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

[Erik Moeller]

Organizations often have a "mission statement" and a "vision
statement". For a typical distinction, see e.g.:
http://www.cfbroward.org/new/tips/1.html

At the Board Retreat in October, we revisited our existing "Vision",
which is: "Imagine a world in which every single person is given free
access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point?
Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide
which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't --
something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing
projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is
Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement
will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they
are relevant, and not just organizational fluff.

After some further discussion, the Board has come up with the
following Mission and Vision statements. I would like to invite
comments on these statements, and perhaps we can identify changes that
we can all agree on. I would also like to encourage you to propose
alternative statements on Meta (see URLs below).

The idea is that, after a discussion and editing period of at least
two weeks, the Board will choose a version of the M&V statements.
These versions will then be put forward to the community, for a simple
"up" or "down" vote. If a statement reaches at least a two thirds
majority of support, it will be implemented as such. If it only
reaches a simple majority, further discussion and potential revision
may follow, at the Board's discretion. A statement that does not reach
a majority will not become an official statement of the WMF. The usual
voting restrictions will apply (minimum participation period etc.) and
will be announced together with the vote.

A general note: Our mission statement is perhaps longer than it needs
to be, and our vision statement shorter. But in these matters, we can
be flexible -- the most important question is whether both statements
meet the specific needs of _our_ organization and community.

== Vision Statement ==

'''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge.'''

Comment:

One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
teaching another language like English and then giving access to
learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
in our vision statement. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase
such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or
government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I
feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to
convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as
possible.

== Mission Statement ==

'''The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
people around the world to collect and develop knowledge under a free
license, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.'''

'''In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation
provides the essential infrastructure and an organizational framework
for the support and development of multilingual wiki projects and
other endeavors which serve this mission. The Foundation is committed
to making and keeping all information from its projects available on
the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.'''

Comment:

This is a slightly edited version from the Retreat, see the URL below
for the original. It was important to us to emphasize that the
relationship between WMF and its chapters, in general practice, is
more one of organizations with different scope working towards the
same goals, rather than a top down chain of command. The last sentence
seemed important to emphasize the distinction between "free licensing"
and "free access", both of which we are equally committed to.

== Comments & edits welcome ==

In the spirit of "stable versions", the M&V statements above can be
found, as protected pages, on

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vision

You can suggest changes in this thread, or edit the unstable versions:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mission/Unstable
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vision/Unstable

You are also encouraged to "fork" new versions if that becomes
necessary due to lack of consensus on the wiki. Again, after at least
two weeks, the Board will nominate the versions to be voted upon by
the community. Let me know if you have any questions about this
process.

You are encouraged to translate the proposed Mission & Vision
statements, and to carry this discussion into other languages -- see
the language links at the top of the above-referenced pages to get
started.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.