even more complicated the way the next steps were announced: Maybe there is a general need for the WMF Board to put everything in motions instead of *starting conversations with other stakeholders*, but for me it feels that by doing this there is not much ground for conversation but the next steps are put in stone just to fill a vacuum none of us ever wanted.
Both of these points, the omission of core Movement Strategy vocabulary and the way the experiments are designed and seem to be set in stone, are nowhere close to “equity in decision-making”. I think we can do better, together! Why not also with regard to the next steps?
Maybe you can also emphasize on this. :) It's helpful to read more from the Board perspective for one's own reflections, thanks once again! I'm also looking forward to conversations about it at Wikimania and meeting many of you again.
(PS: If you prefer that I move these questions to the Appendix talk page, please let me know.)
Best, DerHexer
Am Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2024 um 16:00:06 MESZ hat Dariusz Jemielniak < djemielniak@wikimedia.org> Folgendes geschrieben:
If the Board is not just a token body, it was in the voting pipeline for a reason. We really worked hard on trying to make things work - unfortunately, the visions have dramatically diverted. As I wrote before, we have been very supportive of the approach that is problem-oriented and organic (one possible idea draft https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pundit/Charter I personally was in favor of, but there were others).
The Board, as I understand it, is fully supportive of the changes in principle. It is just responsible enough to not go blindly for an approach that it considers flawed and costly. This is, fundamentally, an essential fiduciary duty of a trustee: to say "no," when needed, and even when a lot of people chant "yes".
I personally am very much in favor of a transfer of responsibility to the community at large, I am quite against a large, parliamentary-style body, as it, paradoxically, takes quite a bit of power from the community itself, while not offering an effective solution.
I may be definitely wrong in my views, but assuming bad faith, dictatorship, illusionary elections... Goes quite a bit too far, to my taste.
best
Dariusz
On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 4:20 AM Itzik Edri itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:
When I realized the entire "voting" process was a hoax by the board a few weeks ago, I wanted to join other people in protesting against the board's behavior. However, I felt it would be pointless, as the board had already wasted far too much time, knowing it wouldn't accept anything other than its own decision. Why spend more time and talk about this charter, collaborate together, in what we thought was a democratic decision-making process for this movement, but then when it failed to meet the board's own needs, it became a dictatorship, where elections aren't just an illusion, and even a majority of the movement won't convince the board to accept the existing rules.
But rather than addressing the fundamental issue of the board's disregard for this process, which is a waste of millions of dollars and even worse, the time spent by countless volunteers thinking, writing, and developing this charter, this discussion has shifted to irrelevant issues such as whether neutral votes should be counted and whether 100 members (a maximum number, not a desired number) of the Global Council should attend Wikimania (a matter that is not even mentioned in the charter).
I'm sorry, but all of this is dodging the truth that the board made very clear in their resolution - they don’t want any change of forces.
It's clear from their proposed changes to the resource distribution ("Because the Board of Trustees holds ultimate financial and fiduciary obligations, they are ultimately responsible for approving how much of the Foundation’s budget will be made available for grants distribution") - No one will decide how much money the foundation will spend. It is up to them to decide how much money will go to the rest of the movement bodies, and volunteers can maybe only influence how it will be split among them. How is it different from now?
The board's resolution is unambiguous, from the resource distribution component to the complete disregard for the global council. The board is unwilling to recognize any entity that could potentially challenge its authority. *Its* staff will support affiliates, resource allocation, and other committees, but any potential global council body would be entirely dependent on volunteers for all its activities. In contrast, the board itself enjoys the support of 100~ paid staff (executives, legal, communications, administration..). This arrangement represents a significant imbalance of power that serves no purpose other than to maintain the board's control.
So what is the point?
On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 7:57 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jul 20, 2024 at 12:30 AM Victoria Doronina < vdoronina@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Pete,
I live in Europe and am not familiar with the US rules. In the UK, spoilt ballots, equivalent to the neutral vote, are counted in the tally.
I don't follow your connection between a spoilt ballot and a neutral vote, to me these seem to be unrelated concepts. One has to do with the technical condition of the ballot at the time when counted, while the other reflects the intent of the voter.
The UK system also does not appear to work the way you describe. For the UK referendum we all know best (Brexit), the percentage reported on the English Wikipedia article (51.89%) aligns exactly with the result of this formula: Leave / (Leave + Remain) (the same formula used for the charter vote, and in Oregon elections).
The percentage it differs (51.85%) from Leave / (Leave + Remain + spoilt) (the formula I think you endorse and, I think inaccurately, ascribe to British referenda).
So I really am at a loss. The formula used by the Charter Commission seems both to align with the policy it set up ahead of time, and with precedents in other electoral systems.
Chris said:
Given all of that, it is neither appropriate, not helpful, for you to
now
launch into some kind of public critique of this process based on your
own views.
Victoria said:
The community-elected trustees were repeatedly demonised and asked for their opinion. Now that I’m expressing my opinion, it is suddenly inappropriate. Is it because I’m a woman or because the opinion that the Charter and the process of its' ratification are not fit for purpose should be silenced by any means?
I disagree with Chris on this point. But I do find your position confusing. Is it not *you* who are now demonizing the committee, by asserting that their chosen methodology is unique among systems of referendum, and imputing ill motives? In addition to being inaccurate (as to the propriety of the tallying method), your words after the fact come across to me as spiteful. It's hard to see what they accomplish beyond furthering acrimony.
Victoria said:
Dear all,
I regret to see that the communication in this thread fractured. People are now asking who am I to use the wikimedia.org email address.
I certainly don't object to a Trustee commenting on something that has been a significant project of the organization, that seems like an ideal use of a wikimedia.org email address!
I also have no objection to the Board's singular act of vetoing the charter.
What *does* concern me is trying to comprehend what the Board is aiming for. This seems like a uniquely important moment for the Board to clearly communicate its vision, as it rejects the proposal that arose out of the process it had previously defined.
Instead, communications from the Board (including yours) seem to be varying shades of inaccurate, political, vague, and inarticulate.
I would urge you to reflect on that. I'm not saying don't communicate, but the opposite. I urge you to communicate more clearly and carefully.
Pete Editor of English Wikisource, Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata, etc.
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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--
*Please, note, that this email will expire at some point. Bookmark dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org dariusz.jemielniak@fulbrightmail.org as a more permanent contact address. * _______________________________________________ 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/...
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-- Sincerely,
Butch Bustria
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