With the goal of ensuring that anyone interested is well informed to fully participate in the conversations and are empowered to contribute their perspective on the Movement Charter, three Ask Me Anything about Movement Charter sessions will be organized, scheduled for different time zones. The Europe/MENA/Sub Saharan Africa edition will occur on November 12, 2022 at 15:00 UTC (your local time)
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Can’t wait to see you all there, tomorrow!
Just a kind reminder that the session will start in little less than an hour 
Ok thanks.
Please send the link for the meeting.
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The link for the Europe/MENA/Sub-Saharan Africa meeting:
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Thanks everyone for your interesting questions and active participation! The notes and recordings of the presentation will be shared in the coming days! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them here.
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Notes from the Session
- Is there a possibility that even the core structure of the WMF as its bylaws may be changed by your process? For example, Wikimedia Deutschland has proposed last year to change the WMF to an association with individual membership, so we could have a more democratic procedure with the General Assembly and voting and calls and representatives. This would make it much easier to implement a democratic structure in the WMF. That would be my question. Is it possible to have a so far ongoing change in your process?
- Yes, yes, this is something that possibly could be an outcome of the movement charter, one of the proposals from the strategy is to have 2023 also a global council which might be what you are referring to. So, yes, the movement Charter could potentially turn everything around in the governance of our movement.
- Why is a Charter needed? How will it affect our communities?
- As somebody as a representative of the region from which there has been limited participation in strategic discussions and also a region that is facing some sort of exclusive challenges about how we receive funding and how we are managing affiliates because there are challenges with the nonprofit organization registration, in the region. A movement charter will be a central document that will keep the movement aligned which will keep the movement intact, and also follow the same guidelines, which we have an until now as a general agreement among ourselves.
- It will result in the implementation of new structures. The idea is to facilitate the structure of it all. It will integrate all of the parties, regardless of where they are in the movement. And it is made to define new stretches, and new decisions, making a direction within the movement and it’s made to ease processes and relationships at every level.
- It is supposed to ease relations everywhere in the movement. The MC is so important as it will be an essential document in which the strategy recommendations will be stated with its applications properly which will align perfectly with the needed direction for the WM movement in the next decade at least.
- The structure in the movement has grown organically and at the current point in time, we should review these structures and align all those processes again if is it still correct.t I funding alright? Is the voice of the communities heard?
- CC process - how will the MCDC consult the community?
- We do want to start the process now because we want to engage with the community as we progress forward so that we are listening to all the feedback we are hearing all the suggestions as we are drafting it as we’re moving forward so we are not missing out on any important information.
- The question is if someone from the community decides to participate, to get involved and help its communities, you know, get also a hearts in that process, are there any specific domains? What are you expecting that person to work on? I guess the question is if you expect something like translating documents or hosting a conversation.
- There’s no limitation on how extensively and in like which specific field you want to engage with us, there’s no such limitation. So on Monday, which is November fourteenth, we are sharing the first 3 drafts of the charter work that we have completed you are going to receive a draft of the preamble, a draft on values and principles, and a layout of how we will be taking the work forward for defining the rules and responsibilities of the different movement entities. So when you receive that document, you can choose to comment on all or one.
- The work that we expect from the ambassadors is to translate the information to make it easier for the committee members to understand this and to be able to share feedback in their native language the work that we also intend the ambassadors to do is to start conversations in your region, or your thematic groups about the movement charter. We expect that if the committee does not have the capacity to engage one on one, so they can reach out to you, and you can be their voice.
- What kind of feedback do you hope to hear from the communities
- We want to hear where we are wrong. These parts are the fundament of the charter. Values: Do you miss something? Roles&Responsibilities might be the most important. We have some intentions in that draft, we want to hear if this is in the right tone, it will change a lot.
- We talk about 3 parts. There has been some work done you will be able to acknowledge and understand. Let’s know if this fits in the reality of your community as we want it to fit the whole movement according to everyone’s context. That’s why we need your feedback.
- Translations / Readability:- will it be in English only?
- We are very aware of this and we care about translation and readability. We will receive support in this from MSG. Let us know if something does not make sense in your language and we will fix it, we want to be accessible.
- Mahuton explains a passage for the Ambassadors program “One group per community only.”
- Will there be a part on global bans in the MC?
- The MC is about general relations, the bans are more a process to be discussed elsewhere.
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- GC will be a big topic. We all work on it as it is difficult, especially concerning the WMF. Values and R&R need to be supported by the community first, then we can tackle it.
- It has not yet started. We have not yet started working on Global Council. We have set an intent outline for Roles & Responsibilities
- The UCoC development team had a problem with ignoring messages, did you take into account their mistakes?
- We are not in charge of the UCoC, we can circle this just forward.
- When will it be published?
- We want to hear everyone first and will proceed then.
- We need examples of what we are solving. If you can imagine them, it would be very cool.
- When we started, everyone did their own projects in their own ways. Every affiliate does work their own way. To streamline work and to have standard guiding and processes, we need an MC.
- If you don’t agree with this or something else, please let us know, if it is the projects or the BoT - let us know where which responsibilities belong. In my view, organizations would be nothing without communities, so how can decisions be turned around or changed? That is MC, to ensure that no one is excluded by what we do now.
- Equity and inclusion - can we accept and recognize that there is a problem? Do all communities have a voice? Wherever we are, everyone should have a voice, it belongs in the movement on all levels, especially when it comes to the GC.
- I’m just being asked by the community (why we need this charter). We lived 10 years without it.
- Take Software Development. This was always WMF. Since 2012 there is WikiData, developed by WMDE. WMBR wants to make something too. Who will ensure that this is in line with our values? Where are the responsibilities for such decisions?
- Will there be an official legal translation in RU or other languages?
- There are some troubles with translations in Russian. But I cannot confirm if there is an OFFICIAL translation. But we reach out widely in 15 languages currently. If you find an error, please let us know. Address this by talking to us or the translators, either of us will be glad.
- Next steps?
- We will share drafts on November 14th and will go into Community Consultations then.
- Is there any consideration for the translation into some indigenous /small languages who want to translate into their languages also?
- We have the 15 priority languages to be done by MSG. But you can translate it into further languages, so if you want to do this, you are very welcome - consider being an Ambassador.
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