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News and notes

Wikimedia community votes to ratify Movement Charter; Wikimedia Foundation opposes ratification

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By Bri, Bluerasberry and Andreas Kolbe

Wikimedia community ratifies Movement Charter, Wikimedia Foundation rejects ratification

Black and white Wikimedia Foundation logo

As The Signpost has recently reported, the Wikimedia Movement Charter is a document which negotiates power sharing between the Wikimedia Foundation as a corporation and the Wikimedia community of volunteer content contributors. One way to describe the situation is that the Wikimedia Foundation does fundraising and holds the money which sponsors the Wikimedia Movement, but the Wikimedia community of users actually produce the content and define the ethics and values which motivate donors to give money.

With increasing regularity, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia user community have differing opinions of right versus wrong, which strategic direction is preferable, and what projects get funding when resources are scarce. The hope is that a Movement Charter would clarify which powers and responsibilities are in the control of paid staff versus the volunteer user community. The stakes of this discussion include determining who decides how to spend Wikimedia Movement money, which include the US$250 million in assets and $180 million in revenue for the last reported year. The Wikimedia Foundation is keen on using the money to support programs of interest to Wikimedia Foundation staff, and the user community of content creators wishes to use the money for different programs of interest to content creators.

The present news is that the Movement Charter ratification vote was held between 25 June and 9 July 2024. The results were as follows:

  • ✅ Ratified by individual Wikimedia users Individual voters like you voted 73% in favor and 27% opposed. There were 2,446 valid votes, with 1,710 “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 "neutral".
  • ✅ Ratified by Wikimedia affiliate organizations Wiki community organizations voted 86% in favor and 16% opposed. There were 93 votes for “yes”; 18 “no”; and 18 "neutral".

On 8 July the Wikimedia Foundation board held their own vote for ratification and on 11 July, before the community's election committee announced the results of the community vote, the WMF gave their position:

  • ❌ Not ratified by the Wikimedia Foundation The Board of Trustees voted 11:1 to approve a Resolution rejecting the movement charter and setting out a timeline for alternative steps. The only dissenting vote was by Mike Peel, who according to the Minutes stated his support for the draft movement charter in the meeting. Board member Nataliia Tymkiv (user:antanana) announced that the board would not ratify the Movement Charter.

WMF Trustee Victoria Doronina criticized the Movement Charter because it "clearly presents an attempt at a power grab by the affiliates." Regarding the Wikimedia community election on ratification, it lacks validity because "'The quorum' is only 2% (!) of the eligible voters, and who know how many of them are the affiliates members". As an option for community members who disagree with the board's actions, Victoria suggests "By all means, replace me and the other (Board of Trustee) members running for the reelection by the candidates that supported the charter – and see if that changes anything." The Wikimedia Foundation board has proposed its own alternative plan, the Appendix to the Vote on the proposed Movement Charter.

Wikimedia community members are discussing the results on Meta-Wiki talk pages and in the Wikimedia-l email mailing list. –B, BR, AK

Wikimedia Foundation Elections, 3-17 September 2024

The 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Trustee Election, arguably the world's most important Internet election, will run from 3–17 September 2024. Wikimedia editors will choose 4 of the 12 trustees to serve on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Duties of trustees include reviewing the progress of the Wikimedia Foundation CEO, and deciding to approve or reject the plan and budget which the CEO presents to the board every year. Mark your calendar, and prepare yourself and your colleagues to vote.

On 1 July, candidates finalized their answers to questions which the election committee presented to them. Read the questions and answers and consider discussing at meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024 or wherever concerned Wikimedia voters convene. –BR

WMF soft launches Bulletin

The Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is "an experiment on establishing a regular communication on highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's technical work, work with communities and affiliates, as well as other stakeholders like readers, donors, regulators, the media and the public."

U4C Special elections

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election is accepting candidates through 19 July, with voting from 27 July – 10 August. The first U4C election which concluded in June only filled 7 of the 16 seats, one short of a quorum. There are four community-at-large seats, plus five regional seats open.

The regional seats are for:

  • North America (USA and Canada)
  • Latin America and Caribbean
  • Central and East Europe (CEE)
  • Sub-Saharan Africa, and
  • South Asia

A rule to ensure diversity across home projects, means that candidates from the English, German, and Italian Wikipedias – which each had two members elected in the first election – cannot run in this election. This rule has resulted in the odd case that the North America (USA and Canada) regional seat cannot be filled by somebody who claims the English Wikipedia as their home project.

Brief notes

The tide is out. Will it come back in?
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  • The turnout for the Movement Charter vote was roughly the same as for all three votes on the Universal Code of Conduct, yet now it's suddenly not enough? – Joe (talk) 09:49, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fourteen years a content editor and this is the first time I have heard of the Movement Charter. My bad -- but given the sparsity of the vote it appears I'm not alone in my ignorance. I would appreciate a follow-up article with some irreverent opinions telling us what it's all about. Money, I presume, and power over money. Too much money, perhaps? I have two initial questions. There's the old saw that once an organization acquires adequate office space it has outlived its usefulness. Are the Movement Charter and the Code of Conduct signs that Wikipedia now has adequate office space? Secondly, what impact will the Movement Charter have on the important part of the English Wikipedia: content? Not much, I hope. For all the nonsense that goes on, I like the English Wikipedia the way it is. Don't fix something that isn't broken. Smallchief (talk) 11:04, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Smallchief: There was a summary in the last Signpost. But yes, power over money is exactly right. It was an attempt to shift it from the WMF to a sort of three-way power sharing agreement between the WMF, affiliated organisations, and individual project contributors. I voted for it because I thought that it would increase the political power of the enwiki community and therefore enable us to direct more money towards improving our software and content. – Joe (talk) 12:18, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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