User:Ciell/Roles & Responsibilities

NB: This is my personal drafting space: texts and ideas may not necessarily reflect the views of other members on the MCDC committee.

Wikimedia structure and government - 2021
Presentation for the European Commission by Ciell

Mapping of roles and responsibilities in the movement

Overall

• Terms of Use
• UCoC
  • Contributor Covenant

Wikimedia Foundation Inc

• Board of Trustees
  • BoT resolutions
  • Ombuds commission
• CEO
• Trust & Safety (office actions!)
• WMF Bylaws
• WMF Policies

Community committees

• Affcom
• Arbcoms
• T&RS Case Review
• Regional Grants committees

Affiliates

• chapters
  • Chapter agreements
  • Trademark Agreements
• user groups
• thematic orgs
• Wikimedia Alliances?
• Hubs?

Projects

• project communities
  • multilingual projects: Commons, Incubator, Meta, Mediawiki, Multilingual Wikisource, Outreach wiki, Wikidata, Wikispecies
  • language specific projects: Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wiktionary

Users with specific user rights

• rollbackers
• renamers
• admins/sysops (overall and specific, i.e. interface or translation)
• bureaucrats
• stewards
• checkusers
• oversighters

Individual users

• readers
• not logged in editors
• logged in editors
  • newbies
  • autoconfirmed
  • bots and their owners

VRTS

• VRTS Agents
• VRTS admins

Wiki-projects related

• mailing list admins
• IRC & discord ops/admins

Where does this go...?

• Global Council
• Wikimedia Endowment
• Wikimedia European Affiliates Cooperation

Strategy recommendations #4 on R&R

Roles & Responsibilities (Open pathways to decision-making roles)

What

To build a more equitable Movement, roles and responsibilities will be clearly defined. Pathways to power positions will be open and transparent to avoid confusion and to include more diverse and representative voices. Mechanisms to resolve conflicts regarding mandate and authority over roles in our Movement will be designed and agreed upon.

Changes and Actions

• Establish good practice guidelines for how boards function, such as term limits, election and selection processes, and approaches to other governance questions where applicable and relevant for a community. These guidelines will need to be adapted and contextualized by each stakeholder. Boards would be held accountable for following good practices by the Global Council. For those that do not, the Global Council will create mechanisms to review and provide support.
• Collectively define good practice guidelines for how to both empower/inspire and enable/support new volunteers to run for different types of elected roles. These efforts will be particularly focused on underrepresented groups.
• Ensure leadership positions and ways of accessing them are documented, transparent, and accessible.

Rationale

The current power distribution within communities limits access to power positions for many, including women and other currently underrepresented profiles. Current structures (or lack of structures) limit not only the possibilities of participating in positions of power but also the emergence of new leaders in our Movement.

Whenever the current power balance is challenged, conflicts emerge to protect existing structures, given the lack of overall guidance and joint movement-wide decision-making mechanisms to resolve them. Fair and open conflict resolution and power-limiting measures aim at balancing existing structures with equity. All of this will make Wikimedia inclusive of future communities and lead to a cultural change to grow to our full potential and diversity.

links for reference

• w:nl:Overleg_Wikipedia:Universele_gedragscode#Rollen_en_verantwoordelijkheden - Attempt to collect all r&r in the movement in 2021 (Dutch)