Wikimedia committees

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This page describes committees created by the Wikimedia Foundation and by the Wikimedia community. Each committee has a charter describing its structure and function.

Active committees[edit]

Board of Trustees committees[edit]

Committee Purpose
Board Governance Committee
  • Ensuring the Board fulfills legal and fiduciary obligations
  • Improve its governance, efficiency and effectiveness over time
Audit Committee
  • Oversight of financial and accounting issues
  • Oversight of the relationship with the independent auditor
Talent & Culture Committee
  • Oversight of compensation and personnel policies and practices
  • Review of executive compensation and of the performance of the Executive Director
Product and Technology Committee
Community Affairs Committee

Wikimedia Foundation committees[edit]

Committee Purpose
Communications committee Facilitate communication between the Wikimedia Foundation, the general public, the media, and the communities of the various Wikimedia projects
Elections Committee Oversees elections to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Community-/movement-wide committees[edit]

Committee Purpose
Affiliations Committee

Recognising and supporting Wikimedia movement affiliates

Language committee

Proposing, processing, supporting and coordinating new language projects

Ombuds commission Investigate complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic information policy, the CheckUser policy and the oversight policy on any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees
Interim Case Review Committee Reviews eligible Trust & Safety investigations that are appealed either by those who originally requested the investigation or those who have been sanctioned by them.
Movement Charter Drafting Committee Drafting the Movement Charter.

Resources allocation committees[edit]

Committee Purpose
Conference Support Committee
Regional Grants Committees


Independent committees[edit]

These don't seek explicit/formal recognition by the Wikimedia Foundation or others.

Inactive or closed committees[edit]

Research Committee[edit]

Organized policies, practices and priorities for Wikimedia-related research, and maintaining the Wikimedia Research Index.

Board expansion committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

The Board was successfully expanded from 5 to 7 members in November 2006, and the committee consequently disbanded.

Executive committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution, intended to hold executive authority delegated from the Board when the Board was not in session (see a common definition).

It was meant to be organized by Angela, but was never really in operation. To be considered disbanded. A sub-meeting (discussion log) of the 11 February 2006 open meeting was used to discuss the setting up of the executive committee and the possibility of an administrative director (or a similarly worded executive position).

Executive Director Transition Team[edit]

  • Selection of and transition to a new Executive Director (2013-2014)

Events committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

First meeting took place on April 5, 2006. The initial members were Delphine Ménard, Arne Klempert, Simon Pulsifer, Frank Schulenburg. The last update indicated the committee was working on a paper about the scope of the committee. Considered disbanded.

Financial committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

Was to be organized by Daniel Mayer and Michael Davis. Status: disagreement between the organisers, original proposals were rejected. Now deprecated after accountant and financial director were hired (see Current staff).

Fundraising committee[edit]

Created June 7, 2006. It was active throughout its first year of operation, but was disbanded in its original description in August 2007. Previous membership list available here: wmf:Resolution:Fundraising committee/Membership. Committee's abandonment is mentioned at wmf:Resolution:Wikimedia Committees.

Insurance committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

The original members were Michael Davis, Angela Beesley, Jimmy Wales, and Danny Wool. Status: work in progress to complete applications for board and officers liability insurance and cyber-insurance. Committee de facto disbanded in January after meeting about the forms. D&O active.

Nominating committee[edit]

Created April 2008 by board resolution. Deprecated since early 2010.

Special projects committee (2006)[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

Was originally organized by Florence Devouard, Jakob Voss, and Danny Wool. No longer active as of August 2007. It was dissolved in January 2009 per board resolution.

Special projects committee (2019)[edit]

Established in 2019, to "assist the Board in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities through helping on special, one-off projects that temporarily require some Board member involvement and input for periods of time". It was dissolved in December 2021.

Technical committee[edit]

Created January 15, 2006 by board resolution.

Was to be organized by Jens Frank, Brion Vibber and Domas Mituzas. Status: was never organized, although the core team of developers constitute a sort of de facto committee.

Trademarks committee[edit]

Created January 2, 2006 by board resolution, intended to oversee the legal process to secure trademarks, make timely reports on the trademark status to the board, make recommendations to the Board about the top priority concerning trademarks (categories, locations and their estimated costs), and was responsible for registering and monitoring domain names for the Foundation.

Status: was partly active for a while, but disbanded as of August 2007.

Funds Dissemination Committee[edit]

Responsible to make recommendations to the WMF Board of Trustees for funding activities and initiatives in support of the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement. Created in 2012 and dissolved by the Board of Trustees in 2022.

See also[edit]