Talk:Movement Charter

Archives

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• Archive one: December 2020 - August 2022
• Archive two: September 2022 - March 2023

Ratification methodology

Below are questions related to the ongoing Community Consultation about a proposal for the Movement Charter ratification methodology. Feel free to share your input on the questions below! --Abbad (WMF) (talk) 15:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC).

Question 1: To ensure a fair and inclusive election for a vote that impacts the whole movement, what methodology should chapters and thematic organizations use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?

Please select one of the following options:

• Their entire membership (as of 3 months prior to the vote) cast a vote.
• The decision-making body of each chapter and thematic organization cast a vote on behalf of their respective entity.
• Some other way – please share proposals.

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• Should hear everyone's opinion

opinion: To ensure greater percentage of participation, "Their entire membership (as of 3 months prior to the vote) cast a vote". is greatOlugold (talk) 08:01, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

• Their entire membership (as of 3 months prior to the vote) cast a vote. --Ameisenigel (talk) 07:55, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Question 2: To ensure a fair and inclusive election for a vote that impacts the whole movement, what methodology should UGs use to vote on the ratification of the Movement Charter?

Please select one of the following options:

• UGs will determine the voting method themselves and report back only on the results of the vote.
• UGs will submit to the Charter Electoral Commission evidence that their full membership has been consulted when they report back on the results of the vote.
• The Charter Electoral Commission will specify the voting method to be applied to all UGs.

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• The Charter Electoral Commission will specify the voting method to be applied to all UGs. --Ameisenigel (talk) 07:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Question 3: What percentage of individuals should vote in favor of ratification to ratify?

Please select one of the following options:

• 50%+1
• 55%
• 60%
• Other – please share what percentage.

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• 100%
• I prefer 66.66 percent. As it is a kind of constitution of the Wikimedia projects.--Hogü-456 (talk) 18:10, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
• 67% comme c'est généralement l'usage pour s'assurer d'un minimum de consensus. O.Taris (discuter) 17:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
• 50%+1 --Ameisenigel (talk) 07:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
• It depends on how much power the movement council is delegated. If it would be the power to override a project's core content policies, then it would have to be about the level of support for those polices - 85% or so? Otherwise, 66.66%, 2/3rds, with a similar majority required to amend the text. Basically, there need to be safeguards against the movement council. TomDotGov (talk) 15:17, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Questions about the Charter Electoral Commission (CEC)

Question 1: How will the members of the CEC be recruited?

• Asking for candidates in the different communication channels of the Wikimedia projects, like on central talk pages of the different projects and language versions and on the Wikimedia-l mailing list. After there a period open for applications a community vote to elect the members of the CEC. All people with an account and at least 5 edits in the last six months should be allowed to vote.--Hogü-456 (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Share your ideas here.

Question 2: Who will select the 5 members of the CEC out of all eligible candidates?

1. There should be a community vote.--Hogü-456 (talk) 18:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Share your ideas here. 100%,beacuse everybody have got ideas. User PerfectNEWS

Question 3: What types of experience would you like to see from members of the Charter Electoral Commission? Should there be any formal minimum criteria for eligibility?

They should probably have some experience editing Wikipedia or one of its sister sites, and behave thoughtfully towards other editors.

Feedback on non-question areas note

Hi all - just want to stress that we'll gladly receive and consider feedback on any portion of the draft methodology! The questions above are just areas where we specifically wanted more community consideration :) Nosebagbear (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Why do affiliate members get the chance to vote for multiple affiliates and also a project, if eligible, but project members only get to vote for one project even if eligible for multiple projects? Barkeep49 (talk) 00:40, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for this idea @Barkeep49. How would you actually see this work in practice? Would you imagine there to be a limit to the number of projects at all, or simply a possibility for users to vote for all projects that one would be eligible for? Ciell (talk) 10:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest all projects that a person is eligible for as they are part of knowing whether or not that project supports the mcdc and that seems to be the intent here. Barkeep49 (talk) 11:24, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is one of many such examples of bureaucratic empire building that will eventually destroy Wikipedia. I demand that for any new line written to WP administration several lines get deleted, also, we should cut down staff and word count of regulations to the status quo ante of 15 January 2002, one year after the founding, that's quite enough. We can't allow activist busybodies to take this project over, it would be the end. The Magna Carta contains around 3,550 words and serves as the basis for the legal and political order of dozens of countries. If written well, with the best interest of the project –not its administration!– in mind, that's more than enough. Tickle me (talk) 21:51, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

This seems to confuse the purpose of the Movement Charter. Whereas the Magna Carta is a document outlining rights, this document needs to outline roles and responsibilities for many distinct entities. A more apt comparison would be the UN Charter containing 111 articles across 19 chapters. I assume you perceive the UN as unnecessary bureaucracy too, so I will preemptively note that UNICEF alone has saved millions of lives. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 23:15, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

The WMF will not save any lives, just alienate volunteers and mislead people into wasting their money. Wikipedia is not a nation, it is an encyclopedia; Wiktionary is not nation, it is a dictionary; etc. The WMF should have no right to impose their bureaucracy on these projects, which do the most good in the world when the communities that are to be thanked for them maintain agency over them. The WMF (which is a much more hierarchical and non-voluntary system) should serve purely to handle technical matters and make difficult decisions as a last resort. The more active and less passive the role of the WMF is, the more the spontaneous and voluntary activity of the projects it governs suffers. 77.102.33.213 12:39, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This is actually one of the things the charter is trying to tackle - putting in writing that all have their own responsibilities and can take their own decisions, but also where you can go if you don't agree with a decision and where you can request help if things get too complicated. Please realize that many of these things have grown organically in the past 20 years and are already very much in force, but this has not been captured in one central place yet. This is what the charter aims to do, while also making sure that the scales are correctly balanced again.

The question on this page now is: how should all the votes be weighed in the ratification process of the Charter, which is planned for 2024? Ciell (talk) 12:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Bureaucracy is bureaucracy. I know it when I see it. Those with power in the WMF should be embracing genuine passivity with regards to their governance, not pouring oil on a fire by coming up with more policy creep in response to complaints about policy creep. 77.102.33.213 13:00, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that the development of the charter is creating more bureaucracy, and I would like to invite you to review the upcoming new Charter drafts in Q3. But please do so with an open mind: the drafters in the committee are volunteers and please have trust that we also do not want to create extra procedures where they are not helpful, or limit what volunteers can do - whether in a global context, or simply at their local projects. Ciell (talk) 07:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I should also note that whether it would make more bureaucracy or not, the entire point of this page is to ensure that it isn't "imposed". Nosebagbear (talk) 09:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Is there going to be a way for the community to reject the establishment of a movement charter? If not, it's being imposed. TomDotGov (talk) 15:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@TomDotGov - assuming that something like this process is agreed to, then any of the voting groups could reject establishment by voting it down (tl;dr: "yes"). Speaking personally, unless it was by a whisker, I'd take two failed ratifications as a sign to move on - and the MCDC also built in a dissolution clause into ourselves at the start, so even if there are members willing to take numerous failed versions eventually they'd have to stop.

The process also includes a clause that would mean any successor created by the BOT would also need to use the same process for at least a year. Although I'd be surprised if, after a failed ratification attempt or two, anyone rushed to try the process again for some time. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

“to reduce duplicate representation”, nice call. I'm member of and leader of a handful of user groups, but that's a general issue that I don't want to tackle here. Do I understand correctly that I can choose freely from all projects where I am eligible? Certainly, my vote is more worth when I choose the wiki with least (possible) voters (e.g., metawiki instead of enwiki). That's not very fair for users who are active on a crosswiki level. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 17:05, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

@DerHexer The plan is indeed to have someone with, say, 600 edits on en-wiki and 400 edits on de-wiki, to be able to pick between the two. Obviously this does indeed mean your vote has greater impact at the project level if you pick a smaller project.

Continuing purely for me, not the whole committee: it is not the only place in the methodology where no singular ideal option existed. Neither first edit, or edit count or advanced permissions is a flawless method for determining what an editor actually views as their "true home project". Free choice (limited to those where an individual is eligible to vote) is also not ideal for the reason you note - someone might pick off electoral benefit rather than their actual viewpoint. Ultimately, this safeguarded option felt like the best selection - if you disagree that would be good to know - and even more so if you could advise what option would work best/least worst :) Nosebagbear (talk) 18:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Double voting

This relates to questions 1 and 2. We are a complicated group of people in a complicated movement, we have many people who legitimately qualify for votes via multiple chapters and or user groups. That's fine, provided we retain the principle of one person one vote - however many times you qualify for a vote in one election you may only vote once. Otherwise all sorts of unintended problems can occur including people objecting to the creation of new units that would give people extra votes.

Similarly, if we want people to think of themselves as one movement where all are equal, you need to count all the member votes across multiple organisations and go with the majority. Yes that could mean something going through that is extremely popular in a couple of chapters and loses by narrow majorities in a much larger number of chapters. But "only vote once" and "most votes wins" are good principles that give defendable decisions even when they are very close results. WereSpielChequers (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Contribution

Creating criteria based on seniority or productivity is tricky. There are a lot of people thinking that is Wikipedia itself for one or the other, and its don't help to create a environment of respect, civility, collegiality, solidarity and good citizenship. Assume good faith sometime seems only a utopia dream (that I dream). Using a nomination-based criterion is unfair because it confers power to create an oligarchy. Voting based on 50%+1 is difficult because it divides voters into groups and creates feud. Going back to what it was before is a mistake because today Wikipedia is better than yesterday. Creating transparent rules is a two-way street, it's include some and exclude others. I believe that anyone who doesn't want to follow rules shouldn't participate in a collaborative project, and anyone who wants to create rules based in yours thinking should set up their own organization. I would include that starting from the premise of impartiality is a mistake, partiality is why every user and contributor is on Wikipedia, one to prove their point of view, and the other to legitimize it. What I mean is that there is no solution that does not cause conflict, therefore, bureaucrats must carry on their bureaucracies, and whoever does not like it, have recourse to the channels created to complain or become one of them, both good options. In time, I support MCDC and my vote/opinion are: Question 1: Their entire membership (as of 3 months prior to the vote) cast a vote. Question 2: The Charter Electoral Commission will specify the voting method to be applied to all UGs. Question 3: I prefer 66.66 percent. As it is a kind of constitution of the Wikimedia projects. CEC Question 1 and 2: ok Question 3: the minimum criteria should be to be a bureaucrat or/and contributor. Eder Dias Capobianco (talk) 21:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Conversation hour #1, April 18

@Arcuscloud, Nada kareem22, Uncle Bash007, Onwuka Glory, Garlen Jo, Christoph Jackel (WMDE), Gilbert Ndihokubwayo, Olugold, Akwugo, Iwuala Lucy, জয়শ্রীরাম সরকার, Chinmayee Mishra, Akbarali, Tarunno, Yahya, Bajoga2021, Aishik Rehman, MdsShakil, MS Sakib, Rachmat04, BHARATHESHA ALASANDEMAJALU, and Empat Tilda: the Zoom meeting link has been posted on the landing page -- looking forward to see you in a few hours! Cheers, RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 21:42, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Kindly share the link to the landing page. Olugold (talk) 02:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah @RamzyM (WMF), pls share the link to the landing page.. Uncle Bash007 (talk) 03:27, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Olugold, @Uncle Bash007: This is the landing page containing Zoom link for today's conversation: Movement Charter/Community Consultation#Community conversation #1: 18 April 2023 at 10:00 UTC. Thanks, ··· 🌸 Rachmat04 · ☕ 04:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing Olugold (talk) 09:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank u Uncle Bash007 (talk) 10:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Conversation hour for Wikimedia committees and stewards, April 20

@Carlojoseph14 and Olugold: the Zoom meeting link has been posted on the landing page -- looking forward to see you. Best, RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I attended today. my votes are on the Movement strategy Forum Olugold (talk) 18:24, 18 April 2023 (UTC)