Movement Charter general discussion

Ensure Equity in Decision-Making Movement Charter
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Thanks for all your great and important points. A few points in response.

  1. we don’t need to keep the discussion here particularly simple. Don’t worry, any newcomers here will benefit fully if we have a thorough discussion. Any points that are a little complex will simply be a helpful pathway for them to learn more about details of wikipedia.

  2. we don’t need to worry about how enforceable any document or any rules will be. Wikipedia has lots of existing rules, and sometimes their only actual enforceability is within Wikipedia itself. For example we have clear rules against harassment. In general the only place these rules can be enforced is through actions on Wikipedia itself and not anywhere else.

  3. the inequalities and misconduct that you describe above is more reason to enact new rules, not less. The need for such rules is one topic, and the ability to enforce them is a different topic.

  4. let’s just remember that we do have a pool of experts who can help us formulate such rules and could help provide expertise which would enable us to enforce it. I’m referring to the Wikimedia Foundation. The WMF is a global organization with real funding and leadership. That’s why they exist. We might as well formulate the best procedures and rules that we can. Once we do so, then we can definitely have a genuine discussion about actual options and different possible methods for enforcements.

I truly appreciate your points above. And yes I am very interested in finding some good ways that we would be able to move ahead with this. Thanks.

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@Sm8900 you have made several comments implying that the Movement Charter is an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation. For example:

To be clear, the Movement Charter is not a proposal from the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a community proposal with a long history that evolved as a Movement Strategy initiative. Its implementation is led by the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The Foundation supports the proposal of a charter, and the committee tasked to lead its implementation.

About agreeing or disagreeing with the Movement Charter, the proposal was approved as part of the Movement Strategy recommendations. Now it is a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with the drafts or aspects of the implementation process. The ultimate decision is expected to come through a community ratification process.

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It might not be obvious, but User:SJ was a member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees when he created Movement roles project/Charter - Meta .

The movement strategy recommendations aren’t set in stone, or even on firm ground, given the abnormal way the recommendations were created. It’s the community’s prerogative to change or reject recommendations as required.

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@TomDotGov , you make some excellent points. at this point, i’m not sure who is actually driving the "Mvovement Charters’ process or discussions.

by the way, take a look at the event notice below. this is one example of the current resources of the WMF.

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event902×1132 195 KB

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Thank you, everyone, for their contributions to the conversation at hand, and also exploring the meta level questions regarding the value purpose of the Charter overall! I would like to contribute in my role of a supporting staff for the process to clarify some of the aspects here below. I hope it is helpful for the ongoing conversation and I am really looking forward to how it progresses.

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Comparisons to governance documents in the world

Regarding the Movement Charter several comparisons have been made to different types of governance documents in the world, and the comparison to a constitution is the most prevailing one.

  • To be fair, the constitutions of countries come in different shapes, forms, and content, so this comparison might create some confusion regarding contextual differences. At the same time, it still seems to be the most relevant, as the Charter is expected to create an aggregate of fundamental principles and determine the global governance of the movement (see for comparison the definition on Wikipedia).
  • Regarding the particular case of the constitution of the United Kingdom that has been presented in this thread, I believe that it is somewhat misrepresented.
    • The United Kingdom has a constitution, however in uncodified form, meaning it is dispersed across legal documentation of different types rather than summarized in one constitutional act. A common interpretation of the codification of constitutions is that the uncodified constitutions are rather an artifact or rudiment of historical law processes and more intentional policy setting is heavily inclined towards codified solutions with establishing constitutional law in a single document. This is for clarity and ease of comprehension.
    • Overall, most of the countries in the world have codified constitutions and only the former members of the British Commonwealth stand out with uncodified or mixed approaches. (see again the summary in the Wikipedia article)
  • As to the use of the word Charter, it has different meanings in different cultures as well, often referring to much lower level documents and agreements, as a movement wide agreement is expected to be. This has been clearly highlighted in the recent discussions with French, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking communities.
  • Sometimes another comparison has been made in regard to the Movement Charter that takes it to a completely different direction. This is a comparison to a Bill of Rights or Charter of Rights, which relates to the roles and responsibilities in a very different way.
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History of the Charter in the Wikimedia Movement

  • Charter discussions have been mostly related to the connections between the projects and global decision-making. The proposal of a WikiCouncil dates back to 2005 (see Wikicouncil - Meta) and it carries some of the reasoning that is now carried over to the Movement Charter and Global Council.
    • Quote: “As the Wikimedia projects have grown and matured so has the Wikimedia Foundation. Forming the WikiCouncil is a needed step in order to support the local Projects, to empower their communities, and to help the communication between the communities and the more formal organs (Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Chapters.”
  • There was a surge in discussions following a wider emergence of Wikimedia chapters at the end of 2000s and discussions at the Wikimania 2010.
    • To be clear, the Charter proposal in the Movement Roles project was not a proposal of a single individual, yet rather a documentation effort of discussions happening on several platforms (see the history of the topics outline page Movement roles/Charter topics: Revision history - Meta).
    • To be fair, it was mostly related to the evolution of the chapters and collaboration between them, yet were not limited to that.
  • The Charter discussions continued around establishing Wikimedia Chapters Association and Chapters Dialogue project, especially focussing around clearly defined roles & responsibilities of movement entities.
  • As a result, the topic was picked up by the Roles & Responsibilities Working Group in the Movement Strategy process that made it clear that the movement and the roles and responsibilities in the movement would need to be considered holistically.
    • As a result, the final text of the recommendation reads “Create a Movement Charter to: “Lay the values, principles and policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs, as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies. Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders”
  • As this will be a Charter for the whole movement, online project communities cannot be detached from the conversations, and, on the contrary, their perspectives need to be well included for an informed decision on the content of the Charter.
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@KVaidla_WMF , i truly appreciate your replies above. i am totally glad to give your helpful replies some thought. in answer to all of your enriching replies, I will lay out some of my own questions and concerns as briefly and as simply as I can, and hopefully a discussion can ensue from that, which will be truly beneficial to all of us, and to our community in general.

just a few questions;

  • for me, right now, the professed Movement Charter has little relevance to actual active communities in general.
  • and also, it possesses little actual provisions which might allow it to show some real strength when it is needed to serve in a real governance role, or to be a resource for helping with real problems, obtsacles etc, which may come up.

at this point, my main, central goal, is to prove my own points above to be totally wrong in every way. I would be thrilled to be proiven wrong and to find out that the movement charter does in fact fulfil some valuable and genuinely effective roles, and the precise ways that it does so.

I hope you will be willing to assist me in my own efforts to be proven wrong in my own statements. :smiley: more seriously, and with all kidding aside, I would be quite please if this thread could become some sort of central node or central locus, whre some of the actual strengths of the Movement Charter can be fully enumerated and explained, in full details.

I hope that sounds somewhat feasible and viable, and worthwhile? do you think that perhaps we could please begin some sort of positive discussion proces? I would be glad to hear any ideas, insights, items or information that you might wish to share on this topic. thanks!

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As I was posting my responses in a row before, I met the limit of consequent posts allowed for a thread. Here is a final high level one.

Value proposition of the Movement Charter

There have been several discussions regarding the value proposition for the Movement Charter and, apparently, there is need for further ones. I will try to summarize briefly my understanding of key points of what I have heard:

  • In its more than 20 years of existence the movement has grown too big to continue with an organic / ad hoc governance structure. It is time for a shared agreement and intentional design to be more inclusive and effective in global governance. The Charter will be the first building block in that direction.
  • There is a disconnect between different communities and organizations, which creates unnecessary redundancies and duplications, the wheel being reinvented in different corners of the movement. We need to build better connections and Charter can be a centerpiece in building these connections.
  • We are losing time and energy on the dispute around responsibilities. There are inclarities regarding the role of the Foundation, affiliates, and project communities, which sometimes create unnecessary disputes. At the same time, there sometimes seems to be gaps in these responsibilities, which leads to inactivity in areas where action needs to be taken. Becoming more clear and agreeing upon the responsibilities in the Charter would be beneficial in resolving this situation.
  • While there have been different values and principles laid out in the history of the movement, there is no agreement spanning across the projects and organizations. Agreed upon values help to inform action in complex environments and guide the future decisions and design. Hence, a movement level conversation and agreement regarding the core values would help us to bring together and create a shared agreement.

Regarding some of the core issues that have been brought up in this thread - the Charter will not be able to solve them all, yet the hope is that it will be a constructive step towards shared understanding, clarity of responsibilities, and mutual accountability that will help us to better tackle some of the core issues.

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Drafting process

There were debates regarding how the drafting process would need to be set up at the beginning of the process. There is strong support for a rather open process, which has been voiced on several occasions, including online calls, in-person meetings, as well as this forum, meta, and Telegram. At the same time, it was concluded that it would be good to have a curating body in the form of a Drafting Committee to bring a diverse range of thoughts together and bring focus to the actual drafting.

Key considerations for choosing current process:

  • Diversity of the Drafting Group - an effort was made to bring together people with diverse perspectives to the curating body, the Drafting Group. As a result, a complex election/selection/appointment mixed process was used to bring in the perspectives of the project communities, affiliates, and Wikimedia Foundation. Essentially, there is sufficient diversity of perspectives in the committee, yet the diverse backgrounds also complicated the internal setup of the committee (e.g. agreeing on principles, internal decision-making, and other matters took time).
  • Timing of draft publishing - while there are strong advocates for a completely open process where all the work and drafts are open for everyone to see and comment on on meta, it has been estimated that such approach would be significantly slower than the drafting committee one, it has a high risk to be dominated by a few voices, and possibly lead into wider alienation of people due to lack of progress and back and forth editing. As a result, the idea is that the Drafting Committee will publish drafts and then integrate the feedback to come back for validation. While on paper it is a mitigation tactic that could manage the risk, the timing of publishing needs to be right, so people have sufficient insight into the progress of work and feel substantial decisions are not made without their contribution.
  • For further detail on the chosen process, please consult the drafting methodology outline.

Key concerns that have been raised so far are following:

  • Process makes too little progress - people have expected more to be published by now than just the Preamble, Values and Principles, and Roles and Responsibilities statement of intent.
  • Process is not open enough - people would like to see into the machinery, including early drafts and changes made over the course of time based on the feedback.
  • Contribution pathways are not clear enough - really related to the previous point, but people have struggled to understand where and how to provide feedback and contribute to the process.
  • Work is not sufficiently accounting for prior discussions - it has been highlighted that there could be stronger references made to the prior work and conversations, so it would be clear that it is being used to make progress and to ensure we are not ending in vicious loop of re-having the same conversations

Suggested improvements:

  • The Drafting Committee has subgroups for different chapters and they are planning to open up for a wider group of people to be more deeply engaged with the drafting work.
  • The next iteration of drafts is expected to cover the key areas that people want to discuss, i.e. the roles and responsibilities, and the decision-making in the movement. Hopefully, that will ease the concern regarding the progress and open pathways for meaningful participation and clarifies ways to contribute.
  • The Movement Strategy and Governance team is supporting the Drafting Committee in bringing together the content of previous conversations around the movement roles and responsibilities in a systematic way, so it can be better referenced in the Charter work and ensure that the prior conversations are well considered.
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Responses to concerns raised in this thread

  • @Mrb_Rafi - the points you have raised regarding the need for more clarity on roles and responsibilities is a prevailing one for the rationale of having a Movement Charter. In this regard, indeed, the Charter would need to be a constitutional document on which more successful systems are based. The Charter will be a public, shared core agreement across the stakeholders on which more nuanced policies need to be built. It will be a long process to set it up, yet for the first time in the movement’s history we are making progress on it.
  • @Sm8900 - regarding the existing set of non-hierarchical policies, it is yet to be decided whether and how they would be connected to the Movement Charter. Regarding the key ones, probably there will be some connection made, if not from the point of establishing the Charter, yet rather when they are revisited / rewritten in the future. There will be a policy basis laid out in the Charter to make it possible. As a result, I would disagree with the statement that the Charter is inherently non-binding.
  • @TomDotGov - Your point regarding the natural veto is, in my perspective, well related to the previous point regarding the bindingness of the Charter. Essentially, there needs to be a sufficient level of support across the movement communities and entities to adopt the Charter. If this is achieved, the natural veto would not be obstructive. If that level of agreement is not reached, the whole process loses its purpose, which I presume is your point. My hope is that we get beyond obstructive vetoes and {{strong oppose}} templates to a meaningful conversation, so we can address the issues raised by Rafi in this thread and by many others elsewhere.
  • @Ifteebd10 - Regarding the Federal structure comparison, it is something that has been used in the conversation around Regional and Thematic Hubs. Similar ideas are supported by the Movement Strategy Principles, including subsidiarity and self-management. Essentially, the idea of the Charter is not to reduce the autonomy of the projects, yet rather establish a common policy basis across the communities and be more clear regarding the roles and responsibilities in different actors. In some ways, the federated comparison holds up, yet as @TomDotGov points out, there is nuance to it in our setting where the comparison will break down.
  • @Sm8900 - We have a number of different principles and values documented in the movement, working on the specific areas, e.g. Five pillars for Wikipedia (only one of our many projects), Wikimedia Foundation values for WMF, Movement Strategy Principles for its implementation, etc. The idea for the values laid out in the Charter will be to provide unifying core values for the whole movement, which is a somewhat different endeavor.
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I just want to say that although it is somewhat flattering to think that my own small efforts at discussion could in any way delay this process, my own influence on the course and development of this process is rather minimal. with that said, I am truly and very grateful to you for all of your thoughtful and very substantive replies above.

I want to truly take some time to reflect upon your highly insightful replies and points above, and then try to craft and formulate some relies which hopefully might perhaps add something of value to this enriching discussion.

I truly appreciate the chance to discuss this with you, in such a substantive way. I truly appreciate all your thoughts above., thanks!

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@TomDotGov - Your point regarding the natural veto is, in my perspective, well related to the previous point regarding the bindingness of the Charter. Essentially, there needs to be a sufficient level of support across the movement communities and entities to adopt the Charter. If this is achieved, the natural veto would not be obstructive. If that level of agreement is not reached, the whole process loses its purpose, which I presume is your point. [/quote]

I think you’re missing the point, which is that the natural veto is exercised by people, not communities or entities. That’s not something that can change, regardless of what documents like a movement charter say - you can’t force people to keep clicking the edit button. Given that people’s volunteer labor is the precious resource that keeps the projects having value, when a critical mass of people dislikes the decisions of charter-organized bodies decisions enough to cease editing, the charter-organized bodies will need to adapt.

This is similar to how recently, editors on English Wikipedia decided that the WMF’s fundraising messages did not meet the standards of the site, and after much protest from WMF staff and the WMF board of directors, the WMF was required to change. I don’t believe that would have had a different outcome if it was a movement-charter-organized entity rather than the WMF.

My hope is that we get beyond obstructive vetoes and {{strong oppose}} templates to a meaningful conversation, so we can address the issues raised by Rafi in this thread and by many others elsewhere.

Ignoring the concerns of people who provide value to the projects isn’t a good approach. A constitutional class document needs to be supported by the vast majority of community members (90%+) in the areas it addresses, and descoped until that consensus is reached. A 50%+1 document will almost certainly fail - either actively, or by being ignored.

{{strong oppose}}s, in particular, are important feedback that needs to be taken into account by proponents of a project.(Just like {{strong support}}s need to be considered by opponents, and if their is both, the question of if consensus can be reached is on the table, or if people agree to disagree.)

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based on your own comments, and according to your own logic above, there is no point in any of us trying to do anything at all. if we follow your logic to its logical conclusion, then we would simply need to let the WMF do whatever it wishes, and simply hope for the best.

in other words, if we need 90% consensus, and if anything less will not succeed, then there is no point in us trying to do anything at all, since we will never get any real consensus by your own standards above anyway. tagging @TomDotGov . thanks.

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Thank you, everyone, for your feedback! December 19, 2022 was the end of the community consultation cycle for the first set of Movement Charter drafts. The multilingual and anonymous survey is still open, if you’d like to share organized feedback; the survey will close on January 2, 2023.

I’m sorry if we didn’t get to your comments, but we are incorporating and synthesizing all feedback into our summary report of the consultation cycle, which will be forthcoming by the end of January 2023. Based on the report, the MCDC will deliberate which feedback to take in or not, and why; that will be done after the report is shared publicly.

Conversations and discussions can still take place on this thread – feedback is always and continually welcomed – but this consultation cycle is officially over :confetti_ball:

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@TomDotGov , can you please share how you think we might reach consensus of 90%? thanks.

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this is the only thread at the MS Forums currently that has a broad focus, so I propose we continue to sustain some discourse here. thanks.