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2026-2027 WMF Annual Plan

Hello, we are already in the fourth week of the new WMF fiscal year. Has the Board announced the finalized 2026-2027 WMF Annual Plan? By the way, there remain unanswered questions and comments on the draft plan's talk page. ↠Pine (✉) 19:49, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi @LLosa (WMF): can you please explain what is (not) going on here? The Annual Plan should have been finalized and published around the 1st of July. Also, almost three weeks have passed since I posed the question above, and no one from the staff or Board has responded. The Annual Plan is one of the Board's most important responsibilities, a finalized version should have been published in a timely way, and there should not be multiple unanswered questions on the Annual Plan talk page. ↠Pine (✉) 20:07, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Hello, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. The plan was approved by the board and is being implemented with regular progress reported in the Foundation bulletin - here, here and here. The resolution that approved the annual plan will be published on Foundation wiki in the next few days and the annual plan itself has been updated.

The delay happened because of a combination of staffs' annual leave and that a lot of the same people involved in these updates also having responsibilities at Wikimania, which happened slightly earlier than most years this year. On your questions on the annual plan talk page, as they span different areas of work, different Foundation teams will come back to them.

Community and And Affiliate Liaison to the Board Victoria (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

@Victoria: thanks very much for following up. I would suggest that next year there be more focus on ensuring regular staff engagement where needed on the Annual Plan discussion page and that the finalized plan be published within 1 week of ratification by the Board. From a governance perspective, Wikimania is far less important than the Annual Plan and annual budget, and I suggest that next year staff be prioritized first to Annual Plan and annual budget work, and only after the necessary work has been done would staff spend time on lower priority tasks like Wikimania. If the Annual Plan and annual budget work had been almost completely done by the end of June with only minor changes needed before publication then there would be multiple weeks of buffer time between the end of Annual Plan and Wikimania, instead of what seems to have happened here with spillover work post July 1 causing conflicts with Wikimania needs. Additionally, I suggest that staff who are involved with annual plan and annual budget work not be allowed to take annual leave around the time that this critical work is happening, perhaps by blocking such leave between mid-June and early July for those staff. ↠Pine (✉) 20:59, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

I must say that the Board is not involved in the operational decisions - it's not our place to tell staff what to do (or not). Victoria (talk) 08:58, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

I wish certain Board members would stop claiming this. It is your place to tell the CEO what to do. In fact, it's your fiduciary duty to supervise the CEO and ensure they're doing their job correctly. Making sure the CEO puts out the financials on time is the Trustees' responsibility. It's not a big deal that it's a little late once, but it is a big deal if the trustees, or some of them, think that supervision is someone else's job. Everything that happens at the WMF is the trustees' responsibility. The buck stops with the trustees. It says so in the bylaws. (It's on my userpage as a reminder to all.) Levivich (talk) 11:30, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

Call for clarity: WMF Board’s perspective on the Wiki Workers United union

Currently, many members of the Wikimedia community are participating in the discussion regarding the formation of the Wiki Workers United union, both on Wikipedia talk pages and Wikimedia mailing lists. This matter is of great importance, not only for the Wikimedia Foundation itself, but also for the future of the entire Wikimedia movement. I have carefully read the posts on this topic, including those published by the Foundation. However, I have not found an official stance from the WMF Board of Trustees (the Board) on the issue that matters most to me: the Board's perspective on the very need for the union's existence.

The formation of a labor union brings about a range of legal, operational, financial, and cultural implications that fundamentally reshape the relationship between the employer and its employees. The Board should evaluate both the opportunities and risks associated with the creation of the union and share its view on which side prevails. I essentially see two possibilities:

• The Board supports the formation of the union. In this case, the most constructive approach would be to honor the fact that the vast majority of employees have signed authorization cards, voluntarily recognize the union, and begin collective bargaining negotiations.

• The Board does not support the formation of the union. In this case, it should present its arguments against it (as the employer has the right under U.S. law to share relevant facts, opinions, and reasoning), allowing union supporters to present counterarguments in response. Subsequently, an official vote organized by the NLRB should take place, where the majority of Foundation employees will ultimately decide whether the union will be established.

Therefore, I kindly invite the members of the Board to share the Foundation’s position openly, so that all interested parties may understand its perspective on the union's formation. At present, the community finds the reasons behind the delay unclear, and the communication on this matter has been insufficient. Best regards, Gdarin | talk 09:45, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

It's done and over. What am I supposed to tell people now? It doesn't matter what the BoT will eventually say or do. It doesn't matter if unionization will eventually happen. There are no humans guided by Wikipedia principles left in either BoT or Foundation leadership. They have understood nothing or are corrupted. We are trying to make the world a better place through knowledge and education and the people at the core of it spit in our faces. They can't even honestly give their thoughts and motivations, hiding behind evil and empty corporate phrases. Not one of them has come forward with a human statement. The foundation has been out of touch with the community for a long time, but this is a new low I did not think was possible. What am I supposed to tell people now? That I can no longer support Wikimedia and that they shouldn't either. Echosmoke (talk) 02:17, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

@Nadzik and @Victoria as the designated/appointed Community and Affiliate Liaisons for the Board, I'd like to make y'all (as well as other board members) aware of the separate discussion occuring at User_talk:BMeehan-WMF#On_unionization_and_misleading_the_movement surrounding the Foundation's CEO's actions in relation to unionization, especially the decision to hire a well known union avoidance firm to fight Wikimedia Foundation's case at the NLRB as well as other misleading statements made in relation to the issue. As one of the few bodies with oversight over the CEO's actions, I would strongly suggest reconsidering the boards previous statements indicating solidarity with the CEO's actions since I do believe that (a) the community at large has lost confidence in the CEO's actions (b) the actions themselves threaten movement values around transparency and honesty and (c) the actions might bring disrepute (and thus less funding) to Wikimedia projects as a whole due to a appearance of unaligned use of donor funds. Sohom (talk) 13:35, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Request to disclose trustees' positions on the community petition

I am writing to ask the Board to publish how each trustee voted (each trustee's position on the petition) on the recent decision regarding the 2026 recognize Wiki Workers United petition

You decided not to intervene and has expressed your support for the WMF's decision. I believe the Wikimedia community deserves transparency about how each trustee voted.

Several trustees are elected by the Wikimedia community. As voters, we should be able to understand where our representatives stand on issues that are important to the movement. Knowing how individual trustees voted would help community members make more informed decisions in future Board elections and better evaluate whether trustees are representing the values and expectations of the communities that elected them.

The Wikimedia Foundation has long promoted transparency and accountability as core principles. So, I ask the Board to release the voting record for this decision, indicating how each trustee voted. Nemoralis (talk) 01:39, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately we do not have "board elections", the community simply gets the opportunity to suggest individuals for appointment to the board by the board itself. But it is the board itself that makes the final decision. Actual elections in my opinion is something that we should push for. And we should push for changes to the WMF bylaws to enshrine such elections. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I think that Nemoralis' point is asking about how the BoT made its decision to reject the 2026 recognize Wiki Workers United petition. It's hard to believe that the BoT finalised its decision, after discussion, without any form of voting. It's also difficult to see any justification for keeping who voted what secret, since there doesn't seemt to be anything involving private data or personal issues for any individuals. I tend to agree that the BoT members should say how each of them voted.

Regarding BoT elections, I'm vaguely aware that you have a lot more experience in this than I do, but for clarity for others here, although the BoT has drafted some tight restrictions on eligibility in elections of community members, we do currently have the four 2024 electees Christel Steigenberger + Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz + Victoria Doronina + Lorenzo Losa, and one 2024 runner-up (unelected) added by nomination, Bobby Shabangu, and one 2022 runner-up (unelected) added by nomination, Michał Buczyński, assuming that I haven't made any errors (surprising that this is not available in a convenient place). Boud (talk) 18:06, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@Boud: Michał and Bobby were elected in the 2025 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees vote. Gdarin | talk 06:16, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Right now, I can't find the page I was looking at yesterday (that page is not Wikimedia Foundation elections); on that page I didn't see a link to results for 2025. Anyway, Wikimedia Foundation elections/2025/Results clearly shows Bobby Shabangu + Michał Buczyński as community electees. Boud (talk) 06:56, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Doc James is right: formally the Board appoints all the trustees, at least how of which should be appointed as a result of the Community and Affiliates election process. So far all the elected trustees were appointed. Sincerely, Community & Affiliate elected trustee Victoria (talk) 13:59, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Dear Nemoralis, thank you for your question. As this was not a formal Board resolution, there was no vote on releasing our statement. The statement was supported by consensus among the Board members, who had access to the document, in which we drafted a response. There was no opposition to the issued statement. I hope this answers your question. Victoria (talk) 13:55, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I know it wasn't a formal resolution, I just wanted to know the names of people who supported it. So all of our community-elected trustees supported WMF's decision, this will be useful in the next Board elections. Thanks! Nemoralis (talk) 14:44, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

@Nemoralis: We do not have the information that all of our community-elected trustees supported WMF's decision; Victoria's description of the decision-making procedure is that it was passive consensus: a proposal was made (e.g. by email), and there were no objections stated by some deadline. So we only have evidence that none of our community-elected trustees opposed WMF's decision, which does not imply that they all supported it: one or more may have been on holidays, ill, or had no internet access for a few days. A passive consensus decision-making process is a fair process in many situations, but is weak in attributing individual responsibility; this has both advantages and disadvantages. We do know that at least one BoT member was unaware that Littler Mendelson had been hired and today (UTC) called for Littler Mendelson to be fired. Boud (talk) 06:27, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

I believe that silence is approval. Nemoralis (talk) 06:39, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

If you're on holidays, ill, or have internet access cut off, I don't see how silence is approval. The phrase had access may likely mean "was sent an email and the email didn't bounce", rather than "was present at an online meeting". Boud (talk) 07:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Call for an apology for an apparent NPOV violation

@LLosa (WMF), CBasssherizen-WMF, and Slaporte (WMF): Not only is NPOV a core Wikipedia policy, but WMF is currently coordinating a proposed baseline NPOV standard.

However, WMF leaders have apparently held several 30-minute meetings in 2026 with WMF staff that, per the current evidence, grossly violated the spirit of NPOV, with all the speaking time allocated to management anti-union presentations and no time allocated to pro-union workers. In one case, Chief People Officer User:CBasssherizen-WMF and General Counsel User:Slaporte (WMF) apparently presented their POV that the human right of unionisation would be bad for "the Movement and the Foundation". There is no evidence that the opposing POV, in favour of labour rights as a human right was presented by WMF employees involved in organising for what has now become Wiki Workers United. There is no evidence of giving equal speaking time to both sides. There is no evidence of a neutral person (mutually acceptable to both sides) having chaired each meeting.

While freedom of opinion includes the right to believe that human rights are bad for Wikimedia, any WMF leaders who are opposed to human rights should, at a minimum, allow proper NPOVing when they present their opposition to human rights. It is now over three quarters of a century since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are indeed in a time of crisis, but for WMF leadership to abuse its power advantage by a POV violation in opposition to human rights just doesn't make sense.

I strongly recommend that the Board of Trustees instruct the CPO and General Counsel to apologise, in plain English, with no ifs and buts, without corporate buzzspeak, to all WMF employees for this violation of the spirit of NPOV (unless there is counterevidence). This would be a small but positive, symbolic step towards acknowledging the human rights of WMF employees. Boud (talk) 21:31, 6 August 2026 (UTC) (clarify Boud (talk) 21:40, 6 August 2026 (UTC)) (clarify: add 'spirit of' Boud (talk) 07:13, 7 August 2026 (UTC))

@Boud, NPOV is a content standard. It's a requirement for our articles to be written neutrally. They can't have violated npov in a meeting because they weren't writing an encyclopedia in the meeting. We are all of us both permitted and expected to have opinions. The idea that unionization would be bad for the Movement and the Foundation is in my view deeply misguided, and I agree it would be nice for the employees to get an apology, but it's hardly a violation of anything to voice it. asilvering (talk) 04:38, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

True in a technical sense, but it's a violation of the spirit of NPOV. I've edited to clarify. The violation of the spirit of NPOV is not the act of saying that unionisation would be bad for the Movement and the Foundation; the violation is the act of saying that unionisation would be bad for the Movement and the Foundation without giving a fair chance to those with the opposite POV presenting that POV - in the same environment (announcements, audience) and conditions (such as allotted speaking time). Boud (talk) 07:13, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

There's all kind of apologies that could be made, but honestly, NPOV is not close to the top of my list. Also, once you start complaining about NPOV. Pulling in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with NPOV is a real creative approach... but doesn't seem to help the conversation forward.

Perhaps it would be helpful if we found a way to have a reasonable conversation with a reasonable timeline. Has the candidate-union indicated what they hope the timeline would look like? Effeietsanders (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

In case you missed it, the WWU US case has set has 11 Aug for mailing out ballots and 3 Sep 2026 for counting them. No info as far as I know for the WWU UK case. If you want to propose the BoT making a different apology or taking a different action, go ahead. Jimbo stated this morning (UTC) that he has recommended that Littler Mendelson be fired. You could start a petition directly to Meehan on her talk page calling for Littler Mendelson to be fired. Boud (talk) 06:36, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

First, User:LLosa (WMF) states that The Board does not manage the Foundation's day-to-day work, including employment decisions. Our role is to provide oversight and long-term direction. [1], only for Jimbo to come along on the CEO's talk page and recommend firing Littler Mendelson (a classic operational decision). If I feel sorry for anyone in this situation, it’s the CEO, who was thrown under the bus by the very people who hired her. It’s gotten to the point where individual Board members are already "recommending" what she should do – publicly, on a page that everyone reads. Gdarin | talk 09:06, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

The board provides advice to the CEO. The issue here is not one of "the Foundation's day-to-day work" and more of an "oversight" role IMO. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:01, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

That was purely a firefighting exercise. But come September, the trade union issue will be back with a vengeance when the collective bargaining process starts (most US employees will likely vote in favor of unionization). This is the last chance for WMF to determine how it wants to communicate on union matters – especially with a parallel battle unfolding in the UK. Gdarin | talk 09:50, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

WMF Board size

How many members currently serve on the WMF Board? According to the Meta page, the Board has 11 members, but this page lists only 10. Raju Narisetti isn't listed. Does that mean he is no longer a member? Gdarin | talk 07:28, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Narisetti was still listed on 18 July 2026, and is absent from the page as of 9 August 2026. Did Narisetti resign in response to the WMF's refusal to voluntarily recognise WWU UK and WWU US? Did he resign for personal reasons? Was he dismissed from the Board? Without a public statement, we're forced to speculate. Boud (talk) 09:35, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Or, you could just assume good faith rather than engage in aggressive, wild, and fact-free speculation. Raju served as a respected and valued member of the board for nine years. He wasn't kicked off and he didn't resign in response to anything that's going on right now with the WMF. He stepped off a bit early (he would be term limited soon) due to work commitments and frankly it's a miracle how much time he gave us for so many years already. He wrote a lovely message here about his time on the board.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:55, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

There is no aggression in having speculated in a very limited context (this page) that Narisetti might have been, like much of the Wikimedia community, upset in response to the WMF's refusal to voluntarily recognise WWU UK and WWU US and resigned in response.

Since not everybody wants to give their private data to LinkedIn (I'm not sure which particular javascript and related items need to be blocked with uBlock and uMatrix in order to access the URL) and since, despite having been a member of the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, Narisetti so far doesn't seem to have put a resignation statement on any of the Wikimedia wikis, and since the URL appears to be unarchivable by Internet Archive, I'll quote the first and last sentences here for the public record: "After nine years and the maximum three terms, I stepped down as a Trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia. ... Thank you to the many Wiki volunteers, editors, staff, fellow trustees and movement leaders around the world who taught me so much over these nine years. It was a privilege to serve." Up to him or someone else to post the full statement somewhere safe for the public to read without tracking.

Jimbo: thanks for the fast response :). Boud (talk) 05:47, 10 August 2026 (UTC) (clarify Boud (talk) 05:48, 10 August 2026 (UTC))

I'm confident that the WMF will at some point soon also publish a similar reflection/thank you message on their own channels that will effectively contain the equivalent of this message. Note that it is still weekend in the US at this point. Effeietsanders (talk) 06:14, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Maybe they are not "aggressive" per se, but fact-free speculation seems to describe your insinuations rather well.

For slightly more fact-based speculation (maybe not so much regarding this resignation, which as Jimbo points out comes shortly before terming out - see also below - but more about what kind of directions Narisetti might have been pushing the board into) it may be worth being aware that Narisetti became chair of the Board's Governance Committee last year (after it had been lead for several years by a community-elected trustee). And that under his leadership, said committee shortly afterwards enacted changes to the Community-and-Affiliates selection process and recommended to the full board to remove Ravan and Lane from the then ongoing process. Both decisions were not entirely uncontroversial in the community. See en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2025-10-20/Special_report

Also worth knowing that Narisetti had become a trustee on October 5, 2017, and wmf:Legal:Wikimedia_Foundation_Bylaws#(C)_Term_limit. says Trustees, excluding the Community Founder Trustee Position, may serve a maximum of three consecutive full terms (that is, nine years).

Although, in a slightly creative interpretation of those "nine years", the board had in an August 1, 2025 resolution extended his term a bit further:

Whereas, the current term on the Board of Trustees for Raju Narisetti expires on October 1, 2026;
Now, therefore, it is:
RESOLVED, that the Board extends the term for Raju Narisetti until January 1, 2027.

Turns out that this resolution was unnecessary!

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:01, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

There were no insinuations; there were three generally credible hypotheses stated in plain English. Boud (talk) 14:12, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Anyone interested in joining the Board before the 2027 elections? As noted above, there is currently a vacancy, so if you meet the criteria outlined in the announcement, you can submit your application to the email provided here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-2026-trustee-search/ . Gdarin | talk 12:24, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Concerns about board blog-post

Today, I came to know that the Board of Trustees recently put out a blog post regarding their reflections surrounding Wikimania here. In there the board said, At the same time, we regret to observe the amount of tension around unionisation, and hope that we can all lean into our Movement principle of assuming good faith. It is vital to us to tackle external challenges together. I personally find this sort of communication from the board extremely troubling since it (a) characterizes well-intentioned criticism of the hiring of a well-known union avoidance firm as contrary to movement principles and (b) misunderstands and mischaracterizes the core principle behind AGF, particularly that it does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of obvious evidence to the contrary, which has been a majority of the thrust behind the discussion surrounding the unionization discussion. I would ask the board to reword the statement or clarify the stance espoused in the blog post since do believe that the fact that this can be read as a public rebuke of the right to criticize the board and the Foundation leadership which can have a chilling effect in future discussions surrounding the board and lead to more animosity and distrust in WMF-community (or Board-community) discussions. Sohom (talk) 00:30, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

How is the WMF's workers wanting to unionize an "external challenge"?! This speaks volumes about how the Board and WMF leadership view unionization: as a challenge coming from outside the organization, as opposed to as a consequence of their own actions and practices towards their own employees. Every single communication the WMF has put out on this issue has made things worse. Levivich (talk) 01:56, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

@Levivich, I don't read this as the board saying the union is an external challenge. It's saying something more like "it's a shame there's all this tension, because ideally we'd all be working together to tackle the external challenges we face". asilvering (talk) 02:02, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I was also confused by that sentence since the statement was open-ended and I was unsure what external challenges were being referred to. I think it can be read both ways but I'm willing to assume unfortunate framing in this context. Sohom (talk) 02:11, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

It's a shame there's all this tension about unions, because ideally we'd all be working together to tackle the decline in readership caused by LLMs? Is that how you read it? Because in that case, ok, yeah, but we'd probably be more effective at tackling such external challenges if the WMF didn't piss off its workers and volunteers... Levivich (talk) 02:16, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to propose for an edit to the unionisation section of that blog post, since the Board, as a group, seems unwilling to acknowledge encyclopedic knowledge.

The words we regret to observe the amount of tension around unionisation are a euphemism for "we refuse to publicly state in plain English that the WMF executive has engaged in union busting"; the Board is effectively confirming that it failed to do due diligence. As Ocaasi stated a week ago, "There is an actual scholarly literature on how American employers defeat union drives. It has been accumulating for fifty years in industrial relations journals, law reviews, and labor economics datasets. It describes a standard sequence of moves so well documented that researchers can predict an employer's behavior from the week the first authorization card is signed. Over the past month, the Wikimedia Foundation has executed that sequence with the fidelity of a student working from the assigned reading. The two texts belong side by side: what the research says employers do, and what the Foundation did." In the context of the scholarly record that shows that for a major case study, "management opposition ... was at least twice as effective in the voting regime as in the card-check regime", the Board's statement that The Board ... support[s] the election process is effectively an admission that the Board supports WMF management opposition to unionisation; the comparison to a secret ballot for electing community and affiliate representatives to the Board is misleading, since the sociological context is different.

The reference to WP:AGF is ambiguous: Should we infer that the failure of the executive leadership to respect the WMF mission and values should be seen as an understandable newbie error such as that of a new editor on Wikipedia with fewer than 100 edits who didn't know how to consult the scholarly record? Or should we infer that the WMF executive deliberatively used textbook union-busting techniques because it made the accidental error of not being aware that respecting human rights is part of Wikimedia values?

In other words, should we apply AGF to the WMF executive in the sense that it was accidentally, unintentionally acting against the mission, or rather that it opposed the mission because it accidentally, unintentionally forgot the mission? In which sense should we apply AGF? Boud (talk) 08:47, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

References

A step towards restoring trust in WMF

Given the 2026 Trustee Search, it seems to me that there is a practical opportunity to make a significant step to start restoring the community's trust in the WMF Board and executive.

The onus is on the Board to convince a well-respected community member with a strong pro-community track record like Brooke Vibber, Clovermoss, Fram, or Bluerasberry to accept becoming an unelected, appointed member of the Board. I haven't asked any of them if they're willing to; I'm just making an educated guess. I wouldn't expect any of them to go on their knees begging to become a Board member. My guess is that they would want to know that as a Board member, they would have the same freedom to speak on-wiki (publicly, freely) with the community on their Wikipedia user page as Jimbo does, without being threatened that they would be at legal risk if they did so (obviously there are some constraints, but if Jimbo can follow those constraints, I'm sure that other Board members can too).

The Board has lost the community's trust. Here is a chance to try regaining some trust (if any of the four would accept being appointed, of course). Boud (talk) 17:43, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm flattered, but I don't think I'd be a very realistic option for an appointed seat, even if everyone suddenly becomes accepting of my outspoken self. The first issue is that I wouldn't pass the vetting process for more ordinary reasons. For example, I'm in debt. No one wants a trustee with financial difficulties because that's an unnecessary risk. I have principles and wouldn't abuse that, but I understand the concern. I consider the debt to be largely out of my hands in that it's a result of seeking legal advice when I was first trying to do something about the sexual harrassment I endured at my former workplace, but it's there and it's not going to magically go away. Out of all of us, I think Brooke would make the most sense. Strong sense of community principles and a more typical background for this sort of thing. If it was up to me, I'd get rid of appointed seats entirely, and make a seperate non-voting advisory board for financial matters. Clovermoss (talk) 18:07, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Zwar denke ich, dass Clovermoss im Board interessant sein könnte, aber mir missfällt der Gedanke, dass hier Lokalhelden von en.wp per Akklamation in das oberste Gremium berufen werden sollen. Deswegen gibt es ja normalerweise Wahlen wo die Autoren aller WMF-wikis abstimmen dürfen. Isderion (talk) 20:38, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Appointed seats are usually from outside the movement because they're looking for NPO and financial experience. I think people are likely to suggest people they know. Do you know people from other projects or languages that would be a good fit that you could suggest as alternatives? The board requires people to have English language proficiency, which I'm not a fan of, because I don't think accommodating an interpreter should be out of the question if someone is capable. Someone with a community background from the Global South being on the board would likely prevent some of the "global" decisions from being less than global in thinking. EmpAhmadK had an interesting perspective to share with me when I was at wikimania. He was also able to have a conversation with me in English so I think he'd pass that bar easily, even if I don't think it should be a requirement. Clovermoss (talk) 20:46, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I was definitely thankful EmpAhmadK was there with us at that particular Wikimania session (and at Wikimania itself). I also do not think it should be a requirement. Abzeronow (talk) 01:22, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Your other thought, exploring if some of the existing policies like the Code of Conduct of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees might be too restrictive, is good though. Isderion (talk) 20:43, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

I like the idea of board reform resolutions and had an interesting discussion about them on enwiki recently: w:User talk:Levivich#Board reform resolutions. Clovermoss (talk) 20:47, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Good discussion + board reform history. Permalinks for convenience for copy/pasting elsewhere:

Brief recent (2014–2026) history of WMF Board of Trustee election reforms

Board reform resolutions discussion August 2026

Boud (talk) 03:12, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

I oppose appointing such "strong pro-community track record" to board. These four user all have enwiki as (one of) home wiki, but Board never only represents the enwiki community. Actually few user in entire Wikimedia movement believe they have any special trust in Wikimedia world; see w:User:Rschen7754/You_represent_the_English_Wikipedia! and User:Rschen7754/SE2015#English_and_German_Wikipedias.

We need people with technical and PM background to join the board - board should not solely consist of "professional managers" and random people appointed from community. in particular, (1) WMF does not have a CTO since 2021 so nobody with technical background can oversee the technical future of softwares used (including MediaWiki) - which I believe is a more serious problem than what Wiki Workers United try to deal with. (2) the mission of WMF is "empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license", so cope with what community need is not enough; the board needs visionaries who understand what people outside our editor community wants GZWDer (talk) 13:04, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

@GZWDer, I want to push back on two points, WMF does not have a CTO since 2021 so nobody with technical background can oversee the technical future of softwares used (including MediaWiki) is just not a true statement. We have a technical CPTO (Selena Decklemann) who acts as both the Chief Product Officer and the Chief Technical Officer and thus leads technical development across the org. If we want to specifically focus on MediaWiki, under the CPTO, Birgit Mueller leads the MediaWiki Engineering Group that focuses on developing the core software. Additionally, These four user all have enwiki as (one of) home wiki, but Board never only represents the enwiki community. Actually few user in entire Wikimedia movement believe they have any special trust in Wikimedia world I think this over-exaggerates the problem a bit. I think the current standard is more "you need to have some experience cross-wiki" rather than "all enwiki folks are looked upon with suspicion" (also as a sidebar, I really don't understand how/why you think Brooke, Blueraspberry or Vermont are enwiki, when most of them have spent a significant chunk of their time working on other projects). Sohom (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Doc James mostly pays attention to MedWiki nowadays. To be frank, I get the resentment somewhat. I imagine it has a lot of overlap with how a lot of people feel about the board and foundation executives right now. There are some English Wikipedia editors who care more about the encyclopedia part and look down on other sources of free knowledge, but in my experience a lot of people are curious about other projects and how they work, even if they don't tend to take it as far as me. I've tried to have conversations with people when I can to understand what they need that's been neglected, because I don't think we should have to fight each other for the limited attention. A lot of community interests overlap, even if there are some differences. For example, the Vector rollout affected Wikivoyage editors more and I don't think they were able to get anyone from the foundation to care at the time? I'm dealing with secondhand information on that one. I also know Commons has some extensive technical debt, but I think Sohom probably knows about that than I do.

My point is, these communities have a lot of their own grievances too. I understand the need for representation since I strongly feel the lack of it myself. The most important part is caring and not dismissing that anger because that's how I would want someone to treat me and I'd also expect people to be angry if I kept ignoring their needs.

What I'll push back on is the outside visionaries comment. Because people like to think outsiders will be able to make radical change, but they're more likely to upset the balance in bad ways, from my perspective. Especially in a movement like ours, I think it's so important that someone actually has that background or they're going to cause a lot of chaos and resentment pushing their vision onto people. It's why Bernadette's comment about how nostalgia isn't a strategy concerned me greatly. Listening needs to more than simply hearing someone speak but caring about and acting on said information. I think leadership from within is more likely to do that better. Clovermoss (talk) 17:24, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta: What I concern is not just WMF does not have a CTO. It is a number of high-level governance process not running. There are no successor of mw:Technical decision making/Forum (which succeeds mw:RFC). There are no update process for development policies. Code stewardship reviews is not functional. I believe fixing it is the most important thing WMF need to do. In the same vein I will boycott all actions proposed by Wiki Workers United as long as they are unrelated to this goal. GZWDer (talk) 17:43, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

I know WMF is working on code ownership changes in lieu of the code stewardship review process. My understanding of the status quo is that the principal engineers of each team at the Foundation and the stand in as the group of people responsible for making broad architectural changes that were previously done through the RFC process with the MediaWiki Engineering Group deciding on what changes need to be made to core. (@BMueller (WMF) might be able to clarify if I have gotten anything wrong there) Sohom (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Also for what it's worth, it is my believe that PTAC can potentially be a backstop if there is interest in tackling the more "social" changes shepherded by TechCom (particularly wrt to say +2 policy). Sohom (talk) 18:12, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Note previously anyone in interest can make and discuss an RFC and making it a WMF-internal process is worse (and I will strongly oppose that). In my vision, MediaWiki can be a community software - the ideal future is its development is overseen by WMF as a free software project foundation (though unlike KDE e.V. or Python Software Foundation, WMF is still necessary to manage communities and servers of live Wikimedia projects), but can done mostly by volunteers (instead of paid employee). This is also the reason I believe disbandment of Community Tech team is not that important (and people who are necessary as employees instead of volunteers to run WMF projects, i.e. SREs and WMF Legal, are not yet in a crisis; I believe the management of MediaWiki development is in a crisis, but that is not Wiki Workers United intended to solve). GZWDer (talk) 18:26, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Given that there are security background checks etc involved, and some potential downsides, I would kindly suggest to not make nominations like this publicly, but privately check with the individuals whether they want to be nominated in the first place. For example, they may not want to if they are interested in being employed by or receive grants from affiliates or the WMF now or in the near future. Whether you like it or not, it would likely also restrict the candidate in what public debates they can participate in, and how. But it feels unfair to put the burden on that candidate (who is a person you appreciate, i imagine) to come explain here their personal situation. Of course your general point remains clear without the names: you're encouraging the Board to appoint a critical community voice.

When you both decide it may be worthwhile, and that the person you have in mind has the qualities described as what the board is looking for, definitely do recommend them through the process! Effeietsanders (talk) 05:32, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

On ... suggest to not make nominations like this publicly, but privately check with the individuals whether they want to be nominated in the first place ...: all four of the people I listed are extremely experienced Wikipedians who are fully capable of deciding whether to say either nothing at all or something (in which case they are fully capable of deciding what they wish to keep private versus make public) on this thread. On definitely do recommend them through the process: I am not going to do that, since the process as stated appears to require candidates to accept to be "twisted, co-opted, absorbed, defused, incorporated, annexed or commodified"; my proposal is for the Board to make it clear to tentative candidates that the new Board member would be genuinely encouraged and allowed to be effective, including making public, factual statements about errors (AGF is fine; the intent of making an error does not need to be attributed nor asserted, but the occurrence of errors should be acknowledged in plain English). Boud (talk) 08:48, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Boud mentioned in passing the discussion on Jimbo’s user talk page on the English Wikipedia. In my opinion, what’s happening there right now resembles a soap opera more than anything else. We mostly just learn who saddened whom and who disappointed whom. Instead of wading through a wall of text filled with grievances and assurances of good intentions, I’d rather see concrete, well-thought-out answers to specific questions posed by the community, both on that page and anywhere else. Ideally in the form of official Board statements right here on this page. PS: Pine has been waiting for a response since July 23rd. Gdarin | talk 06:38, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

It might be useful to start the pages Public questions to the BoT that were not answered within one month and Public questions to the WMF executive that were not answered within one month, where each section or subsection is essentially a list of diffs with the question and reminders and links to pages where an answer might have been expected but noone can find it; Guy Macon would probably be able to find case examples to add to one or both pages. The talk pages of these would be used to discuss whether a corporatespeak answer counts substantively as an answer or rather as a non-answer. Boud (talk) 08:57, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

I started Public questions to the WMF executive that were not answered within one month with one example question. I put a warning not to violate AGF: the point is to objectively document behaviour (statements), not to speculate on bad intentions. Boud (talk) 14:58, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

One of their recommendations for a Trustee nominee under Priority Skills, Knowledge or Expertise especially in a global context is that they should have demonstrated experience growing and retaining audiences on a digital platform amid shifting user behavior, especially adapting to AI-driven discovery, declining traditional traffic channels, and evolving content consumption patterns.

That’s actually an ironic cautionary tale of woe. Just saying. ~2026-44613-70 (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

FYI, I’d recommend Doc James and Vermont. Not sure about filling out the rest, though… ~2026-44613-70 (talk) 20:20, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Appointing more people from English Wikipedia is not a good idea. The Board needs some diversity. GZWDer (talk) 07:16, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

As long as the BoT requires fluency in English for candidacy (a matter that User:asilvering made me realize is gendered in that qualified women might be unintentionally discouraged from applying), enwiki is going to be a disproportionate place to find eligible people. You can find my reply above in which I agree with Clovermoss that English fluency shouldn't be required. Abzeronow (talk) 01:22, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

"BoT requires fluency in English for candidacy" -- I believe most people in many parts of Europe - including Northern Europe are fluent in English too (see w:EF English Proficiency Index), and we can try to find a candidate from e.g. Swedish Wikipedia. GZWDer (talk) 05:51, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

BoT really needs more Global South perspective, or at least some LGBTQ+ perspective, which is one of the reasons why I'd support Lane Rasberry or Brooke Vibber. I'm not necessarily opposed to more Europeans on the board though if they bring more actual diversity or transparency to the table. Abzeronow (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. I find a lot of community interests tend to overlap, but when they differ, actual representation matters. So we should have more representation on all counts to have a board people can be confident in. Bad decisions can get made when no one in the room has the background experience to even see why the decision will be bad in the first place (sometimes otherwise systemic biases can be overcome on an individual level, but that takes a lot of intentionality from people that may otherwise be well-intentioned and not know how to properly account for those other perspectives; this is partly why I spend so much time trying to talk to people who think differently than I do and amplify their talking points when I can). For example, this commercial had very predictable backlash. I'm assuming whoever created it was not intentionally trying to create a PR nightmare. But they did and that matters. The general public was right to be upset. Clovermoss (talk) 20:39, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

@Abzeronow, it wasn't me - I just seconded it - I believe it was a former trustee who brought it up. A woman who herself had learned English after being elected to the board, if I recall the particulars correctly. I did appreciate the explanation we got in that session - that the board meetings may be held in English without opportunity for translation. So I hope they can update the language to something like "able to participate in board meetings in English", which is somewhat less hazardous than "fluent in English" from a warding-people-off perspective. One would hope that the WMF could help set up language training for prospective trustees, as well. asilvering (talk) 23:44, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

@User:Lyzzy mentioned it and it was a practice, until at least 2018 appointments, to offer new trustees the possibility to benefit from an English training program. Not sure if it's still a practice. schiste (talk) 10:17, 18 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, I was probably more focused on taking that in than fully remembering who said it. Yes, better worded language might help not push away qualified women. Abzeronow (talk) 02:11, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I found much of my prior time on the board of the WMF somewhat frustrating, and find my ability to be productive better at Wiki Project Med. Don't think I will run again. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:26, 17 August 2026 (UTC)