User talk:The Land/Movement Charter Input

wording

thank you for starting this page. I think it would be useful to non-native speakers to specify what a "charter" is, as for many it may predominantly mean renting a yacht. Pundit (talk) 15:08, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Dariusz! For now I've added a link to the strategy recommendations for context - I imagine most people reading this will already be familiar with them! Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

A charter is a piece of paper with rules written on them in ink, a document. The term charter has connotations some people dislike. Other terms might be a constitution for the movement. The full recommendation is:

• Lay the values, principles and policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs, as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies,
• Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, e.g. for
  • Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
  • Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
  • Giving a common direction on how resources should be allocated with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
  • Defining how communities work together and are accountable to each other.
  • Setting expectations for participation and the rights of participants.

From this recommendation I do imagine a (global) membership organization with full legal entity, and the movement charter to be the statutes, or articles of incorporation of this legal entity. See the section Global_Council below. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 16:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I would also add that the framework that the GC decides on can change too over time, so maybe instead of "according to a funding framework to be decided by the Global Council" define it as "according to a funding framework as defined by the Global Council" or similar wording that emphasises that this is not a one-time decision that'll stick around forever (even though it very well could). Braveheart (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Ymblanter

Thanks Chris for starting this. I do not expect to be able to read it in one go, and I will put here my comments as I read the page. It is ok to move them to other sections or restructure as appropriate.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• Vision: Content must be not be unduly biased towards one viewpoint, and must be based on reliable sources. - this is incorrect. It is correct for Wikipedia (though in practice we have a lot of systemic bias even in the English Wikipedia, and I do not even want to think on what we have in the Armenian or Azerbaijani ones), but for example it is not correct for example for Wikivoyage. There, content is not based on reliable sources, links are mostly discouraged, and content is biased towareds the point of view of a traveler. As far as I understand, Wikinews is also not based on reliable sources. I am afraid this sentence is not salvageable.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• Also, Wikivoyage can host content which promotes commercial interest, such as information on hotels or restaurants (and selection thereof), there are certain policies on what this content can be.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:38, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Yaroslav! Yes, this is a difficult one to word. I've updated it. English Wikinews appears to be based on reliable sources (a surprise to me!)... however you are correct Wikivoyage isn't, while the whole concept makes no sense for most of Commons. I do feel that 'content that exists to promote commercial interests' can be excluded... something can incidentally promote commercial interests, we have Wikipedia articles on Microsoft or Google for instance, which doubtless those companies like a lot. But that is not the purpose of the content. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 16:16, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, concerning commercial promotion, something like "exists purely to promote" would do the job--Ymblanter (talk) 18:05, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree that Content must be not be unduly biased towards one viewpoint, even works for Wikipedia. We have a preference for academic viewpoints, notably on Climate Change, the shape of the Earth and alternative medecine. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:26, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is indeed correct.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:33, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I think that is covered by unduly. We have a preference for a certain viewpoint the shape of Earth because there are sources and it is the most widely recognized one. - Laurentius (talk) 17:08, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Global Council

"Global Council" as a word is mentioned seven times in your input. However, there is no section headed by the words "Global Council". What are the rights and responsibilities of the Global Council (members). I read project communities and Wikimedia organisations are entitled to representation on the Global Council. There are about 900 project communities, and about 150 Wikimedia organisations (WMF, chapters, thorgs, user groups). Do you envision a global council of 900 + 150 is more than a thousand members? Will the Global Council be a legal entity in itself, or will it be (one of) the (governing) bodies of an existering (Wikimedia) organization? In case it is not going to be a legal entity, or part of a legal entity, how will this Global Council manage assets, like raising funds, and distributing them? Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Ad! I've not even attempted to engage with that yet, only to think about some of the high-level principles.... as I mentioned this is not actaully an attempt to start writing the Charter, just to gather thoughts... Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 16:38, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello Chris, I have followed your example, and created this page: User:Ziko/Global_Council_proposal. Kind regards, Ziko (talk) 16:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Ratification

Ratification is usually included into charters, so here seems as good a place as to include what seems a reasonable approach to avoid small and large wikis breaking out in major disagreement:

It can probably be phrased better, but I've tried to include components that some people were mooting during the recommendation discussions:

A Movement Charter will be considered ratified only when the following has happened:

1. Two thirds of local projects (e.g. fr-wiki, or en-wikitionary) have agreed to it;
2. Two thirds of active editors, as represented by local communities, have agreed to it;
3. The WMF Board has agreed to it.

Discussion was also had one whether a 4th group - some form of chapters or affiliates was wanted. Personally, to me, it seemed duplicative since individual members are where authority should lie, but there didn't seem clear agreement either way in that early discussion.

People did seem to agree that we shouldn't be endeavouring to include anything too controversial, and that if it was squeaking through with a Brexit-esque 52%, that was asking for trouble down the road.

As an example for point 2, if Wikidata has 5% of all active editors working across the project, and Wikidata ratified it, then that 5% would be counted towards the majority needed. Points 1 & 2 are designed to work in tandem to stop it being possible for either a few large wikis to implement over every other project, or a tiny proportion across a number of small or tiny projects implementing over the wishes over a majority of actual editors.

Specifics like what month's data would be used for numbers, handling communities that don't make a decision either way etc, all are fairly easy, but can spell out if desired. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Interesting ideas about ratification. IMHO the Movement Charter will be applicable to all projects hosted by the WMF. The Charter will not be applicable to projects by other ISP's. Local projects hosted by the WMF who do not agree with the Movement Charter are also bound by that Charter. If they don't agree with the Movement Charter said local project should find a hosting partner to their liking elsewhere IMHO. That is the escape for local projects who do not want to be actively involved in the process of drafting the MC, and when the MC is done don't agree. Or, how would you deal with local projects who do not agree with the Movement Charters, after the Movement Charter is ratified? Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 18:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Ad Huikeshoven: - the Charter will indeed apply to projects that don't agree to it, but to ensure that a Charter that is sufficiently acceptable to both large communities, small communities and WMF alike, that is why we need ratification by the 2/3 groupings (sort of like US amendment ratification on states). If, say, 10% refuse, and everyone else agrees, then you can say "leave, or follow", but just saying "jump on board or leave are you only choices is not acceptable". That's asking to just put in policy changes and when people don't want their projects to fail by leaving a confirmed support structure, claim that they've "consented" when they clearly haven't. Trying that will rip the community into pieces, and so this is why this method is needed (and, if the charter genuinely isn't controversial, ratification like this shouldn't be a big deal). Nosebagbear (talk) 10:54, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I am looking for ways to actively involve all projects in the drafting of the MC, so the text will develop in a way they are willing to ratify. The risk is that too many take a wait a see approach, and come with their complaints after a draft MC is delivered. As far as I know the original US constitution was agreed upon by consensus/unanimity. The 2/3 majority of states only applies to amemdments, not to the original text. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 15:39, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I think we have two parts here:

• the charter that we will write in the next few months will need to be ratified in some way. We will need an ad-hoc process for this, that in some way should allow us to say that "a (qualified?) majority of the movement" supports it. The WMF board approval is also a requirement. As a one-time process that takes place before the charter is in force, it should probably not be spelled out in the charter but separately.
• a process for amend the charter, which includes how to propose amendments and how to approve them. Again, it should express the fact that a qualified majority of the movements supports it. This may happen multiple times, and it should be part of the charter. - 17:17, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Adding references to recommendations and initiatives of the 2030 strategy

Just as a mental note, it would be great to reference more of the strategy with the responsibilities and rights of the stakeholders, since those areas should be covered by at least one of the recommendations/initiatives. But that's probably a visual addition at the end of this discussion. Braveheart (talk) 18:46, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Age and fluency

It is all very well saying that we won't discriminate on age or language fluency, but we do and are likely to continue to do so. We reserve certain roles such as oversight to people who are legally adults, and if your well meaning but garbled contributions are not good enoughh we will revert them and suggest you contribute in a language you are more fluent in. There are projects such as meta and Commons that are or should be equally welcoming to all. But most of the thousand Wikis in the movement are language specific, and unlike English Wikipedia often have an approved version of the language. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Just to note the language you're referring to is borrowed from the current draft Universal Code of Conduct, so probably worth making adding that comment to the discussion on that. I imagine that the Charter will end up referencing the Code of Conduct, possibly in several places, and re-using much of the final language about expectations of behaviour. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 12:26, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Sex and gender

The WMF and chapters probably need a carve out for scholarships and employment, otherwise Wikimania etc will wind up as male as the movement. That may be their intention, but if it isn't, the proposed wording is going to be an issue. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:38, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Andere Sprachen

Die Seite ist mal wieder nur auf Englisch angelegt, und noch nicht mal übersetzbar, typisch für diesen Haufen arroganter anglophoner Monolinguisten. Natürlich kann ich das da umseitig recht gut lesen, ich bin halt einer der Privilegierten, die diese Sprache gelernt haben und leidlich beherrschen. Aber solange das nicht mal übersetzbar ist, werde ich hier nicht ein Wort auf Englisch schreiben, es ist schlicht nicht akzeptabel, hier immer nur diese eine Sprache zu verwenden. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:56, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't expecting someone to come and criticise me for writing my personal thoughts in my native language! Just to be clear, this is a personal essays, nothing more, nothing to do with the movement strategy process... Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 12:20, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Ich sehe das hier als sehr typisch für das Wikiversum, eine kleine Blase anglophoner WMF/enWPler startet eine Diskussion über etwas, was eigentlich alle beträfe, nur auf Englisch. Einerseits natürlich ein Lob dafür, dass überhaupt angefangen zu haben, andererseits gehört so etwas aber übersetzt, oder zumindest übersetzbar, in den allgemeinen Meta-Raum, nicht in ein dunkles Hinterzimmer einer Benutzerunterseitendiskussion.

And as a personal service for you, because I like the initiative in principle, despite it's wrong placement and wrong monolinguality, here in English:

I see this as quite typical for the wikiverse, a small bubble of WMF/enWPers start a discussion about something, that should concern everbody, only in english. On one hand a praise for raising this at all, but on the other hand should this be translated, or at least translatable, in the common Meta-space, not in a shady backroom of a user-subpage-discussion.
Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:33, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, I have written Meta-essays before, in English, and no-one has complained. And I was definitely not expecting anyone to mention this on the Kurier - I did not mark it for translation for several reasons, including not to make it look 'official'. However if you think that necessary, it can happen... though I cannot control this entirely, ti will need a translation administrator to mark it for translation and translators to actually translate it, if it takes their interest to do so. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 15:58, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Then you should not have mentioned it on wikimedia-I ;)

Perhaps the nerves are a bit more on the edge now, as the WMF is rapidly doing lots of stuff, the communities not really asked for, like UCOC, Board expansion, usurping the name Wikipedia and such, anything that is obviouls highly language selective is not considered as too helpful and inclusive. Let's see, whether it's possible to make user sub-pages translatable. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:25, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

@Chris: It is reasonabe to assume that your draft will have impact. Folks would like to understand your thoughts and to be able to offer their feedback. If that's okay with you, I could translate your draft into German, simply the old way at User:The Land/Movement Charter Input/de. --Martina Nolte (talk) 03:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Martina! Yes you would be very welcome to. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 09:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Done Marked for translation. Jean-Fred (talk) 21:02, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Translation completed. User:Aschmidt helped with a big chunk. --Martina Nolte (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Martina for translating the rest! User:Sänger and User:Christoph Jackel (WMDE) also helped out earlier today. – A happy new year to you all!--Aschmidt (talk) 00:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, thank you all very much! Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 09:24, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Power and accountablility

I try to grasp what is implied here. Theoretically everybody is in power since a registered user has more power than an IP (by for instance having a permanent user page). And off course a reviewer has more power than somebody without this user right.

And about accountability? In what way? Legally? Morally? With consequences? --Gereon K. (talk) 12:18, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Geroen. I take it you're looking at the Principle named 'Accountability'? Those are important points... yes, everyone has *some* power and everyone should, in my view, be expected to exercise that power accountably. Obviously the nature of the accountability varies a lot depending on the nature of the power. This is an important issue to flesh out... Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 14:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Limitations

Hello Chris, thank you for your work. I allow myself to shortly ask about some limitations for the content: do you really want to limit content to the specific licenses CC0 and CCBYSA? Then, do you want content on Wikimedia Commons under Art Libre, CCBY and some other licenses to be deleted?

Also, does all content have to be "collaborative"? When I upload a photo to Wikimedia Commons, then the photo was taken and uploaded all by myself. Ziko (talk) 14:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ziko. I've edited the section on licensing to make it clear that those are not the only acceptable licenses, and indeed to make it clear that public domain content is within scope (!). Regarding "collaborative" - it is projects and people that are required to be collaborative, not content. On Commons this would be reflected in the fact that the photo metadata, categorisation, etc is open to editing and the file itself is open to use (and re-mixing) in a wide range of contexts. I hope this makes sense! Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 14:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. I just wondered how universal the collaboration in the movement is supposed to be. For example, a board of an affiliate may publish a statement, and that statement usually is not open for all to edit. - We do not have a good definition of "collaboration" in the movement. Ziko (talk) 13:47, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes... a good point. What does 'collaboration' actually mean in practice? Hmmm..... Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 13:55, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Some feedback

Thanks for writing this, These are my comments

• Openly licenses, should it really be so precise? Could we not envision other license technique, I would suggest to keep this on a more general level
• Behaviour Principles. I really like this spceially accountabilty
• Rights and responsibilities. Good to have a section like this, I will not go into specifics as I believe it would be good to discuss this in groups etc. The same goes for Project Communities and Organisations

Yger (talk) 16:22, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Another Feedback

Chris: First of all, thank you for your effort to share your thoughts and ideas about a future Wikimedia Charter. I think it helps wrapping our heads around what might be coming at us and it helps each of us forming their own opinion ahead of time. So that on the day when the Foundation and her committes will come up with an actual draft, we'll hopefully not be like deer in the headlights.

So here are some of my thoughts. I am writing this from the perspective of a contributor to Wikimedia online projects, mainly Wikipedia and Commons, since 15 years.

• Principles: A future Movement Charter should be inclusive of and and coherent with the Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles as well as the Wikipedia principles and their localized versions auch as w:Wikipedia:Five pillars, Grundprinzipien, etc. Some portions of your proposed principles are new. And although all principles sound really good and I can easily see a positive spirit and good faith in them, when such a charter with its globally guiding principles will be put into practice: the devil will be in the detail. I'll give some examples.
• Who will write that Universal Code of Conduct, how much could and will it override local projects' wikiquettes and local behavior cultures, how will it be enforced and who will sanction violations - local admins or a kind of global superban superadmin T&S team? After Superprotect, Office Actions, Superban, Framgate and alike, I am highly sceptical of anything that might further formalize the shift of power from project communities to the Foundation or to any sort of global oversight functionairies. Along those same lines, I am also very sceptical of any global charter and codes that might give additional powers over project communities to any kind of quasi-external groups and committees.
• Positions of power. How would we define power? And how would we define communities being served? For example: Is the Wikipedia administrator accountable only to their fellow contributors, or to anybody else as well? To whom? Or another example: A Wikimedia Chapter appeared to consider themselves more accountable to their members, donors, and public interest groups than to their language's Wikipedia community. How would the Charter help solve such a conflict?
• Funding principles. You probably know that a relevant portion of Wikipedia contributors feel that funds should first and foremost serve Wikipedia and her sister projects as directly as possible. Fundraisers focus on keeping Wikipedia free and free of ads. Most donor comments speak about supporting Wikipedia. Therefore contributors to Wikimedia online projects ask that funds are spent on project technology, technical support, and on more community support for special projects and events, library access, access to equipment, etc. And on translations of the Foundation's massive text output. ;-) Not on growing Wikimedia staff, brochures, or copyrights lobbying. I personlly would like to see in the Charter an explicit commitment that the Wikimedia Foundation and organizations first and foremost serve their project communities.
• Funds allocated based on impact. I think this needs to be more precisely defined and scalable.
• Transparency - yes! The more, the better. But who's overseeing that? What are potential sanctions? I would like to see Wikimedia organizations committed to submit to an annual independent certification for non-profits, preferably by their nation's most recognized standards. So that for example the German Chapter would be listed here (DZI's standards).
• Right to consultation. I would like to see that project community consultation had more impact and was more binding. Too often in the past, we have been confronted with major changes without prior consultation. Over and over we've participated in extended consultation processes, with no translations made availbale even into major other languages, and in the end the Foundation or a Chapter did what they wanted to do anyway. Going forward, instead of ["pausing" a thouroughly rejected proposal, the Foundation would simply and definitely ditch their idea. A commitment of the Foundation and her Chapters to serving the project communities instead of managing and overruling them should be reflected in a Movement Charter.
• Project Communities representation on the Global Council and on the boards of Wikimedia organisations. What do you mean with "open method of appointment and/or election". Appointment by whom?? Who defines what is "adequate representation of the communities"? Again, I get your intent, and I appreciate that. But the verbiage is so unspecific that it can be interpreted in very different ways. Individuals that are well liked by Chapter and Foundation officials and would be likely to be appointmed by them do not necessarily represent their community's best interest. In my opinion, the charter's language needs to make sure that communities independently elect their own representatives. It also needs to make sure that those representatives have actual say, not just listening seats.
• diversity of board members to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve: Again, a nice idea that I vry much support but practically how would we achieve that? With anonymous and pseudonym contributors, how do we know the community's social structure? We don't even know how many women we are, not to speak of characteristics such as age, disabilities, religion, socio-econmic class, education or profession. Science says the typical Wikipedian is male, white, holds an academic degree, likely in IT, and is about 30 years old right? That's pretty much who's in Wikimedia power positions now too, maybe with women being somewhat more visible than online. I don't think that's what you want.

Hope some of this has meaning to you. Cheers --Martina Nolte (talk) 03:16, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

A thought from Llywrch

I noticed one omission from the section on responsibilities for the Foundation: that they support the volunteers, either individually or in groups. As someone who is primarily active at the coal face of things -- writing the content that people come to use -- I've found the only positive effect anything the Foundation directly has on me is to keep the servers running. Most of their effect on the quality & quantity of my contributions has been negative. (To avoid distractions from my point, I won't list them.) Yes, we volunteers can be a cantankerous, ungrateful, & sometimes even hostile lot, but these emotions arise from the fact that we are the ones who give our time, experience, knowledge & (increasingly) money to make things successful, yet all we receive from the people whose jobs depend on our contributions are the occasional formulaic thank-yous. Far too often, we are isolated individuals, making sacrifices to contribute, only to feel the Foundation is frustrating our efforts because we have no support beyond providing websites for us to donate to. We volunteers need to feel supported, otherwise our devotion will suffer. -- Llywrch (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Llywrch:. Yes, this is an important point, and one that I think really has to be dealt with explicitly in the writing process of the Movement Charter. @Martina Nolte: made a similar point just above regarding organisations existing to support project communities. This point also came up (a lot) in the working groups process, because it's a widely-held view, particularly among long-term Wikimedians. It was widely debated behind the scenes, but not so much in public.

From my own perspective, I completely agree that the relationship between the WMF and many project communities is a big challenge and that there is a lot of work to do (including, to be honest, some significant changes of attitude and behaviour from parts of the WMF staff). However I have a number of reservations about statements saying the role of Wikimedia organisations is only to support volunteers, or only to support project communities.

This is in part because of my experience of being on the board of Wikimedia UK. There, we started with a position of 'staff only exist to support volunteers'. But quickly found that there were not that many volunteers who wanted to manage GLAM partnerships, which was our main area of work. It made more sense for the staff to manage most of the relationships, but for us then to include metrics around how many volunteers engaged with the projects that staff members were setting up. That seemed to be much more successful, and resulted in not only more GLAM projects but more volunteers participating in them. But it was a slightly different mindset.

There is also a more 'meta' point that the ultimate beneficiaries of the Wikimedia projects are the people who read or use the Wikimedia projects. Wikimedians do not reflect our readers very well (either in background, interests, or behaviour). I've often heard this point over-emphasised by the WMF, who have at times used this to justify poor behaviour towards project communities, rather than treating them as partners. But it is still true. Which is why I would be reluctant to say that the WMF/organisations had to serve project' communities, rather than 'communities' in general, a much broader definition.

However I do think that having this debate is going to be really important. It's one of the fundamental issues that the Movement Charter process is going to have to resolve. Thanks! Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 17:36, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@The Land: I'm not sure how much of your response was directed to me & how much to @Martina Nolte:, but I do want to respond to some of the points you've raised.

I was intentionally vague about what I meant/expected by writing "support the volunteers, either individually or in groups". I'm sure some will see this as a disguised plea or demand for money. (While I wouldn't object to receiving some kind of funding, I'd be satisfied in simply having clear guidelines for requesting funding for performing research, even if it amounted to a statement that direct funding is not covered at this time.) But what I would like to see, simply put, is the help we need & want to improve our projects. Sometimes this is in the form of training (e.g. how to approach outside groups effectively), sometimes in the form of education (e.g. how to present our information more effectively, or how to deal with problematic fellow volunteers), & sometimes in having a meaningful dialog with us not only to understand our needs but also to simply learn & acknowledge what we, as identifiable people &/or groups, are doing. We volunteers are performing the vast majority of the visible work our readers use. We do it with minimal resources, guided solely by our individual or disjunct communities experience, & out of sheer love of what we are doing. Once in a while a C-level Foundation executive will toss a compliment our way, but they appear to be far too busy taking meetings with non-Wikipmedian people to have more than a vague idea of what we are actually doing. More often when the Foundation takes action that directly effects us, it is disruptive & without thought of our concerns or opinions -- which is why volunteers are often hostile towards it. This is not to say we are experts, & know more than anyone else: there are times I suspect an outside, disinterested expert could identify many things we should change that would improve both our work environment & how we present information to our users. But instead of enforcing these changes on us, these changes should be explained & suggested; better ideas always prevail over the long term. And explaining, suggesting, passively providing information we need or want, these I include as part of the activity of supporting us volunteers.

From where I am, the Foundation does not do any of this. Not to say it doesn't, but their efforts don't reach down to someone like me; & if their efforts are invisible to a long-term volunteer like me, who makes an informed effort to tap into the usual conduits of information, I figure it's the same or worse for volunteers who are new, non-cis-male, &/or people of color.

(PS, I don't consider the recent Movement Global Strategy meetings met this need, although it was better than nothing. My impression was that, after all of the frosting & glitter was stripped off, we performed the equivalent of answering some multiple-choice questionnaires.) -- Llywrch (talk) 19:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Given that the strategy process failed, at each recommendation stage, to answer large numbers of questions, despite specifically stating after concerns were raised after phase 1, that they would - they have no value to them at all and should be considered an incomplete consultation, resetting back to phase 2. The fact that I've talked to several WMF staffers who concede this was an issue and they should have done better, but don't seem to feel that any responsibility to actually fix it by restarting the process, purely because it is viewed as too difficult, depresses me immensely and makes me reticent whenever further statements that an issue will be fixed are made. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Llywrch: No worries. He is saying hi only to you. Pretty sure all of the response was directed to you. :-) --Martina Nolte (talk) 05:20, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Lol, I'm not entirely sure how much I was responding to anyone rather than just spewing forth a stream of consciousness. But I was trying to address points made by both of you (on this page) and may other people elsewhere :) Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 19:57, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Open licenses

Thank you for your work! It will be valuable for the progression of the discussion. Although it not a draft charter and therefore it's not the place for in-depth discussions of specific wordings, I may add a few comments as I read it.

For the definition of free or open licences, I wouldn't try to make a new definition; one can refer to existing ones, like for example freedomdefined.org. - Laurentius (talk) 16:47, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

+1 to all of this. The only way a healthy charter can develop is through many people compiling their own version of a brief doc such as this, and working through those different facets and takes. Committee discussions of a single document lead to bland and contentless results. –SJ talk  19:21, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Anonymity or pseudonimity

The statement «To contribute anonymously or pseudonymously if they so wish, unless they hold positions of responsibility that require their identities to be disclosed either in public or in private» seems focused on project (online) work. In offline work, especially in a chapter or similar structure, it is not possible in the same way: anonymous in-person meetings are not really possible; and being member of a membership organization in an anonymous or pseudonimous way is not generally possible.

I think it could be more like: you won't be required to give information about you that is not necessary for what you are volunteering to do. For instance, if you want to edit Wikisource, almost nothing is required, and you can be anonymous; if you want to join a membership organization, or become a steward, you need to be identified; if you are to get a blogpost about your life as a contributor, well, you need to tell about yourself to the whole world. - Laurentius (talk) 16:56, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

References to lower-level documents

The movement chapter should be a top-level document for the Wikimedia movement. Here there are some references to other documents:

• a resolution of the WMF board, which is one specific entity in the movement;
• the Universal Code of Conduct, which is globally relevant but may be specific (will it exists in 20 years from now?).

While the idea behind this is correct, in the actual chapter it should probably spelled in a different way. - Laurentius (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2021 (UTC)|

Current list of proposals:

• Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Discuss/Cluster_A#Immediate_steps from User:Ad Huikeshoven
• User:Yair rand/Global Council distribution formula - a proposed distribution formula
• User:Ziko/Global Council proposal
• User:The_Land/Movement_Charter_Input
• Strategic Wikimedia Affiliates Network/IGC-MC
• Nano Charter by Pharos
• Project wiki representatives
• User:David Wadie Fisher-Freberg/Global Council

Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 08:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)