Hello all!
The Wikimedia Foundation Board has unanimously approved the changes to the Bylaws [1] during the last Board meeting on January 30, 2019. This will be covered in the minutes, and the resolution will be published in short order.
This change allows the participation of User Groups [2] in the Affiliate-selected Board seats (ASBS) 2019 process [3]. The discussion about this process should start as soon as possible in order to have these two seats selected by Wikimania. This is why we are sending this letter now, before the resolution is published.
There are now over 100 recognized User Groups, covering over 50 countries, several languages and topics, many of whom represent new and emergent communities within the Wikimedia movement. The Board believes that the added perspectives of the User Groups, combined with the voices of Chapters and Thematic Organizations, will lead to a richer collection of guidance for our movement. The conversation about how User Groups may participate in this process has been on for years, it is not a new topic [4].
Once the facilitators of the Selection process are appointed by the affiliates, they should work with María Sefidari, who has been chosen by the Board as the Board liaison for the ASBS process.
Given the potential complexity of organizing a process that now will include over a hundred user groups, the Wikimedia Foundation is offering its support to set up infrastructure and help with communications if requested by the affiliates.
A page for translation can be found at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Wikimedia_Foundation_Bylaws_changed_plus_next_steps
On behalf of the Board
antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv
Chair of the Board Governance Committee
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019