Talk:Wikimedia Community Council Compact

Per topic discussion: Representation and diversity (talk), Scope (talk)

Improvements

How can this proposal be a bit better?--Pharos (talk) 16:22, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Board members or Council members?

Hi, I have read this proposal and, while I think that I need more time to think about it, I also need a clarification related to this part:

To jump-start the creation of a body with real responsibilities, the Wikimedia chapters and thematic organizations should begin by addressing the democratic deficit in their own Affiliate-selected Board seats process. By a majority of the chapters transferring their rights to the community in an agreed "Compact" (cf. w:National Popular Vote Interstate Compact), they would pledge to vote for the candidates elected on Wikimedia-wide elections.

It is not clear to me how this process would integrate with the current process for ASBS selection. In particular, to me (but I may be misunderstanding), the purpose of this process is not the selection of new members for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, but the formation of a Wikimedia Community Council. On the other hand, though, it seems that the "Compact" idea requires affiliates to allocate their vote for the ASBS vote to the Compact. Furthermore the page talks about "six initial members", whereas the ASBS vote selects two members of the BoT of the WMF. Can somebody clarify, please? --CristianCantoro (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Goal of the proposal?

It is not clear for me what is the ultimate goal of this proposal. What will be the ultimate role of this council? I see at least several options:

• Selecting ASBS? Then the procedure is hardly more democratic than the current one, as we still have an indirect election (and would be as democratic as letting Dariusz, Denny and Doc James select two candidates). In addition, it is very unlikely that this Council election can beat the number of paying members of the chapters (which is somewhere about 25,000). The only way to make the procedure fully democratic is a direct community election, but replacing an indirect election with another one is not.
• Advisory for WMF Board? WMF Board already has three directly elected seats and two ASBS for getting community input. If these five trustees are not trusted by the community for representing their opinion, then the same can happen to the six members of this council.
• Governance decisions in the name of community? This is much more legitimate via RFC. In addition, if resolutions of this council are binding, then the community needs to have ways to overturn them.
• Governance decisions in the name of Wikimedia organisations? Then we come back to the WCA.

I believe that first of all we should define a goal that existing structures fail to reach, and then we should discuss what this new structure can look like — NickK (talk) 19:05, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Responding for "my part":

• I didn't take a look into the exact numbers, but my prejudice was that chapters would be heavily underrepresented if compared with Wikimedia electoral body. If not, as you say, that's great! If unicameral, I think assembly should count the numbers of paying members per chapter. Thus, if Wikimedia Germany has the most of the members, it should proportionally delegate the most of the "chapters seats" (with mandatory X number for all underrepresented chapters together).
• RFCs are dysfunctional on Meta (cf. Requests for comment), as well as they are on a number of the projects. Just large projects have functional RFCs. Also, we are still inside of the process of defining the scope of the WCC. Community should be definitely able to tell the last word, if not otherwise, then on Wikimedia-wide referendum. --Millosh (talk) 19:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
• In relation to the Wikimedia organizations: it could be a WCA-like body, but without its budget. However, that's just if all affiliate organizations agree, which is possible but not likely in mid-term period. Thus, it could be a topic for future discussions, but definitely not before establishing WCC. --Millosh (talk) 19:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
• Most important goal that existing structures fail to reach is community engagement in anything than particular issues and it's usually always urgent, when Board or staff fail to address a community concern. Having a central place for such engagement would normalize communication and should make it mostly constructive. --Millosh (talk) 19:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, now it seems clearer that the goal is to help WMF Board or staff to get a community input. Then probably we should start with asking trustees why this impact is not achieved via existing 5 trustees elected/selected by the community, because it is not clear how 6 elected members would do it better.

The idea of proportional representation is, in my opinion, a very negative one. ASBS have a huge advantage of giving equal weight to, say, Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Uruguay, which makes sure that all voices are heard. Making a proportional representation would mean that a) WMDE gets a majority of chapter seats, b) English Wikipedia (or perhaps English+German) gets a majority of directly elected seats. While reserving seats for minorities is a good idea, I would not be in favour of a scheme where two or three groups can make decisions in the name of the entire community.

Finally, RFC might be disfunctional, but there are some good examples like German Meinungsbilder that work especially well if the consultation is limited in time and binding. Another problem is whether WMF Board or staff will want to react to this, as any RFC is good while it is not ignored like Superprotect letter was — NickK (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Community engagement is the goal of community, not the Board itself. Without community engagement, we can't build global democratic institutions. We could have beautiful fantasies, while not being able to implement anything. The primary requirement for achieving any goal is having community engaged.

How relevant is German Meinungsbilder (or English ArbCom) in relation to the fact that RFCs on Meta and many other projects are dysfunctional? --Millosh (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

This is leaning towards the dispute whether the chicken or the egg came first. Having community engaged means letting the community have their say regarding major questions, instead of letting the community elect six people once a few years who would be engaged in the name of community. We already have five people engaged in the name of the community, what difference would six new engaged people make?

Thus the issue we have is not the lack of elected representatives. The two major issues are that, firstly, indeed we have no functional mechanism to get the community input (quickly, efficiently and without drama, and I named Meinungsbilder as an example of a working mechanism), and secondly, have the entire community engaged and not just active-editors-on-Meta-subscribed-to-Wikimedia-l (as an example, we had a campaign in Ukrainian Wikipedia to have more people voting in the elections, but how many of these voters are aware that Doc James was removed?).

To sum up, I think we share the opinion that having community engaged is a major goal, but the difference is that I do not believe that adding a council would help it — NickK (talk) 23:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

We tried this a couple of times. What we've learned it that there is no holy grail here. The vision of what should be done and how any kind of central point of the movement would look like differs significantly on personal and cultural lines.

The most realistic approach is to work on this step by step. Think of it geekishly as the relation between programming language C and Unix (or, if you more into the contemporary programming, as deep learning process): we have to push one thing a bit, which would push the other one a bit, which would be used to push the first one a bit more etc.

The best way to start it is to start from the community. If the Board starts it, it would be always treated as not enough and community would be extremely skeptical. If the community starts it, it could work on realistic proposal for the beginning and then bargain for more.

From the position of the people inside of any of the formal Wikimedia structures, the biggest problem is not articulated community. Basically, if you see a mob complaining from time to time in heated language, that is something to be worried about. And it's not because somebody fears for their life, but because a group without articulated positions can't do anything useful.

So, the first step should be that articulation. It's not well described, but the body in the final form should have 30-50 members, depending if chapters and other affiliated organizations and groups participate. That's number large enough to be clearly felt across the movement. Maybe there wouldn't be any Ukrainian inside of that body, but there could be, for example, one Pole and one Estonian. That's much closer culturally to you and such representatives could become focal points of Wikimedians interested in expressing their position to the issues relevant for every Ukrainian Wikipedian.

Then, such body could get some real power. Imagine whatever: Let's say, a kind of "Movement Engagement Program" fund, which it should disperse with the goal of empowering the movement itself. It could also be about something else: Community and Board decide to delegate the power over the issues inside of the movement which are presently not covered by any community or WMF body (cf. Meta RFCs). Then Wikimedians will start taking assembly elections as something more important and they will raise their engagement. Then the assembly would be mature enough to take some other responsibilities. WMF could eventually realize that the Board has to be restructured in the way that it acknowledges importance of the assembly.

--Millosh (talk) 00:29, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, now it is much more clear what the idea would look like. In this case I see how this council can be benefitial, but only if the following two conditions are met:

• equal representation of all communities. It is definitely not OK to have a majority from English Wikipedia or WMDE just because they are large, instead, we need to have better representation of all communities (like current ASBS scheme where each affiliate has one vote)
• elected representatives must keep "their" communities engaged. Ukrainian community can be represented by a Pole or an Estonian only if this Pole or Estonian will seek input from Ukrainian community. An ideal scheme is: WMF seeks input from the council (e.g. "We want to introduce Superprotect, what does community think of it?"), council members forward the question to their communities (e.g. that Pole asks Ukrainian and Polish communities, say, on the respective village pumps) and forwards feedback to the council (e.g. "both Ukrainian and Polish communities rejected the proposal, thus I oppose it").

Any other approach would be similar to a current situation: we already have a community-elected Pole, but a scheme "Dariusz, I want to express my position on an issue relevant to Ukrainian Wikipedia" is not an efficient one — NickK (talk) 13:03, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Re: equal representation: I opened the section about diversification.

Re: duties of elected representatives: That's something we should define here. What do we require from the elected representatives? How do we deal with representatives who don't fulfill their duties? I am for the idea that any representative could be recalled by some mechanism -- community-wide referendum or something of smaller scale engagement. May you start the section on this topic and give your initial ideas about what you see as duties of the elected representatives? --Millosh (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

That should start with the election system, i.e. whom the members represent. If all members represent the entire community, than we will have all candidates representing mainstream point of view (likely that of active-editors-on-Meta-subscribed-to-Wikimedia-l, as they will face the very same group for reelection). If each member represents a local community or a group, then this member would be interested in representing the opinion of this group and keeping this group engaged. The second option, in my view, is much better for diversity — NickK (talk) 14:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

This is an interesting idea, but I just want to note my scepticism that another body, committee or whatever is the answer. In my time in voluntary organisations (of many kinds!) I've noted a strong tendency to create new structure to solve perceived problems. However, the actual problems are often not the immediately perceived ones, and new structures often don't help solve problems. Sometimes they are actively unhelpful because they take (a lot of) time and energy to set up, muddy some boundaries that are currently clear, and create a whole new circle of "insiders" with the associated risk of "outsiders" feeling ignored. So generally - let's not do this, or if we are determined to do it for some reason, let's do it in the lightest-touch way possible. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 13:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Chris, have you seen that we are moving from the state of a potent global movement to the network of non-profits with editing community? Most importantly, that's because the community is able to say anything relevant once in two years by electing three Board members. And if, with a lot of enthusiasm and efforts, a part of the community becomes engaged -- like it was for the last elections on Ukrainian Wikipedia --, there is no structure which would be able to adopt that enthusiasm and canalize it into a long-term movement gain.

The whole movement has a lot of boundaries, most of them defining what particular groups won't do. We have unsolved issues from the previous decade.

In relation to the insiders/outsiders, I think this group should work exclusively publicly, at least in the coming years. I think it should be a large one, with likely ~50 members and with discussion open for anyone interested.

I am in favor of "the lightest-touch way possible", as the method for introducing it, as we, most of all, need a framework for discussion about things editing community finds relevant. But how do you see it? --Millosh (talk) 14:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Diversification

Diversification is important issue, so we could discuss a bit about that. I see few channels to make diversification possible:

• If we go with the assembly with chapters and other affiliate organizations and groups (which I would prefer), that part would be the easiest way to channel regional diversification. Per the ideas of Wikimedia Chapters Association, I see chapters fully capable to articulate diversity.
• I think the other part of the assembly, the one which would be directly elected by the community, could address diversification just very generally, in the sense of requiring gender balance. The exact way for implementation should be discussed.
• I am also sure there could be other ways to promote diversification and we should discuss about them. --Millosh (talk) 13:37, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

To be honest, requiring gender balance is probably the worst way to address diversity. We can perfectly say that, for instance, Azerbaijani Wikipedia should be represented by a woman, but if there is no woman trusted by Azerbaijani community, what should we do? It seems to me that it is much more important to get voices from all local communities using a sort of plurality voting system rather than at-large system — NickK (talk) 14:43, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not that hard to do that. For example, if we are talking about regional representation, we could say something like: Easter European chapters and user groups have two seats. One of them should be woman. And I know more than one prominent Eastern European woman. --Millosh (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not think the only divisions between groups that need to be represented are primarily the language communities, or primarily the different genders, or any such external factor. The groups that need to be represented are the different roles that people have in the WM movement as a whole: those doing editing, those doing administration, those doing programming, those working with images, and -- even if it can be managed-- those using the content as readers or reusers. I would also include here, paradoxicaly though it may appear in light of various prior discussions, the paid staff at the Foundation. To some extent this is met by the thematic organizations, but in most areas they are not well developed. There are too many to be represented by a small number of people. If the critical group is the people who represent the groups on the Board, that's 2 people. DGG (talk) 20:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

You are right. It would be good to have the list of the groups which should be represented inside of the assembly. I will create a separate page for discussing it. --Millosh (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

+1 Editors, volunteer programmers, WMF staff, Commmons, GLAM, yes. —Neotarf (talk) 22:49, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Expectations

As some of you know I'm in general in favour of structures and defined responsibilities and I like the idea that the community strives for some kind of internal organization and representation. At the same time I agree with Chris above and I'm not sure if I understand the core intention of the proposal. I heard about community engagement, the appropriate voice of the community, an alternative to RFCs, working alongside of the Board. Imagine there would be a "voice of the community", what would happen with the individual voices? And what would be the mandate of the collected voice? What expectation is connected with the idea? If we work on these questions we might get to a better understanding of the particular change the proposal is looking for. Alice Wiegand (talk) 16:08, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I concur with Chris & Alice. While the recent change of membership on the Board of Trustees is shady & unjust, in the end that group isn't the end-all prize. There are a lot of needs that the Board & the Foundation aren't addressing that could be done with a Community Council. Some that occur to me include mediation between projects -- there seems to be chronic friction between Wikipedia & Commons due to the fact neither group really understands the methods & goals of their counterparts, & having a third party to mediate is much better than hearing complaints from disgruntled volunteers; or having someone to review complaints about specific projects that are subverting the ideals of the movement -- was the problem of radical rightwing contributors ever solved on the Croatian Wikipedia?; & better coordination for developer resources that would benefit more projects, rather than simply address reputed needs of one project. If a Community Council could address problems & issues like these, thru establishing trust & a positive reputation it could push for institutional changes everyone agrees are needed in how things are done. Instead of the current tactics of complaining, voting people out, & quitting -- none of which has effected significant change. -- Llywrch (talk) 00:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Alice, may you clarify what do you mean by this this sentence: "Imagine there would be a "voice of the community", what would happen with the individual voices?" Any possible realistic scenario you are concerned of?

I think Llywrch has given a number of real issues not fixed because there is no institution willing to fix it. Also, constant articulation of what are the community concerns would be useful for everybody. Presently, we have a big unexplored area, with tropes here and there.

One more thing: I don't think this body would an alternative for RFCs or other established institutions. It should deal with issues not solved by RFCs or other means.

I think the most realistic way is to start with formalized forum for expressing community concerns, articulating them and raising community engagement in things that matter to them. Just after we see how that works in practice, we could start thinking about anything else. I don't think we should create now the finite body, which would be able to do everything by design.

To go to the extreme: I am even in favor of creating an open and democratic group, which wouldn't have any power, but which would analyze the past and ongoing problems and seek for community mandate when it detects a structural unsolved issue. For example, if it realizes that communication between different projects are an issue (cf. Wikipedia vs Commons), then it could ask the community (on Wikimedia-wide referendum) for the mandate to mediate in such situations with power to implement the conclusions.

We don't need to go to such extreme as we are capable to realize what are the most visible current problems, but we could list some of them and for the rest leave the assembly to communicate with the community and articulate what are the needs. --Millosh (talk) 04:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

a different perspective and on liaisons

hi, I want to offer another, pragmatic perspective: I think that some form of community senate can definitely work, and the initial detailed form is somewhat less important than the community's enthusiasm for the general idea. If people like the general approach, the details will be coined on the way. If there is lackluster interest, then having a very precise proposal will even lower the interest...

On a side note, I've been discussing with the WMF since August an idea I've had, to have community-elected liaisons/ambassadors to WMF (not to be confused with the paid liaisons we have now). I would basically like to introduce it by offering a process on entirely opt-in basis (communities, that want to have their own ambassador, will be able to vote one, those uninterested - can ignore it entirely)> The purpose of this construct is somewhat different, as it is meant to allow having a known person for contact, bi-directional communication, giving heads up, etc. (did you know that the Italian blackout of Wikipedia left WMF with just a 24h notice, although a discussion on it-wiki went on for weeks?). However, such ambassadors could also form an assembly. Thus, I'm commenting on this info as a complementary input (that can be picked up and combined, but also can be left separate). Pundit (talk) 15:56, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

A police state?

This is an amazing idea, and it's very disappointing to see there has been no further comment on this in the last month.

My understanding of the history of WP is that when Jimbo decided to take a less active role in day-to-day operations or the organization, he appointed the arbitration committee to take over some of his role. Over time, the committee was expanded, and then made into an elected body. But although the arbitration committee has been asked to decide a number of complex issues, it has have never had an official remit beyond that of enforcement. Technically, that makes Wikipedia a police state.

A volunteer council would be able to do long-range planning--a sort of alternative Strategic Plan. It would also be able to consult with the community privately and act as a voice for individuals who wished to remain anonymous. It could also serve as a clearing house for volunteer educational and other initiatives. There are a number of issues in the past that could have been resolved more smoothly with community input--Visual Editor, Mediaviewer, harassment, governance, etc, and an elected council would have been an ideal mechanism to channel some of that input.

I sincerely hope this is not an idea that is ahead of its time. —Neotarf (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2016 (UTC)