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Open Conversation with the Trustees on 30 January

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The next Conversation with the Trustees will be today, 30 January from 14:30 UTC - 16:00 UTC. See the event Meta page for agenda information, details on how to join, and details on where to find the recording. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 08:14, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

December 2024 Meeting Outcomes & Agenda for March 2025 Meeting

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Board met virtually on December 11 to hold its quarterly business meeting. The Board took the following corporate actions:

You can read more about the newly reappointed and appointed trustees here on Diff.

The Board also updated its committee membership [link] for 2025, which it does each year. Trustees can expect to participate in at least 1-2 committees as either a voting member or as an alternate, as described in the Board handbook.

The Board also approved Lorenzo Losa as its first Chair-Elect of the Board of Trustees. As part of governance and organisational best practices, the Wikimedia Foundation has spent more time in the past year focused on responsible succession planning at all levels. In terms of the Board of Trustees, this has involved advance planning to identify the next Chair of the Board after Nataliia Tymkiv, the current Chair, finishes her term as both Board Chair and trustee later this year. You can read more about the decision here on Diff.

Wiki Movimento Brasil – now to be known as Wikimedia Brasil – was officially recognised as a Wikimedia chapter by the Board at this meeting. The last country to be recognised as a chapter was Colombia, back in 2019. You can read more about this milestone here on Diff.

The Board’s next meeting will be in person in March in New York City. The Board agenda includes strategic updates from the Foundation and planning for the 2025 Board selection process. Throughout the week, the Board will also meet with volunteers from the community and hear from staff on the Annual Planning process. Members of the Foundation Board will also join the Foundation’s annual strategic planning retreat, along with members of the Endowment Board and Product and Technology Advisory Council, to discuss areas of strategic longer-term focus for the Foundation -- NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please read the letter on this topic here: Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/Global trends and strengthening Wikipedia’s neutral point of view. There is more information and ways for how to contribute there. You can also find this information on Meta -- NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

March 2025 Meeting Outcomes

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Board met in person for its official business meeting on March 13, 2025 in New York City to hold its quarterly meeting. The Board took the following corporate actions:

During the business meeting, the Board received updates from Foundation staff on progress towards the three pilots. You can read about the updates here:

The Board also received a confidential legal briefing which has become a standard practice for the Board. The meeting ended in an executive session.

Throughout the week, the Board also participated in several other high-level meetings, including a two day annual planning community workshop which resulted in key developments to the Foundation’s annual plan like the work around strengthening Wikipedia’s neutral point of view policies.

The week ended in a strategy retreat looking at multi-year priorities in three consistent areas for the Wikimedia movement to meet its mission “in perpetuity.” This year, the strategy retreat was attended by members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the Board of the Wikimedia Endowment, members of the Product & Technology Advisory Council, Foundation staff, and external experts. This is the fourth year the Foundation has convened the strategy retreat -- NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

A global search for the Wikimedia Foundation Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Wikimedia Foundation sterted a global search for our fifth Chief Executive Officer. You can read more on Diff here or follow the CEO updates page -- NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2025 Selection & Call for Questions- sent to Wikimedia-l

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.

The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].

Here are the key planned dates
  • May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
  • June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
  • July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
  • August 2025: Campaign period
  • August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
  • October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
  • Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated

Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Call for Questions

In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related [link].

Election Volunteers

Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page [link].

Thank you! --Victoria (talk) 15:07, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

References

Requesting guidance for Bengali Wikinews

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Greetings! First of all, apologies if this is not the appropriate place for this discussion. There has been some confusion surrounding Bengali Wikinews and Wikinews in general. I have requested information regarding this matter on this talk page, and I would greatly appreciate any help in resolving the issue. I'm currently quite confused about what steps to take.

Also, is it possible to kindly clarify whether the creation of new Wikinews language editions has been blocked? And should we continue contributing to Wn/bn on the Incubator? Thank you in advance. Asked42 (talk) 12:15, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

June 2025 meeting outcomes

Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Board met virtually on June 18, 2025 to approve the annual plan and budget, as recommended by the Audit Committee. You can read more details about the annual plan and budget here.

The Board took the following corporate actions:

The Board has been standardizing term dates as Trustees are now typically seated at the December Board meeting. These short term extensions are within the limits of the bylaws.

The Board also received updates on the three pilot projects, which are being regularly updated here:

The Board will meet again in August before Wikimania. The agenda can be found here. The Board will participate in an Open Conversation at Wikimania, which will be livestreamed. Details can be found here. - LLosa (WMF) (talk) 07:27, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

August 2025 meeting outcomes

Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please find a letter from Nat and Maryana with the outcomes from the August 2025 Board meeting here. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 21:20, 3 September 2025 (UTC) (on behalf of Nat Tymkiv)

Severe concerns about being US-based

Latest comment: 11 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Dear board, I know the board is for general policies not day-to-day operations but please advise the WMF's C-level now to evaluate fast if a safer construction than a solely US-based company would be possible. (I know of slightly nested companies that work with wholly owned subsidiaries to protect themselves against insolvency, for example, by keeping the hardware, software, and humanware as separate assets. There are also foundations under Swiss law as head, which is how almost all blockchain enterprises operate. I am sure there are many more possibilities, please let them be mapped and examined.) Wikipedia is under stress with ai, pe and such and users are confronted with harrassment, threats and regionally even severe danger. We need at least our backbone (the board, the staff and the users-accounts) to be safe from authoritarian governments. Cheers Sargoth (talk) 15:08, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia / WMF under US jurisdiction is certainly not safe since January 20, 2025. Move it to a free country. --146.4.48.42 11:43, 5 September 2025 (UTC)
Setting up shop outside the US would have the additional advantage of an educated workforce. --213.208.157.39 16:43, 7 September 2025 (UTC)
@213.208.157.39 Thx for trolling, bye ! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:50, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
Such well-meaning but naive proposals have come up so often (even during previous US administrations) that someone might want to start an FAQ about this topic. A few points:
  • Earlier this year, when asked if WMF should consider moving to another country, Jacob Rogers from the WMF's legal team explained that (my bolding)

[Such a decision] would probably not do very much, because the projects would remain accessible in the United States, and many things would still be subject to [US law] even if the foundation moved its headquarters to a different jurisdiction.
[...] I think a move would be extremely expensive and cost something in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. [...] I see that as one of the most significant, expensive, and extreme possible options. You would only do that if it was like, the only solution to a major problem where doing that would make sense.

(we also covered this in the Signpost at the time, with some additional context)
  • We need at least our backbone (the board, the staff and the users-accounts) to be safe from authoritarian governments. - I'm pretty sure that the majority of board members and staff are already living outside the US.
  • As for user accounts, it is a bit funny that you are suggesting Switzerland (and that a Swiss IP piled on with Move it to a free country). Proton AG (a company known for privacy-focused email and VPN services, who has often touted being based in that country) is right now making steps - quite expensive and drastic for them too I assume - to leave Switzerland because of its concerning new surveillance laws.
  • More generally, I think many people don't realize that a country's laws and court system may matter much more for us that who is in power in its current executive government. Section 230 in the US has been described as essential for Wikipedia's existence, and it is still largely holding up at the moment (fingers crossed). In contrast, while you may much prefer the current prime minister of the UK, say (to take Jimbo's current home country as an example) over the current president of the US, things are starting to look very grim there for Wikipedia right now, to the point where it's a realistic possibility that it will no longer be available in the UK.
  • I assume that your post is at least partly motivated by this recent news. Which is concerning and unprecedented, but also it's worth stepping back and assessing how realistic that threat really is. For instance (as e.g. GorillaWarfare pointed out here) it seems quite clear that WMF is not legally obliged to obey these Congressmembers' request for the IP addresses of editors - at least under *current* US law, cf. the preceding point.
  • While a lot of EU-based Wikimedians could understandably feel that their own country might be a safer haven for Wikipedia right now than the US, they might want to be a little more aware that over the past couple of years, the EU has been eagerly piling a lot of legal restrictions, liabilities and duties onto "Very Large Online Platforms", often fueled by a righteous zeal to fight "Big Tech", but affecting Wikipedia all the same (a general problem with politicians that WMF's Global Advocacy team tries to counteract with its "Wikipedia Test"). Wikimedia Europe, WMF and others have put a lot of lobbying work into preventing the worst, at least for Wikipedia, and so far seem to have succeeded better than in the UK. Yet it seems quite clear that these legal developments in the EU might conceivably also have increased the number of possible tools that an authoritarian government could (ab)use against Wikipedia. You are from Germany, where it is a realistic possibility that a party that many describe as fascist will win the next federal elections. And Hungary, a EU country, has been described as a role model for the kind of authoritarian power that Trump wants to achieve in the US but hasn't quite yet (so far).
  • All this is not to say that the current developments in the US are not concerning. But precisely because things might be getting more serious, it is important to realistically assess threats, get a little more informed about what "move out of the US" really implies, and do a little homework before suggesting specific other countries.
  • As mentioned, legal changes like in the UK might be a much bigger threat for Wikipedia overall than specific government actions (or, they might enable particularly dangerous government actions). Wikimedians interested in the policy/advocy work that might be going on (or might not yet be going on) to help prevent that kind of thing may want to subscribe to the Public policy mailing list, take a look at Wikimedia_Foundation/Legal/Global_Advocacy/Work_With_Us or (in Europe) watchlist Wikimedia Europe/Advocacy/Monitor.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:05, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

October 2025 update on the Board of Trustees election candidate ballot

Latest comment: 10 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Please find an update from Nat Tymkiv about the list of candidates for the 2025 Board of Trustees election. --ELappen (WMF) (talk) 18:24, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

  • Why was this new process Foundation:Policy:Board of Trustees Candidate Review Process introduced just two days before two candidates were removed from the 2025 elections? The rules should have been finalized prior to this. I encourage all Board members and candidates to take a strong stance on this issue. We need answers as to why these candidates were disqualified. We need more transparency around this process. The Board's October update posted by ELappen above insufficiently answers the questions raised by the community. Hexatekin (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
    • I don't know why this was published at the end of the review period rather than at the start; not ideal. But this looks like a formalization of the process described + scheduled on August 21 when the election timeline was pushed back. And having anything written down is an improvement over the previous unwritten process. –SJ talk  15:53, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
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