Movement Charter/Ratification/April 2023/Consultation

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Community Consultation

Drafting Committee

Video presentation (21 minutes) summarizing the ratification proposal, from a community conversation in April 2023.

This is a summary of the community consultation on the proposed Movement Charter ratification methodology, which took place in April 2023. The Movement Charter Drafting Committee will refer to this feedback when revising the proposed methodology.

Engagement

The consultation feedback was collected from the following channels:

• Three online community conversations
• Meta talk page
• Movement Strategy Forum

General feedback

• There is confusion and some unhappiness about votes counting towards more than one group (e.g. an affiliate and also an individual project). This is because, in the proposal, there are different voting methods for communities, affiliates and the Board of Trustees, in spite of overlap between those groups.
• Some suggest restricting each Wikimedian to a single vote, with the UCoC SecurePoll voting process as an example. An argument is that people belonging to the same movement should all participate in one vote for everyone.
• Questions raised about the power to make decisions on the ratification process. Specifically, will the Charter Electoral Commission (CEC) be able to change the process later on?

Project vote

• Concerns were raised that counting each Wikimedia project towards 1 vote encourages “gaming” or “cheating” the system by choosing to vote through smaller projects with few voters, thus making it easy to sway the results.

Affiliate vote

• Concerns (like the above) that counting each affiliate towards 1 vote encourages “gaming” or “cheating” the system due to a greater number of User Groups in some regions, many of which were created and led by the same people.
• Suggestion, mainly from long standing chapters, that some sort of weight should be applied to affiliates: input suggests differentiating between small User Groups that are virtually dormant and chapters that have legal structures, high budgets and numerous activities.

Feedback on questions

Q1: What methodology should chapters and thematic organizations use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?

Poll responses, from participants in the live community conversations, on the first question: What methodology should chapters and thematic organizations use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?.

• Chapters should decide themselves how to vote, based on their own governance structure and legislative restrictions.
• No significant feedback on whether the entire membership should vote.
• Thematic organizations were not specifically mentioned in the feedback.

Q2: What methodology should user groups use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?

Poll responses, from participants in the live community conversations, on the second question: What methodology should user groups use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?.

• Emerging agreement that user groups (user groups) vary too much among themselves to be treated in the same way. A proposed differentiation is between user groups with legal structures / status and those without it.
• Emerging agreement that user groups may require some sort of minimum criteria to clarify how to vote due to their varying governance. The criteria was suggested to be dictated by the CEC.
• A few participants were concerned about including user groups (or affiliates overall) in the vote at all due to a number of issues with their structure (i.e. the frequent lack of it).

Q3: What percentage of individuals should vote in favor of ratification to ratify?

Poll responses, from participants in the live community conversations, on the third question: What percentage of individuals should vote in favor of ratification to ratify?.

• Poll results (below): Preference for a simple majority (51%).
• Discussion results (conversation notes and Meta): Preference for a supermajority (⅔ or 66%) or above supermajority (+⅔ or 67%). The argument is based on the exceptional importance of the Movement Charter as a document for the future movement.
• Note: A few comments seem to confuse the scope of this question as the percentage of Wikimedians who should vote in the ratification, rather than the percentage of the support needed among voters.

Q4: How will the members of the Charter Electoral Commission (CEC) be recruited?

• A public call for volunteers, advertised in the usual Wikimedia channels.
• Note: Responses to this question significantly overlap with the next.

Q5: Who will select the 5 members of the CEC out of all eligible candidates?

• Significant support for the MCDC to directly select or appoint the CEC members.
• A few comments propose holding elections, although some others consider elections an absolute “no go” due to an increasing election fatigue across the movement.

Q6: What types of experience would you like to see from the members of the CEC? Should there be any formal minimum criteria for eligibility?

• Knowledge of Wikimedia projects, as a contributor or an editor, is the most recurring priority (although the amount of feedback is small).
• One comment lists competencies in electoral processes, tools and data analysis as a priority.
• Neutrality and diversity are also highlighted.
• One comment suggests to have a minimum criteria for eligibility, for instance to have at least three years of membership, be an editor, be in good standing with the WMF, be transparent, impartial and open to new ideas.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Based on the consultation, there is now a dedicated ratification methodology section in the Movement Charter's frequently asked questions.