Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Conversations/Topic panels/Topic panel: Board - Global Council - Hubs/Report

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2021-03-13 Topic panel: Board - Global Council - Hubs on the Call for Feedback[edit]

  • The conversation ran on Saturday, March 13, 16:00 UTC to 17:30 UTC
  • Number of participants : 34

Summary[edit]

Panel[edit]

Watch on Youtube the part 1
Recording of the panel part of the topic panel

All panelists and all participants discussed the idea of How can the next Board elections be organized in a way that supports the Movement Strategy process? How to avoid confusion and exhaustion among the volunteers interested in participating in both?. Below are some suggestions made by panelists

  • We are electing eight people to the WMF board of trustees, which is quite a small number if you are trying to make sure that it's representative of the vast tracts of the whole Wikimedia movement, then for the Global Council, you have a nobody knows how large it's going to be. But it's going to be much larger than eight people. Therefore, it will be much easier for the global council to be a really that's a sensitive body.
  • We need to be sure those people who are elected or can be elected known well enough that the strategy process is happening and have some kind of commitment to make this make the implementation happen, like they are committed to the implementation to be something real.
  • The principles of legitimacy, authority, engagement and transparency are extremely important because without total transparency and without maximize engagement, it's going to be really difficult to explain to people why they should be participating in all of it.
  • There should be a very specific relationship between the Regional Hub, between the Global Council and the Board of Trustees. We should be able to identify what will be the functions of each of these bodies, what will be the relationship between these bodies, who will be responsible for what and what functions they will be doing.
  • We should be able to identify what will be the functions of the Global Council, what will be the functions of the Board of Trustees, how they will be connected, who will be responsible for what areas. And when we do it, I think then it will be much easier to identify the ways, how to elect people, how to spread information and so on.
  • There should be a clear guideline about how we are structuring the existing organizational hierarchy. So if the Global Council only intervenes on certain areas or not, and even when the question of election or selection comes, it hugely depends on having those kinds of answers.
  • This process has always been about sharing and distributing power and I think we've reached this point in the process that it's about how can we establish methods so that the communities are able to take up this responsibility. Because we don't have these structures and this has been identified as an issue, and we need them not just for movement strategy, but for the movement at large.
  • This is not the time to separate the community further from the Board of Trustees nominations, some of the options on the table about electing or nominating committees or basically anything that's not an election of one form or another.
  • The people who are going to be elected to the Board also need to be representative of the diversity of the movement. They need to be representative because if then these people are the people who are going to be negotiating with the future Global Council representatives to transfer responsibilities, I would expect these people to understand my local context and to fight for my local context as well.

Open mic discussion[edit]

Watch on Youtube the part 2
Recording of the open mic discussion of the topic panel
  • During open mic. discussions, discussions were continued about elections to the BoT and the use of this model of elections in the future for the election of the Global Council.
  • It was stated that the Board itself is interested in delegating some of its powers to a larger body, which will involve the community in the process.
  • Explained the work of the MS working groups and why it was focused (including the creation of a Global Council and Charter). The problem that existed was voiced, it was the lack of time and diversity in the representation. But all the same, they have reached a significant level and we must admit it.
  • It was noted that more open discussions on the process are needed.
  • It was noted that the BoT plays and should play an important role in creating a charter for the entire movement.
  • The movement has recommendations and, accordingly, they should be implemented. There are many tasks to carry out, and therefore it seems that we should somehow start to carry them out.
  • There was also a discussion about the Hubs and its relationship to the elections to the BoT.

Etherpad notes[edit]

Copy from https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CfF_Board_Global_Council_Hubs // Version 711 Saved March 13, 2021


Board - Global Council - Hubs

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call_for_feedback:_Community_Board_seats/Conversations/Topic_panels/Topic_panel:_Board_-_Global_Council_-_Hubs

Number of attendees: 34

   

Questions:

  1. Panel introductions
  1. Kaarel Vaidla: Why this question on the Cff thread?
  1. Leading question for panel = Election for board, support strategy, prevent volunteer exhaustion

How can the next Board elections be organized in a way that supports the Movement Strategy process? How to avoid confusion and exhaustion among the volunteers interested in participating in both?

Chris: 2 questions: 2 elections, one for board, one for global council

How can we make BoT diverse and representative, and effective. The same for GC

answers: 8 to the board - small number

for global council - it is going to be large, so easier to be representative body

Anna: there are going to be board elections. how are we going to build IGC?

Shabab: what is going to be the purpose of the Global Council?

Maria: board elections help strategy. try to resolve governance issues at the board.

Open Mic session

Hubs are designed to be a support structure of the communities they cater (affiliates and communities that dont want to be in the affiliate system). The intention is to develop within locally rather than an addition of bureaucratic layer in decision making or influence the s/election process of the board of trustees.

Chat log[edit]

Denis Barthel 10:01 AM Oh my ...  :)

Nicole Ebber 10:01 AM wild? you look like an angel, basically. :)

Christophe Henner 10:01 AM Hooooo

Zita Zage 10:01 AM  :)

Christophe Henner 10:01 AM Thanks!

- 10:03 AM turn on the recording

Mehman Ibragimov 10:04 AM /o

Mohammed Bachounda 10:06 AM https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CfF_Board_Global_Council_Hubs

Paulo Perneta 10:09 AM the "Board" bit in the topic name is a bit bizarre, since all these panels are about Board

Oscar Costero 10:15 AM Open question for the panelist, in case someone didn't understand it: How can the next Board elections be organized in a way that supports the Movement Strategy process? How to avoid confusion and exhaustion among the volunteers interested in participating in both?

Kaarel Vaidla 10:15 AM Link to ongoing conversations around the Interim Global Council on meta that Anna referred to: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January

Oscar Costero 10:15 AM You can type additional questions (on this topic) here in the chat :)

Paulo Perneta 10:16 AM who directly "owns" the Strategy process? BoT or CEO?

anass sedrati 10:16 AM One question that will need to be answered is: Will the global council decide over the board or the board will decide over the global council?

And more importantly, who will decide on that decision.

Ad Huikeshoven 10:16 AM @anass to be answered by IGC in Movement Charter

anass sedrati 10:17 AM @Ad-  Who ensures that the movement charter will be enforced even on the board? This was my question

Anna Torres 10:18 AM @paulo: the community.

it's a community product

product=project

Mehrdad Pourzaki 10:18 AM Great question Anass, that's why some people have strongly suggested that board members should sit on the IGC so the discussions are linked and not separate

Paulo Perneta 10:18 AM @Anna: I don't know the anwer, but "the community" certaoinly is not the answer at all

Mehrdad Pourzaki 10:18 AM Negotiating the transfer of power will be a big part of those discussions

Anna Torres 10:19 AM @paulo: it's my answer. For me is a project that belongs to the community

Paulo Perneta 10:19 AM somthing is directing it, either it is the BoT, WMF CEO or something else, but certainly not a  ompletely vague entity as "the community"

it's a concrete question, not a philosophical one

anass sedrati 10:20 AM Exactly Mehrdad. I think the aim of this current meeting is to brainstorm the relationship type between BoT, IGC and global council.

The odea that some people can be a link between both makes indeed total sense.

Mehrdad Pourzaki 10:20 AM No veto powers please in this security council :)

anass sedrati 10:21 AM The question from Paulo is also very relevant. Who will have the ultimate power? Is is CEO, BoT, Gobal council?

Will the movement charter answer all this or do we need even more work?

Christophe Henner 10:21 AM I do not know as of right now, but at inception it was a board direction, led by Foundation top executives delegated to the community to come up with directions and recommendations. And yes at the end of the day BoT will have to pass, or not, resolutions based on that.

Universal code of conduct is to some extent an extension of the strategy process.

Oscar Costero 10:21 AM Here is the Etherpad if you wish to share notes or questions there: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CfF_Board_Global_Council_Hubs

Kaarel Vaidla 10:21 AM @Paulo - in the current setup of the movement, the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation ensures governance over the process. In the future this could be one of the responsibilities handed over to the Global Council

Paulo Perneta 10:22 AM Thanks @Kareel

Christophe Henner 10:22 AM

As for after the global council is set up, the distribution of power is yet to be determined.

Kaarel Vaidla 10:23 AM Yes, this is yet to be discussed and decided

Paulo Perneta 10:23 AM sorry Kaarel*

Chris Keating 10:24 AM it is possible at some point that the Global Council could be the 'governing body' of the movement. But for now this is all for the future - which makes it even more important now that the movement retains a high level of control over the Board election

Kaarel Vaidla 10:25 AM @Anass - Movement Charter will need to provide the clarity regarding roles and responsibilities in the movement , or as said in the recommendation:

"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,"

Link to meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Ensure_Equity_in_Decision-making

Paulo Perneta 10:26 AM If I well understood, IGC will write the movement charter, right?

Ad Huikeshoven 10:26 AM Who is currently working now on setting up an Interim Global Council? What are going to be the next steps?

anass sedrati 10:26 AM @Kaarel - Thank you for the clarifications. It will be a huge work if the "existing and new entities" should all be included in the charter. maybe a 500-page document, but it will be awesome to have it of course!

Ad Huikeshoven 10:27 AM @Paulo yes, that will be the mandate for the IG C to write a draft

Paulo Perneta 10:28 AM thanks @ad

Anna Torres 10:29 AM @paulo I wasn't meant to be metaphorical. Maybe I misunderstood.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:29 AM Is it not safe to assume that in the short term the board of trustees still carries the final responsibility (at least legally) so that you can start reasoning from there? Because otherwise we start playing the waiting game for a long time

Paulo Perneta 10:30 AM @Anna from teh community it would never been. But it's now clarified that it's a BoT creature

Ad Huikeshoven 10:30 AM @Jan-Bart - waiting for an Interim Global Council, isn it?

Paulo Perneta 10:30 AM would never be*

Richard Knipel 10:30 AM I think Chris has a good point, we can't say that community influence should go to the global council instead now

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:31 AM @ad no because the IGC also needs time, and if we wait for their work AND the ratification of that work (if that is going to happen) is simply going to be a long time....

Ad Huikeshoven 10:31 AM so, what are you waiting for?

anass sedrati 10:31 AM +1 Anna a lot of work was done to reach the Global council point

Christophe Henner 10:31 AM If anything because brands and ressources are in Foundation's hands, yes it will need BoT approval at some point. But for the strategy process it was meant to be with communities highly involved.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:32 AM the end of this consultation to create the best possible board elections with a level playing field and a lot of support for candidates and elected members

that is what I was waiting for :)

Paulo Perneta 10:33 AM @Christophe unfortunately I don't think that object has been achieved. There is still minimum to none involvment from the part of the communities I belong to

that objective*

Alice Wiegand 10:33 AM with regards to what Maria said about new board members: maybe you van renew your (the Board's) commitment to the movement strategy. Especially now that Katherine and Ryan are no longer there

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:34 AM +1 Anna but that will take some time... and in the meantime should we not just have elections for the board assuming that we want  competend people with a lot of diversity (in all areas) and a good team?

Ad Huikeshoven 10:34 AM Is George Mel also a panellist?

Christophe Henner 10:34 AM @Paulo I do not know about every specific communities, but overall the strategy team has done a lot to support as much communities to be involved.

Nanour Garabedian 10:34 AM How to let them to be more engaged?

Denis Barthel 10:34 AM @Ad, yes he is :)

Anna Torres 10:34 AM +1 Jan Bart +1 Christophe

Kaarel Vaidla 10:35 AM Here is the panel information, to be clear about the framing and panel participants: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call_for_feedback:_Community_Board_seats/Conversations/Topic_panels/Topic_panel:_Board_-_Global_Council_-_Hubs

Ad Huikeshoven 10:35 AM Can we have board election and creation of an IGC at the same time?

Paulo Perneta 10:35 AM @Christophe yes, to some communities, probably. Not to the ones I'm most familiar with, though (Portuguese Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons)

Christophe Henner 10:35 AM (Anna you have a huge fan here, at every call everytime you appear my daughter waves and talk to you :D)

Chico Venancio 10:36 AM @Cristophe, that's a hard sell for the portuguese language community. We were excluded from the process in the Working Groups. It is also noteworthy WMF did not hire a portuguese language specialist for this process of board elections feedback.

Anna Torres 10:37 AM Christophe :3

Christoph J 10:38 AM thank you Maria :)

María Sefidari 10:39 AM I am meeting with Portuguese speaking community members after this call

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:39 AM I am assuming that the board is very interested in making it easier to getting community involvement and decision making through something like a global council. THe problem is getting there and making sure that the board can still fullfil its legal requirements

María Sefidari 10:39 AM We're trying to reach as many people as possible

Mehman Ibragimov 10:39 AM /o

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:39 AM so +1 maria

Quim Gil 10:39 AM or  o/     :)

Paulo Perneta 10:39 AM thanks @Maria

Alice Wiegand 10:41 AM o/

Ad Huikeshoven 10:41 AM o/

Chico Venancio 10:41 AM @Maria, I was not aware of this meeting, nor do I see it announced on community channels. But at any rate, the lack of engagement in Portuguese makes any kind participation limited and less diverse.

Paulo Perneta 10:42 AM @Maria, can you clarify who are you meeting with? 🤔

Oscar Costero 10:43 AM Sorry Alice, you are next!

Alice Wiegand 10:43 AM it's fine :-)

Paulo Perneta 10:44 AM "I am meeting with Portuguese speaking community members after this call" -> it's a future meeting still not scheduled with the community, or is it something else?

María Sefidari 10:44 AM Wiki editoras Lx Portugal and Wiki Movimento Brasil

Paulo Perneta 10:45 AM what has that meeting to do with this panel, @maria? I'm confused

Ad Huikeshoven 10:45 AM The tasks (one of them) for the IGC is to draft a movment charter. My question is how to create an IGC soon? What is the next step?

María Sefidari 10:46 AM we will discuss governance and strategy - I was just answering a comment about lack of interest/involvement from Portuguese Wikipedia. No doubt more can be done, but we are trying

Nicole Ebber 10:47 AM Thank you, Anna, +1.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:47 AM thank you for taking the time to do that Maria :)

Alice Wiegand 10:47 AM +1 to Anna

Christophe Henner 10:47 AM The perfect system doesn't exist, there always are trade offs to make :)

María Sefidari 10:47 AM thanks JB :)

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:47 AM +1 anna for sure..  

Butch Bustria 10:47 AM In my Roles & Responsibilities WG role

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:47 AM @chris but the people who are no longer involved will not want to be on IGC anyway

Butch Bustria 10:47 AM I agree to Anna said

Alice Wiegand 10:48 AM chris needs sunglasses

Butch Bustria 10:48 AM Chris is shining

Kaarel Vaidla 10:48 AM o//

Nicole Ebber 10:48 AM +1 to Chris!

Paulo Perneta 10:48 AM @maria no clue what that meeting is, never heard about it 🤷🏽‍♂️

Ad Huikeshoven 10:48 AM Who is going to call for those two teams?

Anna Torres 10:49 AM maybe we can ask the same WG to nominate 1/2 people and the 50% new?

Ad Huikeshoven 10:49 AM so what is going on and what is the next step is secret?

Anna Torres 10:50 AM Not a secret at all, Ad!

Paulo Perneta 10:50 AM strongly against reciclying teh Strategy WGs in the IGC

Chico Venancio 10:51 AM I think WGs do not have the necessary legitimacy to have reserved seats in the IGC.

Paulo Perneta 10:51 AM that would bring on all the failures of those WGs, including huge community disconnection

Anna Torres 10:52 AM please, propose another option.

Paulo Perneta 10:52 AM drawn them from the community, as we always to open nominations, then vote, and so on

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:52 AM but Paulo that alternative takes soo much longer, crucial time we need

Christophe Henner 10:53 AM +1 to Alice. Simple and efficient and as close to what we have today. To focus on Global Council :)

Ad Huikeshoven 10:53 AM @Anna and @Paulo "someone" calls for IGC candidates - anyone can nominate

Paulo Perneta 10:53 AM WGs is no alternative, IMO

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:53 AM we can elect the GC, but no real need to elect IGC

Nicole Ebber 10:53 AM I am just quoting from our remarks on meta to +1 what Alice said: "It is our understanding that the WMF must be part of the IGC. In order to affect change to the current system of decision-making, the current decision-makers need to be included. "

Ad Huikeshoven 10:53 AM @Jan-Bart, so self-appointment

Chico Venancio 10:53 AM @jan, does it? We can specify the time period and just have a short election.

Paulo Perneta 10:54 AM former WG members can nominate themselves, then the community decides. No appointments

Chris Keating 10:54 AM it is impossible to run an election in less than 3 months...

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:54 AM @ad not self appointed, people with a track record of willing to put in the time

Oscar Costero 10:55 AM Reminder of the Etherpad if you wish to share notes or questions there: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CfF_Board_Global_Council_Hubs

Ad Huikeshoven 10:55 AM @Chris: three months have passed since the initial conversations in December

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:55 AM @chico like chris said, elections take time, and that is only the Interim one...

Paulo Perneta 10:55 AM then expand the time. It's better than to make things wrong just because of the rush

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:55 AM @ad yes, but "sunk costs" is never an argument to not do the best thing at this time or in a month .. .or two

Christophe Henner 10:55 AM But no process is perfect. So better to do something than waiting for that unicorn of a process.(Though I love 🦄 🦄 🦄)

Butch Bustria 10:56 AM and rainbow

Paulo Perneta 10:56 AM then nominations + elections. No appointments

Ad Huikeshoven 10:56 AM @Jan_Bart - I already wrote I support (self)appointment

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:56 AM Because if you DO want a wide diverse Interim Council you need more than double those three months to ensure that all the communities are informed, can take part etc.

Christophe Henner 10:56 AM 🌈 🌈

Butch Bustria 10:57 AM Paolo is raising his hand

Alice Wiegand 10:57 AM maybe I haven't expressed myself well enough.You already made changes and the next elections will be different to the former, What I mean is with regards to this meeting, that the WMF elections in this year should not be overloaded with attempts to be a model for GC elections for example

Paulo Perneta 10:57 AM sorry am not

Alice Wiegand 10:57 AM thanks, Maria

Paulo Perneta 10:58 AM (thanks for noticing it Butch, probably misclicked somewhere)

Chico Venancio 10:58 AM We need a process that has legitimacy. WGs were mediated by WMF with a lack of transparency around selection and participation. Perpetuating that into the IGC because it is easier does not seems like an acceptable solution to me.

Richard Knipel 10:58 AM I tried to propose something with regional seats that would give as much continuity as possible with existing systems

Anna Torres 10:58 AM Really Chico? Lack of transparency?

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:58 AM I would hope that we first try out 100 different models of what "Hub" is before we try to define the rules

Nicole Ebber 10:59 AM I think these questions will also have to be tackeld in the movement charter that is supposed to be written.

María Sefidari 10:59 AM @Alice oh I see. Like, not try to have two processes at the same time? Yeah, I think that would make sense tbh. I could actually see unsucessful BoT candidates running for the gc

Christophe Henner 10:59 AM The process needs legitimacy, but that legitimacy is not needed in the group of people drafting the charter. Better to have super strong communities consultation.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 10:59 AM +1 christophe

Paulo Perneta 10:59 AM +1 to total lack of transparency on WGs

Nicole Ebber 10:59 AM +1 to Jan-Bart let's first try out a few hub models and see what benefit they bring.  

Anna Torres 10:59 AM +1 to Chisthope

Richard Knipel 11:00 AM bye, thanks everyone, I have an editathon to join  https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Asia_Art_Archive_in_America/2021_Asia_Art_Archive_in_America_Art_and_Feminism_Edit-a-thon_(March_13,_2021)/home

Chico Venancio 11:00 AM Creating a process without strong community involvement has a long history of failures in the history of the Wikimedia Movement. Seems we are eager to go that same road again.

Nicole Ebber 11:01 AM +1 to Christophe. I wish we could also get some of these voices up on meta, eg as a comment here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January#Remarks_from_Wikimedia_Deutschland_on_the_Interim_Global_Council

That would also help Kaarel and the team to create a final proposal.

Paulo Perneta 11:01 AM why are we discussing something that apparently is not defined at all on a panel about the BoT elections? 🤔

(hubs)

Nanour Garabedian 11:01 AM have place on the table to do what? I mean what is that missing and being a trustee will bring it?  

Paulo Perneta 11:01 AM +1 to Chico

Christophe Henner 11:01 AM Chico yes, but community involvement can happen differently. I would rather have community involvement as large as possible around the content rather than in a group of people.Especially as any small elected group will never have the legitimacy to represent all of our communities.

Butch Bustria 11:02 AM o/

Christophe Henner 11:02 AM If no one from the Portuguese or Brazilian communities is elected, would you feel represented?

Oscar Costero 11:02 AM I see Paulo and Jan-Bart and Butch hands

Paulo Perneta 11:03 AM (it's still raised? here it appears as down)

Mehman Ibragimov 11:04 AM now not

Chico Venancio 11:04 AM > If no one from the Portuguese or Brazilian communities is elected, would you feel represented?Maybe, probably yes.

>I would rather have community involvement as large as possible around the content rather than in a group of people.

Sure. WGs have failed at that, continuing them is a strong signal we don't care for the communities and contributors that were excluded.

Paulo Perneta 11:04 AM @Christophe - sure, like we did on the last election

Anna Torres 11:04 AM +1 to see them growth

Christophe Henner 11:05 AM WG in Anna's proposal is to create the group of people writing the charter not approving it.

Oscar Costero 11:05 AM Quick reminder to keep it in focus, the topic being the next Board election :-)

Chris Keating 11:05 AM Chico and Paolo - what parts of the strategy recommendations do you think would have been different if there had been elections for the working gorups?

Christophe Henner 11:06 AM Approval need to be as wide as we can, and successfully involve even people that are staying away from those topics.

Chico Venancio 11:06 AM @Christophe: it was not only that WGs excluded all candidacies from portuguese language projects, but even comments on the topics were rebuffed by participants.

Anna Torres 11:06 AM Yes Chistophe

Chico Venancio 11:06 AM > Chico and Paolo - what parts of the strategy recommendations do you think would have been different if there had been elections for the working gorups?

That is a lot of work to put on us. We tried to participate and were denied.

Paulo Perneta 11:07 AM @Christophe isn't it supposed to be written by teh community?

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:07 AM @butch but you are saying that YOU are intending... there are a lot of other people who are intending different things with hubs ;) On a "European" level we are organising regular meetings with 70+ affiliates being invited... but we are focusing on making stuff happen, and we are NOT focusing on forming a HUB until we feel that this has a value

Paulo Perneta 11:08 AM @Chris significantly more community involvment and legitimacy, to start with

Christophe Henner 11:08 AM @Paulo I can't see such document written efficiently by the community.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:08 AM +1 christophe

Paulo Perneta 11:08 AM why are we discussing hubs, that *nobody* knows what they are, in this panel at all?

Chris Keating 11:08 AM @Jan-Bart - I think this is very much the plan, every geography has different needs :)

Ad Huikeshoven 11:09 AM @Paulo who from Portuguese community is willing to serve on the IGC and draft movement charter?

Chico Venancio 11:10 AM @ad, several of us. We did present candidacies for WGs.

Paulo Perneta 11:10 AM @Ad pass around the question in the community, and you'll easily find out

Kaarel Vaidla 11:10 AM Link to the Steering Committee that selected WG participants: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/People/Steering_Committee

Report of the application process: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Working_Groups/Application_process_report

We also had a Portuguese language liaison bringing in the content to the discussions.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:11 AM Anna I have heard how stressful that proces was, I am very grateful for people like you to have spent SOOO MUCH time and energy on this to make it work, without you it would have been impossible to get where we are

Paulo Perneta 11:11 AM @kaarel true, but that laision had no involvment at all in the way WGs handled that information

Christophe Henner 11:12 AM To be blunt, if we want to achieve a governance with good representation, we should focus on the GC being diverse. The process can knowingly be flawed if we design mechanism to compensate those flaws.

So I would rather see a group of people working on the charter as soon as we can and people working to make sure all communities get involved in the drafting and approval process.

Nicole Ebber 11:12 AM <3 Anna

Kaarel Vaidla 11:12 AM We have tried to improve during the Transition process with more outreach to online communities, interpretation support to different languages, etc. Report here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Lessons_Learned

Christophe Henner 11:12 AM +🦄 to Anna

Chico Venancio 11:13 AM o/

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:14 AM I cannot help but think that if you ask for volunteers for the IGC worldwide (and explaining what the work involves).. you might very well not even get enough people to  form an IGC... so that most of our discussions on selecting members are very theoretical

Ad Huikeshoven 11:16 AM @Jan-Bart so do make such a call - including what has been asked by people from underrepresented communities to get a stipend or financial compenation for doing the work on the IGC, draft a movement charter

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:17 AM @christophe I saw you disconnected earlier, did you see Nicole's remark? Nicole Ebber

18:01

+1 to Christophe. I wish we could also get some of these voices up on meta, eg as a comment here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January#Remarks_from_Wikimedia_Deutschland_on_the_Interim_Global_Council

That would also help Kaarel and the team to create a final proposal.

Christophe Henner 11:18 AM I did miss that, thank you!

Nanour Garabedian 11:19 AM I think all the attendees to this panel are contributors and part of the WM for long time. What can you say to a new wikimedian about what it is going on at this period in the WF?

Paulo Perneta 11:20 AM @Nanour: a period of changes and a good opportunity for them to step in

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:24 AM we talked about those quesitons in the previous session. It seemed important to do that again this time round, because it allows candidates to focus their energy and get help with translation

Nanour Garabedian 11:24 AM @Paulo, thanx! I attended the strategy meetings and CFF, and try hard to read the related pages on Meta and still difficult to catch it clearly.

Paulo Perneta 11:20 AM @Nanour: a period of changes and a good opportunity for them to step in

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:24 AM we talked about those quesitons in the previous session. It seemed important to do that again this time round, because it allows candidates to focus their energy and get help with translation

Nanour Garabedian 11:24 AM @Paulo, thanx! I attended the strategy meetings and CFF, and try hard to read the related pages on Meta and still difficult to catch it clearly.

anass sedrati 11:25 AM This is the topic of the session before no?

Paulo Perneta 11:25 AM @nanour I'm here for more than 12 years, and it's quite difficult to me to catch it too 😂😂

Butch Bustria 11:25 AM How many minutes left?

Christophe Henner 11:26 AM I hear the struggle, but I do not see which of the new proposal would solve that actually. Save from full appointment, all process involving the community might need this to be managed.

But it reads to me as something within a process not to change the whole process on how people are selected.

Or I am missing something?

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:26 AM anass: I think that part of the argument is that no amount of support can help deal with the barrage of questions. maybe rules about the period of time for the candidate questioning

Oscar Costero 11:27 AM We have 5 minutes of official meeting

Paulo Perneta 11:27 AM I still fail to see what's all the rish that is making the process to develop in a quite less than optimal way

Ad Huikeshoven 11:27 AM +1 to Christophe

Paulo Perneta 11:27 AM rush*

Mehman Ibragimov 11:27 AM @Butch until the end of the official time 5 minutes, but you can stay and continue the discussion

Lukas Mezger 11:27 AM yay preferential voting

Christoph J 11:27 AM 2 minutes i think ("The panel will last 45 minutes, followed by a 45-minute open mic discussion" 0 90 Minutes)

Butch Bustria 11:28 AM I am hugging my pillow now, 1:27 am here

Mehman Ibragimov 11:28 AM Now 2 :)

Denis Barthel 11:28 AM Thanks for being in all the sessions with us, Butch!

Christophe Henner 11:29 AM All of that is procedural, it is not about changing the process. The path.

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:29 AM thanks Butch for staying up!

Nanour Garabedian 11:29 AM thank you

Butch Bustria 11:29 AM Thanks every one!

Chris Keating 11:29 AM yes thanks Butch - also Shabab and anyone else for whom it's nighttime

Nicole Ebber 11:30 AM Thank you all!

Butch Bustria 11:30 AM Good night here!

Mohammed Bachounda 11:30 AM thanks to all  :)

Jan-Bart de Vreede 11:30 AM its all good Quim!

Ad Huikeshoven 11:30 AM Bye Quim

Adel Nehaoua 11:30 AM thanks to all  :)

Paulo Perneta 11:30 AM ahahahaah bye QUim! Thanks

Ad Huikeshoven 11:31 AM Who will  be the election committee?

Shabab Mustafa 11:31 AM Thank you everyone. See you later.

Mohammed Bachounda 11:31 AM thanks Maria

Christophe Henner 11:32 AM Bye

Zita Zage 11:32 AM Thank you everyone

Nicole Ebber 11:32 AM Ciao, see you around!

Kaarel Vaidla 11:32 AM I believe this is the standing committee: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee

Transcript[edit]

This is an automatic transcript. The team has edited it only slightly and many mistakes still remain. We welcome corrections.

Generated during recording from Topic panel - Board - Global Council - Hubs (2021-03-13 at 08_03 GMT-8).mp4


[00:00:00] Hello everyone, we are glad to see you all here, and thank you for taking the time to join us in this meeting. The panel will last 45 minutes, followed by a 45-minute open mic discussion, where everyone’s free to ask questions or share comments on this. Also, please note, as with all Wikimedia events and meetings, you must all adhere to WMF friendly space policy. I want to remind you that our meeting will be recorded, video, chat and transcription of the meeting will be available in the coming days. And what do you need to know during the meeting? First, please turn off the microphone if you are not speaking. If you want to ask a question, raise your hand (what can you do, use the hand icon that is given on the bottom of the Google meet or write the following in chat /o.

[00:00:56] and wait until your turn arrives.

[00:01:03] Also, if you want to, you can put questions and comments in the chat, you are welcome to write in your language, we can translate it from Arabic, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, Georgian. And finally, keep your questions short and on the topic of the panel. Please be laconic when asking a question or commenting on something, we give you a minute for this. If you don’t keep this,

[00:01:31] unfortunately, I will have to cut you. Oscar is yes.

[00:01:40] Now I will introduce the panelists that we have today and those with no particular order.

[00:01:48] Only that they won this second matter. We're going to start with Greece, this.

[00:02:04] I don't care, I admit it myself. Hello, my name is Chris Keating.

[00:02:10] I was chair of the UK Wikimedia chapter for some time and more recently I was on the Responsibilities Working Group, thank goodness.

[00:02:23] And.

[00:02:26] Hi, my name is Anna.

[00:02:28] I'm here on my capacity as part of the strategy volunteer during all the process, I was with Chris, part of the Roles and Responsibilities Working Group, but of course, are also the executive director of Wikimedia Argentina. And yes, that's all.

[00:02:52] Thank you.

[00:02:55] Hello, my name is Shugart Mustafah. I'm from Bangladesh. I'm one of the founding member of Wikimedia Bangladesh chapter and I'm currently serving as the president of the chapter.

[00:03:09] Thank you, George.

[00:03:11] Hello or good evening here. My name is George. I'm currently the board member who Georgia and I'm also teaching politics at the university. And I guess it's going to affect my mind production a little bit.

[00:03:30] Thank you, George. Maria.

[00:03:35] Hi, everyone, my name's Maria, I'm from Spain. I used to be part of the Resource Allocation Strategy Working Group, and I'm currently the chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.

[00:03:49] Thank you, Maria. Well, the discussion around this topic are being a little bit hectic, and we as a facilitator have the feeling that we need to take some notes in order to record the feedback for the board in the upcoming elections. Also, in order to answer a specific question, we have also, Kaarel, quickly here so that he will be happy to answer them. Now, I'm going to start with a leading question. After that, I'm going to go around the panelists to answer them. But we're going to start recollecting greeting Gore with a greeting in question in the Czech House as well. So please go ahead. I'll answer your question in the chat. Well, before we start with current tough situation for himself with.

[00:04:45] So my name is Kaarel Vaidla, I'm working with the team for Wikimedia Foundation, and this is just a quick note before we go into the panel and the discussions, because we had several questions coming, like why are we discussing this topic on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of trustees elections thread? And just from my side, there are some some key items that need to be surfaced. First of all, there are notable similarities, probably between the processes, because we are talking about the governance and also Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees has served for a movement governance role. So it makes a lot of sense to have connection points between the processes and also be intentional about the learning between the processes. And and we need to kind of also look forward like as we move advance with movement governance piece to kind of monitor well what is happening on the board of trustees elections part and where meaningful connect, evaluate and learn and also iterate and adapt. So basically with a movement strategy team, we have eyes open regarding what is happening around the board elections so we can also integrate things from this process to the movement governance piece. And regarding kind of the clear next steps regarding how we proceed with the movement governance, the discussion piece is still open. But what we also see is some of these kind of bigger movement governance items might also emerge in the in the kind of board of trustees election thread. So so the idea here is just to be intentional and explicit regarding the connections. So so that's why I feel from a movement strategy perspective at this panel is really, really helpful. And we are also making the effort that whatever is discussed here, we are bringing to the movement strategy thread. So people are also aware of the advancements and discussions that have happened here. So this is just a bit of a framing around the panel and today's discussion. And I'm also here to then take up any more specific questions if you happen to have them. But it from my side. Back to you.

[00:06:54] Thank you, Kaarel. I almost forgot sorry. Well, now I'm going to start with a leading question, and that is I want to of what if in this discussion with the leading question will be and this is for the panelists to answer after this, how can be the board of elections? We are going to organized in a way that supports the movement strategy process, how to avoid confusion and exhaustion among voters interested in participating in the process. With this, I open the floor to panelists for the next 45 minutes. I will chair the question, ask exclusively in the chat up for the next 45 minutes. We have open mic, open mic for anyone to chiming in the discussion. We know also in no particular order and anyone to can is starting the discussion is go ahead.

[00:08:05] So I can go first to avoid an awkward silence, so to my mind, the the interesting the interesting part of this conversation is that we have two different questions or two two different election processes that are going to be needed, one for the board of trustees, one ultimately for the global council, and the same issues of bias in all of them. Like there are lots of questions in this process about how can we make the board of trustees diverse and representative and effective. And then we're going to have the same set of questions to ask whenever there are elections to the global council or the interim global council.

[00:09:07] So quite a lot of the conversation, I think, is going to be quite similar between.

[00:09:14] Those two elections, the same challenge of how how do you how do you make sure how do you find a way that works for the Wikimedia movement of making sure that these bodies are effective, diverse and representative?

[00:09:28] However, the answers are going to be quite different between the two bodies, because you are electing eight people to the WMF board of trustees, which is quite a small number, particularly quite small number if you are trying to make sure that it's representative of the vast tracts of the whole Wikimedia movement. Then for the Global Council, you have a nobody knows how large it's going to be.

[00:09:56] In fact, nobody at the moment is quite sure who is going to decide how large it's going to be or how the whole process of getting from where we are to having a global council will be. But it's going to be much larger than eight people. Therefore, it will be much easier for the global council to be a really reprensentative body.

[00:10:21] So, yeah, that those are my first thoughts.

[00:10:27] Yes, I'm going to jump in. Chris. I think that I mean, I.

[00:10:40] I'm very much aligned to what Chris said. I think that the only thing that we know for sure right now is that the board of trustees elections are going to happen. That's the only elections up for sure we know that they are going to happen. again. There are so many unanswered questions on the table regarding how we are going to be building or setting up, for example, the interim global council. And there have been several discussions in a lot of channel channels, and a lot of proposals to make that happen, but we are still having to decide how we are going to be doing it. So if I have to be realistic in terms of what is really going to happen in terms of elections is the board of trustees election. So what I'm expecting, at least from my perspective, is that those people who are elected or can be elected, at least known well enough that the strategy process is happening and have some kind of commitment to make this make the implementation happen, like they are committed to the implementation to be something real, something that we are going to be seeing the next months. So that's what I'm expecting maybe this onboarding with the new people who is going to come as part of the board of trustees? That's what I'm expecting to see. Kind of profiles of skills needed on the other side in terms of keeping things moving regarding the interim global council and then, of course, the future global council. That, again, what Chris says is very important.

[00:12:23] We are still don't know the size of that global council, how many people is going to be involved. How are we going to be elected probably with another elections. That's something we have heard a lot. But when this is going to happen, we still don't know. We still have to sit down. For example, set up the interim global council or set up a committee for the movement charter. The Global Council is also responsible for the movement charter implementation, and we still don't have a movement charter implementation. So for me, having at this moment of of the movement, for example, focusing on building the movement charter first and working on that and provide the legitimacy, the the movement charter you need within the movement at the same time that the board of trustees elections are happening. It's something that I seen quite doable. And then in I don't know, since September, October, I don't know. I'm just making this up. I start thinking how this can be translated in the future global council. Then of course, we will need to figure out how to do it and how many people. Right. There's a lot of unanswered questions on the table. But as today, for me, the only real thing that is happening in terms of elections is the board of trustees, I would like to see is that the new people coming are committed, on board, yet they have the proper onboarding regarding to implement the strategy and they are committed to implement the strategy in the following years.

[00:14:05] And I'm done.

[00:14:09] I'll jump in if nobody is against it.

[00:14:13] So first of all, both Chris and Anna are exactly right. Until we have some coherent ideas about the functions of these bodies, it's going to be extremely difficult to discuss the election procedures. Without specific numbers, without specific ideas behind what the functions of these bodies will be, it will be relatively difficult to to identify what will be the proper way to let those people and even to communicate what they're supposed to be doing. My organization worked on several associations of people. Of course, none of them has been a will or will as the things that we're designing right now. But still, we outlined several core basic principles. It is correlation between legitimacy, authority, engagement and transparency. Since we are creating something which is based mostly on volunteering, these four principles are extremely important, because without total transparency and without maximized engagement, it's going to be really difficult to explain to people why they should be participating in all of it. And also, there should be very specific relationship between the regional hub, between the global council and the board of trustees. We should be able to identify what will be the functions of each of these bodies, what will be the relationship between these bodies, who will be responsible for what and what functions they will they will be doing. While preparing for this panel.

[00:15:50] I also thought of of any organization which has any similar structure. Technically, the only thing that I came up with it is the United Nations, because they also have the sort of Security Council, which is supposed to be managing the organization responsible for the court decisions. And they also have the General Assembly, which is responsible for kind of legitimacy part. The problem of the United Nations in general is that all the decisions are taken by the Security Council and the General Assembly is kind of an addition which does not have any actual power. So without that, I would like to avoid this this kind of design flaw in the things that we are creating. So we should we should be able to identify what will be the functions of the global council, what will be the functions of the board of trustees, how they will be connected, who will be responsible for what areas. And when we do it, I think then it will be much easier to identify the ways, how to elect people, how to to spread information and so on.

[00:16:57] Well, that's it for me. So far.

[00:17:02] Well, I will just jump in next. Actually what the other three panelists are saying, I am in complete agreement with that. Anna brought up a major question that there are a lot of questions that still we do not have to answer.

[00:17:17] And I think having multiple bodies like Global Council and regional hub, what we are trying to achieve is empowerment to the community and diversification or dissemination of some sort of powers to the community, like global council and regional hub.

[00:17:37] This is, as I understand, that this model. So, so, so, so there should be a clear guideline about how we are structuring the existing organizational hierarchy. So Global Council, if the global council only intervenes on certain areas or not, and even when the actually the question of election or selection comes, it hugely depends on on having those kind of answers.

[00:18:09] First followed dynamics of the new power dynamics of the of the organization. Who is taking the decision, is this person is really right for for this taking this kind of decision and making things easier for other things like that.

[00:18:30] So to answering the question whether we should go for an election or a selection or we can elect a selection body and then the selection body, the people, whatever model we will be following, we need to have the clear answers to those questions first, that what will be the power dynamics of this kind of thing?

[00:18:56] Because if we do not have any kind of power, like in what I can think of in any democratic democratic situation, power can be in like having some vote or maybe passing some maybe any major decision should be passed to from the global council first and then the board will have to go for it and sign the executive order, that kind of thing.

[00:19:27] So if we have a model that is multilayered hierarchy and in the bit in the are inside the organization, so we need to know actually what we are trying to achieve by having a global council and having regional hubs.

[00:19:46] Because on the global council Meta page what we find that publicly stated that one of the major, major role for for the global council will be holding the board accountable and also taking decisions about the both terms and have the other stuff. So if we go to to those models, so we need to actually figure out first how the global council will fit in and the bigger picture. So that's my thought.

[00:20:27] And Maria. Thank you.

[00:20:33] I think there are some great ideas coming from the other panelists. I think that the way that the board elections can help support the movement and strategy process is that what we're doing right now is I think for the first time, taking a very deep look at the governance of the WMF, right, and what is at the end of the day, the global council and the movement charter. But talking about the governance of the movement itself. Right. And so, in a sense, we're already starting to deal with these questions that have generated a lot of commentary. And we have seen that there are many, many thoughts around them. I think. I think it's been very interesting as well to see how many different communities we have. I know we've seen it especially going into the strategy process, but maybe that wasn't as visible as this process. Again, this is the first time we're trying to resolve, informed by the recommendations, the recommendations themselves, trying to resolve issues from governance issues in the WMF board. But I would say I mean, at the end of the day, this process has always been about sharing and distributing power. Right. And I think we've reached this point in the process that it's about how can we establish methods so that the communities are able to take up this responsibility. Right. Because we don't have these structures and this has been identified as an issue and we need them not just for movement strategy, but for the movement at large.

[00:22:20] The movement has a certain desire to lead and the board has endorsed the strategy, but the power has not yet been moved. How we do this work now to lay the foundation for everything we want to build on top of it? That's going to be the conversation for the next months, right? So I think that's how the board elections can help. Sort of like a pilot who helped you start creating these processes in which we discuss governance between the different communities. I mean, even this process right now in which we're having different goals at different times of the day, global conversations, this is so new and we can keep iterating until we can get to a system or a method that most community support, right. I will I will highlight something that Anna said that I think it's it's it's very but without getting into operational technicalities, I think that's something obviously important. But that still needs to be said is that whoever trustees that the four candidates that elected as trustees, they should be fully supportive of the movement strategy, I cannot conceive of candidates that they really say they do not support the movement strategy process. Right.

[00:23:50] And I see how they could be successful. I think it's it's obvious, but maybe does merit saying that. Thank you.

[00:24:00] I think acknowledged the discussion that accepting the check right now and please try to focus and like Maria say, how how the next election is going to be and how we can better support the movement strategy. I acknowledge the discussion that is happening about governance. Please try to keep on topic of this call up for feedback and.

[00:24:27] With this, Chris, you want to say something.

[00:24:35] Well, I'll unmute myself, that will be good. This conversation happening in the chat about, well, what is there what is the power relationship between the board of trustees and the global council and part of it in the long term, who knows? But in the short term, the relationship is that the board of trustees will be delegating some of its responsibilities, some of its influence to the global council. What does that mean for the board of trustees selection process? Well, to me, it means that this is not the time to to. To to separate the community further from the board of trustees nominations, some of the options on the table about electing nominating committees or basically anything that's not a election of one form or another, to my mind. That's because the board of trustees will retain so much power and require so much legitimacy from the community for at least the next year, probably several more years after that. Now is not the time to to kind of make their make communities feel more remote from who gets elected to the board of trustees.

[00:26:25] Thank you, Chris.

[00:26:29] So please feel free.

[00:26:35] Thank you, George. Yes, I wanted to say something else related to this new trustees or the new people that is going to be joining the board of trustees in the future. As Chris said, as. All right. Written down in the recommendations, the global council is going hopefully to have some very important task like governance tasks within the movement. This is not something that we came up from one day to another. It's I think it's worth talking about how the process went and also that we had a lot of discussions. And also, again, the recommendations were open for feedback, I remember in January, and then we incorporate all the feedback into the recommendations. So it's not that we just decide, OK, the board of trustees is going to be doing this on the interim global council these other things, I think, is a discussion that, of course, needs to happen.

[00:27:43] And both, like both governance bodies, need to sit down and discuss and transfer roles and defined roles and responsibilities and transfer those responsibilities that, again, the current board of trustees has committed to do. They force the recommendations? Right. So that's on one side. How it's going to happen? It's very difficult. But what if what I know and is true is that all these responsibilities that are commonly like define and list on what the global council is going to be doing in the future, are going to affect directly to the communities or local level. Right. It's about funds dissemination or allocation of resources, it's branding. It's about I can remember how sorry.

[00:28:38] Overseeing the implementation. Right. I mean, there's so many specific responsibilities that are going to affect us. So from my perspective, the people who is going to be elected to in the, now for the board seats, beyond being committed to to the implementation of the strategy, they also need to be representative of the difference of the diversity of the movement. They need to be representative because if then these people is the people who is going to be negotiating with the future global council representatives to transfer responsibilities. I will love or I expect these people to understand my local context and to fight for my local context as well.

[00:29:27] So it's not just the commitment that they have to do, but also the diversity that they need to represent the diversity of the movement, because then they need to sit down and transfer some of these responsibilities. And we need to cover the diversity of the moment when transferring those responsibilities. And they have to be an answer. Yeah, they have to look like they have to be an answer for the challenges of the communities at the local level. So so that's also something I wanted to highlight.

[00:30:06] And I'm gonna start progress. Thank you.

[00:30:10] Well, I fully agree with both of you, and I also strongly believe that this election should be viewed as a kind of transition period, transition towards more openness, more engagement, more ability for people to get engaged in the activities because, well, we're all a community of volunteers and we volunteer to keep motivation, to be interested, to keep engaged. This volunteer has to have lots of engagement opportunities. Without these opportunities is going to be really hard to keep the words that we're doing right now and also to look into the future.

[00:30:47] That's a very brief comment.

[00:30:52] Ok, I will go next. Actually, coming back to the original question, how can the next board election can be organized in a way that supports the movement strategy process? So there has been a lot of talk about appointed seats and regional seats and I already discussed about it. Yes, it is important to know the local context and it is important to take decisions based on those those local local context as well. About upon that said, yes, we need some specialist.

[00:31:32] I also think, yes, we need some specialists need to be included in the in the in the board because the movement is getting bigger is really the real challenge to solve there. But about this one, one thing that I should mention is very firmly that whoever we appoint to as an expert in the board of trustees, if we if we do that, so we need to ensure that they have deeper understanding about the main philosophy of our movement, because most of the time, what happens if we if we appoint someone from from the corporate world or have a bigger financial experience in the past or have worked in a different area and have a particular skill set. But at the end of the day, if it does not align with our core philosophy and they advise something or go for something that is fundamentally not OK with the community. So they will be more friction in the future, I guess, because community, we should have avoid any kind of those things, any possibility of those those things. So we need to be very careful about if we appoint someone on the basis of selection, because if someone comes from the outside of the community, most probably election will not be a very good idea because the community does not know them and.

[00:33:17] Yeah, so so there should be some scope for selection, but very careful selection.

[00:33:27] And Maria, you want to come in on this or they responding to the acid?

[00:33:39] Yeah, I was trying to catch up with a chat, I can say that the board is very committed to movement strategy.

[00:33:48] I saw that there were people wanting this to be reaffirmed. And and this is true. Of course, the board is going to keep changing. But I find it very hard to believe that this would change. I think there are many ways in which we can try to address the governance issues that both the movement and the board want address and also questions about transfers of power. I think these are important questions and these are the discussions that we need to have. Those are the ones that we have started. And and it's fine. I think it would be good if we tried to approach them sort of with a blank slate, because I don't want people thinking, like, you know, the board will never agree to this or the board will never want to do this kind of transfer of power. Actually, we are very interested in doing this kind of thing. I anticipate that at one point what we're seeing today with the attention and the importance of the WMF board elections will completely transfer to the future elections of the Global Council when the Global Council starts dealing with movement strategy and so on and so forth. I think that's when we will be talking more and more about those kinds of elections. And that's absolutely fine.

[00:35:27] Uh, well, thank you, everyone, exactly. So we have finished the first part of our panel session and are moving to a second part of that open mic session. Now, you can take that last question and your comments. Before that, I want to remind the logistics of our meeting. Please turn off the microphone. If you are not speaking and if you want to ask questions, raise your hands or write in.

[00:36:01] This.

[00:36:02] So we give you demand for this gas and keep your questions short and on the topic of the panel.

[00:36:18] So.

[00:36:30] There is no interest.

[00:36:34] But we are on track, so you want to take.

[00:36:41] No, no, I'm fine, thanks, though. I was just agreeing with Maria. I think there's about that. OK, so I think there is a lot of assumption of like the board doesn't really want to delegate things to the community. So that's I don't think that's the case. I think as far as I know, I know some of the people on the board if if not a majority, I think. But it's always been really hard as a board to understand the issues and to get more community involvement. And I think the past year has shown that there's different ways of doing that, like like we mentioned, like when we had mentioned before. And I think most board members would be very enthusiastic to be able to mobilize a larger representative group of the movement to make a lot of important decisions because it. In the end, it just creates more buy-in from the community that is the sort of the heart and soul of the movement. So I wouldn't I'm not as scared. I'm just worried about the long process it takes to get there.

[00:37:43] Thank you Jan.

[00:37:49] Thank you, panel. The topic of the call for feedback for board elections and at the same time about Global Council and perhaps I hear talk about there are board elections coming, up on this panel are several members who served on the working group of roles and responsibilities. And I like to hear from them. Are this about what will be the next steps in creating an interim global council?

[00:38:32] Take you and sorry, Alice.

[00:38:39] Do you want to collect comments and statements and questions first, or is anyone going to respond to Ad? I'm a bit confused. I'm sorry.

[00:38:55] All right. OK, I see that you are hand on chat, I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:02] Yes, OK, so, OK, I go, I move on. So what I want to say is a bit of a summary of what has happened in the chat and I do think that the.

[00:39:15] I'm sorry gun. Sorry, can we answer the question? That is exactly what I said.

[00:39:24] Ok, OK. Anna, and I think Chris were part of the roles and responsibilities, which is.

[00:39:35] Yes, I think that I have a very, very personal. And again, this I'm not speaking on behalf of the roles and responsibilities working group. We haven't discussed this as a group.

[00:39:47] In fact, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, I have a very, very personal view on how to move on to set up the interim global council and then after the interim global council to move to a global council with elections for.

[00:40:11] Appointed. I mean, we need to I feel that we need a little bit more time to define how this global council is going to be set up. But in terms of the Interim Global Council, which main task I mean, the interim global council, you have two main task. One was of establishing or drafting the movement charter, and the other one was overseeing the implementation of the strategy. I mean, leaving out of the equation, the implementation, the overseeing, the transition of the movement's strategy and focusing on the movement charter. I think this is a very, very specific task.

[00:40:46] I already said on other channels for me, in order to move on in a quick way, I will say that a mix of people that have some institutional memory, I think is like institutional memory that have been involved in the process during the last couple of years, plus new people, new voices, new leaders, seats for new people to bring into a group of 10, 15 people that work together that represent the people. For our movement to build at least the draft movement charter, like creating this drafting committee for the movement charter for me would be the easiest and more quickly and more doable way to go at this particular moment when we when we have a lot of work on our plate. I think that could be an easy way to to to move things forward. I also like reading a lot of things. And of course, I want to acknowledge that, I mean, the system that we use when working in the working group. So during this process, the strategy process was, of course, wasn't perfect. We all were very aware that we lacked some diversity. In fact, we actively seek for the diversity. When we were formed as a group, we were when we saw that we were lacking on diversity, we ask and reach out to people to join us.

[00:42:26] And still we wasn't perfect because we lack the movement is not perfect. We are still all the time saying out loud that we. I mean, there's diversity missing. We are still don't have all the voices that we want to see the movement involved as part of the movement. Right. But I think that we have learned a lot through this process. And, of course, we will make sure that everybody or as much of diversity as possible will be involved in this committee drafting committee from this idea that I have from my perspective. Right. But, yes, this was an idea carried out maybe by the board of trustees on the board, the foundation, but at the same time was an idea that was deleted. But a lot of community members and because the system wasn't perfect, doesn't mean that it has to be. I mean, the lack of legitimacy, right? I mean. Hundreds of volunteers in two years work on this. I think that we have to acknowledge this. I mean, this is very important. So so I to maybe see how some of it is certainly not really.

[00:43:52] I mean, I think it's like it's important to note that the working groups all dissolved in September 2019.

[00:44:00] So not everybody who was in the working groups is still that involved in the strategy process. And those of us who are don't have any particular status within it. That said, I agree with pretty much everything Anna said.

[00:44:19] I think the strategy core team developed two options for how to move forward with the interim global council.

[00:44:28] One of them was to set up two small-ish. So 10, 15 people focused committees, one to work out the movement charter, one, to oversee the implementation of the rest of the process. And that would be a quicker way of going forward than trying to hold elections for an interim global council. So I think that's what we should do.

[00:45:02] And also from my side, from movement strategy team. So basically what has happened regarding the next steps is we had a bit of divergence happening on the Meta talk page. So what we're trying to do is kind of gather back information all together and do a bit of an assessment that we hope to get back to the communities in clear next steps from our side soon. But I also know that different stakeholders are discussing with each other how to do that well. So let's continue the conversation together and map out what is what is a best feasible way. And some of them have been proposed also here by Anna and others. So so this is a work in progress and progress. And we tried to kind of provide updates as soon as possible. But as with different ideas, also emerged after this phone call and there has been some action on Meta, we need to bring this divergence back together to a clear proposal. So this is what we are currently working on assessing. We need to have institutional memory, expertise in the group. Also, as it has been referred in the chapter, you need to think about widening the circles. So these are the things we are considering, trying to make progress, but at the same time ensuring that we don't break the process and we to have sufficient representation to do great work on the charter. So the next step is is not a secret. It's an open discussion. That's the short answer. And then hopefully we can converge soon enough, I hope, in a couple of weeks time because we need to move on. But we need some more time to think this through.

[00:46:36] Thank you, Alice. Alice, thank you.

[00:46:40] So what I wanted to say that comes back a bit to the to the core question about how do the election for the WMF board kind of have less impact on the strategy thing?

[00:46:56] To summarize a bit of the comments in the in the chat.

[00:47:02] I do think it wouldn't be very helpful if the board now tried to.

[00:47:13] To, to create something with the side to support the strategy movement or the strategy issues which are already going on, I do think the board should consider to get the best board for the WMF at this time for for the questions, issues and tasks you have right now.

[00:47:39] And in parallel, of course, all those crazy things like creating a good IGC, setting up the chart and all of these things has to happen. And therefore, I see a huge challenge for the board of the WMF as well, because I'm one of those who think that. The board or some board members should, of course, be part of the IGC and you should, of course, have a role in creating the movement charter because the board still is and should be part of the movement overall.

[00:48:19] So this is this is the most kind of difficult thing I see from from the board's perspective a bit to to ensure that you have enough power to do all that.

[00:48:37] And therefore, kind of my recommendation would be to keep the board at the upcoming board elections kind of as simple as possible with all the things you want to achieve with them as well in your back. But don't load it up with complexity while following some movement strategy things here or setting an example for any next upcoming elections for IGC, GC or whatever. That's it. Thanks.

[00:49:15] Thank you Alice. If anyone want to clarify this from Alice, please.

[00:49:38] I can give a shot, to the comments, thanks Alice. I hear you, I mean, obviously the simplest thing, we have no changes, right? And then, you know, we just keep going as long as we have. That would obviously be a lack of headache for for a lot of people. That said, the movement strategy does exist. And when we had to study that action related, inform the 2019 ASBS process. And now that we have the recommendations and talking about how can we change structures, how can distribute power, how can we make sure that, you know, communities are better represented at the table when decisions are being made. He said more work. Yes. Can it be possibly more complex? Possibly also yes, but I think it's worth trying. And from what I'm seeing, I think there's an appetite for change in relations of, you know, let's go with a system of ranking candidates, right. Now, we're having the discussions about, you know, what have been the structural issues with the community elections. It's that I remember a comment that said, you know, beyond gender, that is an issue. And we've seen it in the last few elections. We haven't cracked the question of race.

[00:51:12] How many people that have not been white have become elected by the community when they when they come into elections.

[00:51:20] So the current structure or the reasons that maybe are being a barrier for a lot of people right now, it's all too eager to look at why that maybe it's really difficult to change that, because it doesn't mean it doesn't mean letting go of power so that other people may actually have a chance to perceive that power and justice. But in my mind, it's worth the effort, even if it's not perfect. We have a saying in Spanish, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Even if we cannot do huge amounts of change or the most perfect process ever, maybe we can do enough change so we can start opening the door. Right. And I think that's that's the direction that we want to go. We're obviously going to see how this community calls and requests for feedback end and what people from within communities and in established communities and the different groups such as affiliates and women. And so I have to say. Right. And then we can see what we when we can possibly tweak and make sure that at the end of the day, it's about making having the possibility of having a pool of candidates as it's representative as can be of our movement, which is global, which is incredibly diverse. Right. So let's see if we can iterate and get it better and then do it as best as possible in these elections, then a future board will try to do it in the next elections. And so I'm trying to make sure that we can open the door so that more communities can actually think, hey, maybe we can have a place at the table.

[00:53:31] So thank you, Maria.

[00:53:34] Anass, you are next. Yes, thank you very much so.

[00:53:41] When I saw the title of this panel, it was having two different sections, which is the relationship of this board, elections with the global council and with the hubs. So far, the discussion was only touching the global council, which is, of course, understandable, because the Global Council is something that has been discussed and defined for a long time. And probably it's going to reshape a lot of the power structure. But my question or the point that I want to discuss here, and I don't expect any ready answer, I expect more of a brainstorming or discussion is the relationship that the hubs will have with this election and with the work in general, so, um, if if I want to develop the idea more, I would say that the scope of this call for feedback and discussion is the board of trustees members that are coming from the community and how this discussion can be done in the future. And if we take this and put it in relationship with the hubs, either the regional or thematic, I would like to brainstorm more on this. Is it going to be that the hubs are going to be under the board that will be still located in the USA, or is it that each hub will have its own board, or is it going to be that the board will disappear, the one that is in USA? And we have a lot of boards in different hubs as as I said, I don't expect an answer, but I think that the discussion should be initiated somehow at some time. And still, I would like to restate again that I'm talking about community seats and not to the board in general.

[00:55:34] Thank you, Anass. And, uh, I see a Paulo his right hand.

[00:55:42] Of course, so just to respond to that point about hubs yes, I'm glad that was brought up.

[00:55:52] So I don't think there is going to be any link between regional hubs or thematic hubs and this board election because this board election is happening this year. And I don't think that by September we will have got out of the planning stage of having regional hubs as things that actually exist. I would love for them to move faster. And I know there's a number of places around the world that are actively planning how they can form hubs. The there are big questions about how those resources, how they're set up and how that scales. In the long term, again, in five years time, every part of the world may have a hub and those may be or be independent bodies with their own boards. And the hubs might elect the Global Council. The Global Council might then elect the board of trustees. But that's not that's not something that is even on the horizon yet for this board of trustees election. If if we go down a regional representation route for this board election, then it has to be some form of regional quotas or something like that in the election process.

[00:57:28] Yes, I mean, adding to to what Chris said, I think that regional hubs were very much in addition to the structures that are defined by the communities under which main task is to serve the communities.

[00:57:48] They serve the communities at the local level in order to to foster the growth of the communities of the local level to make those communities sustainable. So it's come up. It's I mean, again, I'm bringing this thing. I mean, there's a lot of unresolved questions are on the table. But in this particular case, I really feel that it's for the communities to decide what the hubs, what kind of hubs they want to have, if they have if they want to have any. But is the community to decide which what they hub is going to be doing, the structure and also the governance and maybe the position of these hubs within the global international governance structure. So I think that, yes, we can have the discussion of how the hubs are going to have the governance level. But I think that this discussion also needs to happen at the local level. I think that this the hubs and the opportunity to the communities really I mean, to really make sure that their positions are represented, maybe even in that global governance structure. Right. So I think that is not just that these global structures are going to be answering everything to the hubs, but also to the hubs that helps me to provide feedback and be like an adviser for this global governance structure, because I think that the word ambition there were created for that as well. I don't know if that makes sense, but I just wanted to bring another perspective on those thoughts on this topic.

[00:59:48] Ok, thank you, Paula.

[00:59:50] Your next story doesn't expect I can go to bed at.

[00:59:59] Ok, next is Jan-Bart.

[01:00:04] Yes, so although seem to be repeating Chris and Anna, and I think it is important to emphasize that that the hubs thing is really, I think, an opportunity to discover new ways of working together, whether it's regional, thematic or whatever minority languages hubs or minorities in general hub or regional or whatever. And what I gather is as soon as we announced the whole thing of like we're going to go somewhere with hubs that people started asking the affiliates committee, like, what are the criteria? How do I sign up and what are the five rules I have to follow? It would be a terrible shame to strictly define what hubs are at this point and give them a formal position within this whole discussion. Without giving it the opportunity to grow first, so I would repeat what Chris and Anna said and basically say, let's focus on these elections and let's focus on the hub's position within the spectrum over the next years. I mean, we I think the priority would probably be board elections, interim global council and global council and then maybe a formal position of the hubs in something. But we we should not assume that what we're designing now will be the same as what we're designing in two years time, four years time, six years after eight years time. We're way too dynamic for that.

[01:01:29] Ok, for me, based on our mini summit of hubs 13 hours ago, only our understanding is the hubs are really designed as a support structure of the communities that that serves them affiliates in communities that don't want to be an affiliate.

[01:01:53] We don't intend the hubs to be an additional bureaucratic structure, another layer of decision making process on the on the movement, but on the timeline, I believe that the concern of the hubs right now is to how to develop themselves rather than how the hubs will be will influence the process of the election of the board.

[01:02:24] That is for.

[01:02:28] I also agree with the two points, as far as I know right now, the hubs are still being evolved and developed and they're getting new functions and they're finding out what functions they should have and so on.

[01:02:39] So right now, rushing up and including them into the process seems a little bit rushing uplinks. And it's always better to have to give them some time to develop themselves to find out their specific role, to find out how hubs will be contributing.

[01:02:59] They're not contributing, but how they perceive themselves in the entire process. And as soon as they do it, then we might be discussing ways to include them in a more institutionalized manner. So first, let's give them some time to develop and then let's consider whether to institutionalize them. So I wouldn't recommend to rush right now.

[01:03:26] Thank you, George. And a reminder to keep it in focus, the topic of being the next part election.

[01:03:37] Jan-Bart it's your hand raised, it's from previous? OK, thanks. So there is no questions. All right.

[01:03:54] I can do a single comment on this. Yes, I pretty much agree with what's been said. I think the hubs would view them. From a very structural point, that's something operational right now, something that can help at the local group and very tactical ways, I think long term we can discuss if they could become a gateway to the global conversations and decision making. I think that would make sense. But short term, I think immediate on the ground, support for their their local and emerging communities. It's it's what we're all envisioning, I think.

[01:04:41] Thank you. Uh.

[01:04:47] Anyone who hasn't spoken yet wants to talk, please.

[01:05:33] But I want to say something, can I? I want to stress something that is happening in the chat. I was I really am, I'm going to talk about my personal like an individual, right.

[01:06:00] I was involved in the certain processes 2017. I think that before I said and everybody here has heard me said that the process and the system, of course, was imperfect, but it can, um. I mean, I want to say that everybody who was involved did the best did the best that we could do. I mean, we put hours with versus personal life. Into this process, I see that maybe we couldn't get the the whole representation and the whole diversity of the communities around the globe. I talked with a Portuguese community before, at least privately, and I apologize to them if during the process. I mean, I don't know, I. Couldn't do any better, but I think that now that we know, I think that it's time for us to move forward and proactively build something that is better and I think that we can do it, and, because sorry, but I've been hearing these comments a lot, and again, I don't I mean, there were hundreds and hundreds of volunteers involved in this process. Again, I want to to acknowledge this. And I'm. And make sure that the people understand that we are aware that the process was imperfect, but we always act in good faith and we always did the best that we could.

[01:07:51] And if we fail in something, I think that now we are in no place and now we could do a better. Of course, it's not just some people left out. There were a lot of people probably that were left out. And we are ready to at least I know and at least myself, I will be ready to to solve this problem in the future. I think that we can as a community and as a movement move into a more productively productively is not the word, but move forward together, building the process together, making sure that those voices, the hearing on the discussion now can be in the discussion. This is my commitment. And I wanted to make it clear because again, this has been a process of three years. And again, I think that we have mistakes. We had successes, but we also had a lot of learnings. And I'm sure that everybody here is committed to apply those learnings in the future. And I just want to say that.

[01:09:05] Ok, thank you, Anna.

[01:09:08] Well, what experience from a moment stretched can be useful to organize next board elections? Has anyone thought about that? Please show us.

[01:09:25] Jan-Bart, you are unmuted.

[01:09:30] Well, well, now that I am unmuted, anyway, I was going to say I don't think we should let Anna's remark pass. I think it is important to recognize that there's two different things on that process. I mean, however hard and trying, it was there was an outcome and it was an outcome which which helped us get here where we are. And criticizing that process doesn't mean the same thing is disqualifying the individuals who are part of that process and spend a lot of time on it. And often we confuse the two apparently in discussions.

[01:10:03] So if I'm if I may step in, because I think there's some dynamic that it's taking us out of the motivations of this session and as the person who first came up with the idea of this session, I want to empathize with Anna and what she just said. I want to also empathize with whoever thinks that, you know, has different perspectives. But I really think that here now it's better to go back to the original topic, not just because, "oh, let's go to the original topic", but because this is really a discussion for the movement strategy process, and because, as we have agreed, it is, it is still better to just keep this in the context of the call for feedback about community board seats. And if anything, what I encourage you is, so, from from the last months, years of movement strategy discussions at so many levels, what specific lessons, what can we specifically apply for these next board? It's not just the election. Is all the process accompanying an election. So what can we learn and what can we apply there? So I'm politely asking everyone to just move the discussion. They're acknowledging that what I just said was just beyond the usual comment in. And I hope everybody understands.

[01:11:39] Ok, so the second part of the question, that open question that we have, how to avoid confusion and exhaustion among the volunteers interested in parties with a boat. So it's a confusion and exhaustion. Well, the confusion, the confusion that I also have sometimes that there are too many journalists to discuss and it is sometimes a little bit confusing what is happening where. So we need to also we have some tools, but we do not use them very efficiently.

[01:12:15] So so what I think should be the discussion should be an.

[01:12:33] I intend to put in this.

[01:12:38] I think there is an Internet connection, problems. Shut up.

[01:12:42] Yes, can you hear me now? Yeah, sorry about that.

[01:12:49] So what I was saying that the conversation, the discussion should be more centralized and the meetings and announcements should be actually centrally coordinated.

[01:13:06] So the meetings and discussions does not overlap with each other. And no one gets a little.

[01:13:19] Thank you, Chris, you want to say something?

[01:13:24] Yes, so what what learnings are there for the board elections from the movement strategy process? I think one that often goes unnoticed is the role of the board elections committee.

[01:13:40] A couple of years ago, the foundation moved from creating an election committee for every election to creating a standing elections committee who don't seem very active.

[01:13:57] I think one of the one of the main learning points from the strategy process to date is about the level of support and facilitation that is required for a volunteer committee to be effective. And I think that could well be taken on board for the for the election committee when we have a hopefully and hopefully we don't have an election.

[01:14:29] It's still not clear whether there's going to be an election. Hopefully there will be an election. There will probably be a volunteer election committee to run it. Hopefully the learning from the working group process about how to support and facilitate that process.

[01:14:52] Thanks Chris, and Chico, if I pronounce your name right there, it's it's close enough, I don't want to talk too much about those.

[01:15:04] I think we've taken enough time, especially the chat. But I want to address I was just responding to Anna's suggestion to use the working group as the basis for 50 percent of the interim global council. And in no way do I think there was any bad faith for participants in the strategy process. I understand how much pain involved volunteer work went into that. I was I was a Portuguese liaison back in 2017 for the strategy process. But at the same time, we were excluded from the process from, I don't know, sometime 2018 forwards. And that is something that we cannot just stand by and see the process keep going on process that has excluded us and be used as a basis for the interim global council that will obviously end up as very influential in the global council and the movement from this point forward.

[01:16:12] Ok, and good. You had to reply back, but really especially because we have received explicit complaints about not bringing this session in the weeds of the movement strategy. So please, I ask everyone, let's not do this for for them, for the good of the movement strategy.

[01:16:30] But do you have a specific question which you think is very useful for us to ponder right now?

[01:16:35] Like, so I asked I asked it before. So are the reason for this session to exist is because we are having board elections. So and we have heard in the context of this call for feedback to things that are very different. But we hear them consistently. Some say that, hey, there's all this now this strategy, not board elections. This is so confusing or this is going to be even more exhausting or candidates. How do they know whether they should or should I run for the election? Should I wait to be here? Because that pool of potential candidates is quite similar. So I'm asking basically, let's take the chance to have the brilliant people in this call to try to extract good ideas that the board and the team that is going to work on the next elections can implement directly. I understand there's a lot to discuss about the movement strategy. I mean, you have been years discussing and so many discussions and they are important. But I think the purpose of this call and this call for feedback is to help design the next board election. And how it goes and how it is designed may have an impact good, neutral, but to the strategy process, to the interim global council and so forth. So that was the purpose of this session. And it is OK, it was already understood that some movement strategy things would come. But that I mean, clock in hand, the topic of the weight of the movement, that it is growing and we are talking less and less about the next board election. So that's all. That's all my aim. He has meta moderate or so to say.

[01:18:19] Can we identify things that went wrong with the last elections, which we wanted to improve?

[01:18:25] I think that's a good idea. Yes. Why not?

[01:18:30] Ok, I mean, Chris and I were candidates so I think we have thoughts, we have some thoughts, about the, it's a topic that we can try to talk for a little bit. Just make sure, you ended up on the board and

[01:18:46] Chris didn't, right? So I guess both views are interesting here.

[01:18:50] Ok, thanks for that, though.

[01:18:59] I mean, so many thoughts that I think that's one of the main issues, is the time commitment that the process requires of you.

[01:19:10] There is this exception and the candidates have to be available at all times to every single member of the community. And we get pings like, I don't know, Chris, but for instance, I was getting pings like that being said every three hours. Right. And it just kept they kept coming. And suddenly there were questions on this Wikipedia and there were more questions on this other Wikipedia. People came to your talk pages on Meta, on English Wikipedia, on the Spanish Wikipedia. Thankfully, I know this was controversial at the time, but there was this combination of the questions so that, you know, the elections committee selected some questions and those were the questions. And they didn't get to come in on a rolling basis because just think if even one community member has five questions and then, you know, 50 or 60 or 70 community members arrive, and the expectation is that you're answering those questions. Sometimes it's not even your native language. The amount of time that we have seen and then that's not even mentioning, hey, please join this video call so that we can have your thoughts as a candidate or can you please join us in that in this meeting? Hey, there's a Wikimedia summit, which is not going to happens then, but the amount of time and this perception of being entitled to candidates time and their thoughts, it's it's very prominent and it can be very exhausting, especially if you have such huge availability.

[01:20:39] Right. I wonder if we have the possibility to first try to carve some boundaries, even if it's okay. You can ask questions from the candidates from this period of time or even per day something along those lines so that the candidate is not always on and you wake up to 300 questions. I don't feel like how can you support the candidates? So they have actually the time to answer questions. Right. And I'm thinking childcare, for instance. And we support how can we make sure that people don't get insults from running just because they have the influence or, you know, they have working commitments and so on and so forth, because that would not be fair, right? It shouldn't be just the people that have the ability to have that amount of time and money that should only be running. I think that's a tough one to crack. But I remember that at the time, this this perception of being pinged all the time and answering questions, of course, the preparation of the statement and the candidacy, that's normal. But it's really, I think, what everyone in the movement is really like. Give us your thoughts on all this. This this this is and it's it's interesting. It gets intense. I know, Chris, if you think the same. But but most of the bills.

[01:22:06] Yeah.

[01:22:10] I'm not muted am I? No, I'm not, amazing. Yeah, I agree with a lot of what Maria just said. There are too many questions, far too many questions for candidates to be able to keep up with them. That said, the the election committee made all of the questions very boring because they they and we ended up with like 20 questions for candidates. And the elections committee, in my view, like made them far less interesting by trying to trying to put them all together. Yeah, I think also communication with and support for candidates, I'm glad there was a meeting about it because like literally as a candidate, all you get is one email saying, yeah, you're a candidate, great, then another email saying we have this we have this Google Hangout come to that, and then you find out the results on Meta.

[01:23:21] And yeah, I felt there was not much communication or support for candidates. And that is going to be off-putting to a lot of people that those are my thoughts.

[01:23:38] And the voting system? I don't like the voting system, I think we should have a preferential voting system. I could not agree more.

[01:23:46] I can I can talk about that a much greater length if people want, but. Well, those are the kind of topics that I think we should get it.

[01:23:56] I mean, that the basic problem is the two things. Firstly, the supports/oppose voting system puts an awful lot of weight on oppose votes because mathematically unopposed vote is worth four times as much as a support votes when candidates are being elected with about 80 percent support. Secondly, it's a. It without preferential voting or quotas, then the elections will result in very similar kinds of people being elected. So, yeah, you my my preferred option for the board election this time would be a preference voting system and some fairly loose quotas of representation.

[01:24:51] But that's.

[01:24:54] That is, I was asked to say in this session, but that's just to be clear, that as far as I recall, Maria, correct me if I'm wrong, the election committee proposes the voting system and the board has to approve it or not even. Does the board have to approve it or not?

[01:25:09] We have freedom, right? I mean, this is now up to discussion. Right. And we have seen a lot of people voting.

[01:25:16] Sorry, guys, I'm going to come to you because we only have a minutes left for the official meeting, by the way, and start to wrap up the recording of this session as well.

[01:25:30] Another recording we can still record for another the official meeting if people need to leave, to leave, to leave, that Bush is free to do something that people want to continue discussing. This topic, please stay focused like can say about the process and no bail again in the strategy process before people stop.

[01:25:57] I want to say thank you to all, first of all, for our panelists, George and Chris, Shabab, Maria, and also for Kaarel to share their updates from the movement strategy. And thank you all for participating in our meeting.