Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Transition/Interim Global Council

Translation

Please mark for translation as the GC affects all languages. Thank you in advace, regards Christoph Jackel (WMDE) 10:43, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Christoph Jackel (WMDE):: Sure, done! --Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 23:15, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Movement Charter and existing Wikimedia foras

My impression of the Movement Charter is that it would serve as a constitution, a constituting instrument, or a basic law for the Wikimedia community. That's good and necessary. However, one might want to think how the Charter would override other policies that has been ratified and are being enforced by different foras within the community. At least now, we have these foras enforcing policies on behalf of the WMF Board of Trustees:

• Ombuds commission enforcing the Privacy Policy, Access to Nonpublic Personal Data Policy, CU policy, and Oversight Policy;
• Language committee enforcing the Language Proposal Policy and Closing Projects Polcy;
• Elected stewards and global functionaries enforcing the Stewards Policy and most of other Meta and global policies;
• A possible other fora responsible to enforce the Universal Code of Conduct.

The key questions would be:

1. Should the powers and rights currently held and enforced by foras under the Board be transferred to the hand of IGC (and later, GC)? If yes/no, why? Are there any specific reason why certain power should be retained/transferred?
2. When drafting the Charter, how should the IGC treat all of these policies and their enforcing foras: as an subsidiary legislation to the Charter, or an equal set of instruments that has the same binding power over the projects and community?
3. Should the IGC work alongside existing foras to incorporate the existing policies, or should it adopt a policy of non-interference?

-- dwf² ✉ 04:16, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Pardon my numbering your questions, so I can guess at these answers: 1. The necessary enforcement powers should be delegated (not transferred) from the Board of Trustees upon their approval of the Charter, who can rescind or modify that delegation if necessary later on. 2. Policies requiring such delegation should be incorporated by reference, as they might change independently. 3. If the IGC is simply here to draft a (or IMHO far more likely, adapt an existing) Charter, involved cooperation with other movement authorities shouldn't be necessary. The Charter may very well create one or more overseeing authorities which would, after Board approval of the Charter, be far more likely to interact with what would then be their subsidiary authorities, in an organic fashion. That assumes that the Charter will codify the constitutions of those subsidiary authorities which are now often, for example, simply appointed ad-hoc by WMF staff when needed. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:30F4:D820:4BFD:AA01 01:56, 18 April 2021 (UTC)