There will be a community consultation in Northern and Western Europe, to collect feedback on the draft of the first three sections of the Movement Charter. This conversation will take place on November 20, 2022 at 14:30 UTC (your local time)
Language interpretation available: French, German
Zoom link: [to be posted 48 hours before the call]
Less denglish… if there is a language version, can’t you use language term (original: xxx), or is that just how I see it?
PREAMBLE
All essential points are in there, particularly from a global point of view. Text is however somewhat vague, on the matter of the distribution of power is still too little perceptible.
The text is a very good introduction, but problematic to translate.
The text is very vague. It allows rubber paragraphs that can be interpreted in different directions.
What is it about the wording required by WMF legal? - Alternative suggestions from Legal would be good, so things could be discussed without having a legal background.
A definition for the term “Free Knowledge” is missing.
DEI is my personal focus. I think the text is good, no problems apparent.
I like the preamble, I would advocate using as little denglish as possible <— translator!
VALUES & PRINCIPLES
I like this section too, but it offers possible cause for conflict. It holds inherent contradictions, e.g., fact orientation vs. opinions/beliefs in the context of “marginalized knowledge”. (Example: images of Mohammed: such decisions should not be decided based on sensitivities). Balancing these claims in the charter is likely to be difficult. The exact implementation should be left to the individual projects.
The last three points are elementary for the community and the readers, they are well formulated and understandable.
What is the movement? What does it consist of? The term is unclear.
** File:Movement and partners social relation ships.png - Wikimedia Commons
** Answer Ciell: individuals - affiliates/organizations - externals. Individual roles are mobile, fluid, sometimes commons, sometimes Wikipedia. Then there are affiliates and organizations, last but not least readers and other external voices and possible partners.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Membership structures like in German associations would be good.
As Hubs and GC are still very unclear, it is difficult to assess the whole matter at the moment and then make a judgement.
Since not all things are identical globally, but the respective roles are often understood differently locally, it will be difficult to find rules that can be applied globally…
Happy to see the MCDC started - it is much needed. It’s a bit broad – more details would be appreciated, especially around the Roles & Responsibilities.
No Italian translations
PREAMBLE
(Didn’t capture EC’s initial question about infrastructure)
Will the Charter document any changes to the infrastructure or just document the current infrastructure?
** Answer: The Preamble won’t be the chapter to document that change; the rest of the Charter will propose the changes.
What’s taken into consideration about groups that are associations / non-profits within the Movement because the Movement treats them like “outside” the Movement?
** Answer: It’s been difficult to find the balance of including those associations / non-profits mentioned above, while not opening up the definition to be inclusive of ALL associations / non-profits.
** Follow-Up: Chapters in the thematic organizations are also non-profits, but when user-groups are non-profits, we don’t know how to include them in the Movement.
** Follow-Up: If it’s a non-profit, it should be legally registered with the chamber of commerce.
Chat: “Are legal entities created by usergroups/affiliates, also part of the Wikimedia Movement”
** Follow up (chat): I think non official groups are not included yet
Who can be an affiliate?
** Answer: In the future, the Global Council will likely determine who can be affiliates.
** Follow-Up: We should be addressing these tough questions in the upcoming chapters.
** Comment: We have other chapters coming in the Spring.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The current text is rather high level and hence somewhat difficult to engage with. If we continue with small steps, the discussions might take too much time to keep the engagement.
VALUES & PRINCIPLES
Prompting Question: What value is missing in the Values & Principles?
** Transparency (+1 from chat)
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we decided to group “transparency” with accountability
** Follow-Up (chat): about transparency. It would be important to be mentioned specifically the financial transparency as it is needed for community decision making too
→ “Sharing”
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we try to include it in the first section “free knowledge and open source”
→ “Community”
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we did discuss this while we drafted, but we didn’t want this text to be lengthy, so we tried to embed the text with “community”-oriented language and framing
** Comment: the previous diversity working group of the MS called out people-centeredness as one of the key points
** Follow-up by MCDC member: this is a great point, and we’ll take it back to the drafting group
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): we do mention people-centeredness, I think as part of Inclusion
→ “Anonymity”
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): anonymity is a good point, we mention digital rights and privacy but could be more expansive
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): I like the note for anonymity, too
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): or something more in the direction of the right to anonymous contributions, even if it’s not so explicit
** Follow-Up (chat): Anonymity and +secure editing (=strong encryption)
** Follow-Up (chat): I’m on two minds. I think anonymity as a principle is fine, but it can be abused easily. So, perhaps, OK but with a reference to oversight policies (admins, etc.)
** Follow-up by MCDC member: the values can complement each other, they actively balance each other, so we’re not skewing too far to one side. (chat) we can’t have them all 100% of course) +1 from chat
** Follow-Up (chat): we can technically counter problems that are generated by anonymity with different kinds of karma systems which makes user start zero if they behave badly. So there is costs for bad behaviour
Prompting Question: What value shouldn’t be there?
Prompting Question: What value should remain, but should be rephrased?
Under “independence,” should we include independence from the potential pressures of Wikimedia Foundation? Or from other governance structures, like local/national governments?
** Follow-up by MCDC member: The Movement is subjected to the jurisdiction where the Foundation is headquartered (right now, it’s in the US, but it could move)
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): I think we meant to include government through the term “political,” but this might depend on which language
