April 2023 ratification methodology community review

Community conversation #1, 18 April

Questions and answers

Q = questions, C = participants' comments/observations, MCDC and its support staff responses are noted

General discussion

Q: I wonder if stale and non-active projects will resurrect for the chance to vote (Croatian Wiktionary still has neo-nazi fan as only admin and WMF and Croatian Wikipedians is OK with this https://hr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wječnik:Administratori)
- MCDC response: you can do that, everything outside Incubator, you could choose if you’re active enough on that certain project. That’s the proposal as is.
Q: Total votes of projects or total individual votes on projects?
- MCDC response: Both. If, for instance, enwiktionary choose the 50+1 threshold to ratify, all those votes will turn into 1 vote from a community project. We will be able to provide insights on votes from per project.
C: Well that just opens the floodgates for gaming Wikimedia projects
- C: exactly
- Q: So if there are 50 votes on Wikpedia, it counts as 1 votes?
Q: apparently wmf staff are eligible to vote. What is the justification for that?
- MCDC response: They are in the Movement as well, same as you and me. They need to be allowed to express their support or decline.
- C: But they are represented by the BoT?
- Support staff response: The Board of Trustees represents the organisation of Wikimedia Foundation. In a similar way it is proposed to have affiliate votes to represent other organisations in the movement. At the same time individuals from affiliates and Wikimedia Foundation are welcome to participate in individual contributor vote. Regarding the question I responded to earlier in the chat, there is a deeper question of same voices being represented in different voter segments, which might merit further discussion.
- C: Well this also affects affiliates and how the current affiliates model does not enable fair representation. Effectively Wikimedia Russia has 5-6 votes because of the regional affiliates the WMF acknowledged, even though the persons involved in those region affiliates overlap with Wikimedia Russia.
- C: plus Germany gets one vote and Spain 5? It kind of punishes communities that have not dabbled in gaming the affiliates system
C: It is kind of trying to square the circle, but effectively WMF staff have 4 votes in this. Unless somehow you get the complete membership files of every affiliate…
- Support staff response: There is a deeper question of same voices being represented in different voter segments, which might merit further discussion.
- C: Voting more than twice if you're a member of several ugs.
Q: Why does it say BoT members “may” vote?
- MCDC response: Board members will follow their normal voting process. Maybe they want to abstain – that's OK.
Q: And why wasn't the same model chosen as with the UCoC?
- C: You could just go back to the drawing board on the sections that were not approved ;-)
- MCDC response: We think that there’s still limitation in the UCoC vote, and we want to tackle that. UCoC is a different thing than the Movement Charter, which encompasses far more things than the UCoC.
Q: Does that mean that English language projects have 19/20 votes, and smaller languages essentially have 3-4 votes depending on how many projects are running?
- MCDC response: That depends. My individual vote will count one project that I choose. I can choose which wiki I want to vote on. If there are ideas to work around that and make it more equal, happy to hear that.
Q: it gives the bigger languages the bigger vote, but I guess that’s the point?
- MCDC response: yes, but there are more than 800 projects!
Q: Can anyone vote from more than one project? (I joined late so apologise if already covered)
- MCDC response: one individual one vote, that’s the proposal.
Q: How do MCDC reach individual contributor and Wikimedia projects and encourage them to vote to ratificate, since it is not familiar?
- MCDC response: We try to communicate as much as possible – one of the thing you’ll see is the CentralNotice banner for this ratification methodology consultation, we’ll have that for the next ones. We’ll also use email campaign, Telegram, anything.
Q: does "individuals" include people who don't edit on Wikimedia projects but still contribute in other ways?
- MCDC response: under conditions that they do. We plan to make sure the ones behind the scenes and not meeting the voting requirements (developers come to mind), we definitely want to include them in the vote.
- It should be, hence the CONTRIBUTOR terminology I suggested a few times when EDITOR was dominant. Others could distribute.

Discussion about the first three open questions

Q: Are there also UGs that are legal entities?
- Support staff response: indeed, some UGs are actually registered local entities
- C: quite a few
Q: This was not an available choice for chapters : Chapters should make this determination themselves based on their governance model/ by-laws. The process should be transparent.
- C: +1 to questioner, you can't force independent legal entities to submit a vote in a certain way
- MCDC response: That's the combination of the options that you mentioned, right?
- C: yes, the point is that you can’t make that choice for the chapters.
- MCDC response: the majority of UGs are not legal entities. WMF does not require bylaws from UGs. There is no transparency at all for some UGs on how they make decisions. Chapters are not in this question. We had concerns that with 140 UGs, how can we make sure they represent the people that they claim to represent.
- C: yes, agree with that.
X: I think ug and thematic orgs should explain why they vote internally.
Q: Is there a good reason why individuals are not awarded 3 votes and an option to distribute it among different models of representation and constituency. That way people who are centered around one project-entity can give all 3 there.
- MCDC response: Not sure that the level of complication it brings helps equity. Need the reasons why.
Q: Just asking, are regional UGs that locate in a country where affiliate is present eligible to vote? E.g. If there's a London User Group that is approved by foundation but there's is WMUK, is that user group eligible to vote
- MCDC response: all UGs that are in good standing can vote. If there are 5 good standing UGs, all of them can vote. It’s the same as the Board election system.
- Support staff response: We had a long discussion on this. It’d be very helpful if the Affiliates rep could also propose a solution to this so that the ratification vote could be fair. Please highlight how we could tackle this issue in a fair way.
- C: you could get all philosophical in this. The logical conclusion is to not use the Affiliate system that does not work, and incorporate Affiliates to the Wikimedia projects that they’re supposed to be supporting.
- C: Probably just limit these voting power to be 0.5X or 0.3X. That's my idea to reduce the voting weight.
- C: it’s difficult to police that. It’s probably not going to be very critical and affect things.
- MCDC response: agree it’s a philosophical question.
Q: option 1 and 2 are not contradictory
- Support staff response: (second option would expectedly significantly reduce the amount of eligible UGs to vote, since most probably don't have structures in place to ensure all members are consulted)
- C: yeah I get it, but still both options can be combined
C: There should be at least 2 different vote methods and systems as affiliates have different scales-dynamics (not same to do participation+representation of huge and tiny entities)
- MCDC response: we can take this into consideration. IMO this would make it very complicated, no idea about the resources needed to do this. But yes, we could take this into the Committee.
- MCDC response: It'd be very helpful what two different voting methods that you’re proposing. As a Committee, we need clarity as well - we have 5 Qs that we don’t get to answer collectively, so that’s why we’re asking it to you.
Other percentage proposed:
- 67%
- ⅔
- Supermajority (66.6%)

Other suggestions

C: Please put soft Glossary in Wikidata or other Wikibase instance for translations

Breakout room discussions

the breakout rooms are opened for participants to discuss about the open questions regarding the Charter Electoral Commission

Bangla-speaking breakout room

The way that CEC members could be recruited: through votes from the UG or Thematic Groups or any groups in the voting mechanism could have an opinion. 5 people can be selected. Members should have considerable on wiki experiences in any community.

English-speaking breakout room

CEC will expect volunteers to be members of the Committee. Competences and membership was not discussed. We discussed if the ratification was going to be for the full charter or chapters. Kaarel provided rationale for why full charter ratification. (Detailed notes on Etherpad)

Community conversation #2, 24 April

Questions and answers

Q = questions, C = participants' comments/observations, MCDC and its support staff responses are noted

General discussion

Q: Each individuals vote counted twice, as an individual and as contributer to their “preferred project”?
- MCDC response: Individual vote as part of the selected project which you are eligible to vote for, it will be countred twice, once as individual and as a project member.
C: Good idea to chose the progect. But the vote in affilliate is always ambigute.
C: أعتقد أنه يجب تحديد شرط أدنى من وضوح كيفية التصويت في الجهات الشقيقة (Translation: I think we need to specify a minimum criteria to clarify how to vote within the affiliates)

Discussions of the questions

C: Maybe the distinction should be between affiliates that are a legal entity and those who are not. The user group label hasn't been accurate for at least six years now
- MCDC response: The UG label still exists but you make a good point of the difference between legal entities. We have some concerns about decision making processes of non-registered UGs. We are aware this is concern.
C: I think each affiliate (chapter/thorg/UG) should submit their proposed decision making process to the CEC and then get it approved, and then execute on it.
- MCDC response: It is important to recognize that a smaller group focused on particular task would be more helpful in ensuring that the process works. We are working to make sure that all 5 members will do the work.
- MCDC response: There are two facets that came to mind, the UG dont have formal list, even when the liaisons are contacted how can we make sure that the contacts are getting the opinions of all members and how are they transferring the outcomes of the voting process. There was not a flawless solution, thats why we raise the question here. How can we mitigate these issues while still having participation from the UGs?
C: There's also a wider point about who you are giving the power to decide this whole ratification process. You are giving 60% to people who ran UGs', quite a lot of power that they will have. What happens if UG [XY] say that they had their meeting, without doing it. In reality i’m not sure these things will work. The model might not survive reality check.
- MCDC response: Almost everybody going to have at least two chances to vote: Affiliate, project... The suggestion of identifying which of the UGs' have become legal entities wherever they are may allow us to make some changes as they would have a formal way of consulting membership and we could count them equivalent to the chapters. That could help us to reduce the impact some of the comments you mentioned.
C: Russias case is obvious example. Chapter works as a mini-hub in Russia, not sure how you could distinguish between the UG that would not concentrate the decision making power with a few people. Some UGs' are also seem half serious. CEE Spring UG was created as a kind of demonstration that this system does not work, but we have not voted anywhere.
- MCDC support team: UGs' are tricky. Previously, we discussed that we should not penalize. WM RU mapped partners that politically friendly. I don't expect all other chapters have these type of mapping. What are the clear proposals especially when it comes to the UGs’ form your experience? What are the guidelines?
  - C: I've added a link to a model that visualises a language based representation model for the CEE region.
- C: The obvious answer would be curation in order to balance out the ratification process among the affiliates.
Q: What if a person a member of more than one affiliate?
- MCDC response: In an affiliate with BOT to make decisions, they will follow their process. For others - we want to talk about it. Almost everybody will be in the position to vote more than once.
C: wearing my voluntary hat, I think that affiliates should decide internally, they name one person to vote on behalf of the affiliate. Having individuals voting on behalf of their affiliates is not controllable in my opinion.
C: The UGs' question is interesting. I would reframe this and ask what are we trying to get out of the affiliates vote? Are we trying to be inclusive? To me the Movement Charter is such a foundational document and it needs to be inclusive of the people who we want to be a part of the movement. The UG is one of the easiest entry points of joining this movement right now. I understand the real concern of some UG being a duplicate, but I also wonder in the spirit of the Movement Charter is that we want to be inclusive. If it is not speaking for everyone in the community, what are we concerned about? Should we not hope that this draft speaks to everyone?
- C: I very agree with the said comment.
- MCDC response: The general view is to ensure that the ratification has consensus from each of the major groups that will be affected by the content of the charter. We can not put a pin on how many risks there are to have a fair election. Each time we do that there are some barriers created.
- C: this is the Internet - squeaking by can also be skewed based on a displeased, very small minority.
Q: What to do in case the results differ between individuals and groups voting?
- MCDC response: The immediate outset is that the ratification fails. Ratification process should not be problematic for one group or create any problems for other groups.
Q: Would there be a special consideration for the underrepresented countries of Wikipedia?

MCDC response: General vote for editors and project voting groups to balance out the effects. If MC was lets say terrible for underrepresented communities in the Wikimedia they can vote against to prevent ratification. We left open questions as we don't have the answers.

CEC:

C: To answer these three questions on the screen, I trust the MCDC to make a decision about these, so I don’t have particular input on selecting the CEC — I think they have a better sense of this than I do.
C: It's better to be mixed 2+3 – 3 member by vote, 2 member selected
C: I see that the most important thing is for the candidate to be neutral and doesn't relate to any committee or paid work at the foundation

Wrap up:

MCDC: This has been a very productive meeting for us. Appreciate that everybody made time to talk about the methodology.

Conversation with Committees and Stewards, 20 April

Questions and answers

Q = questions, C = participants' comments/observations, MCDC and its support staff responses are noted

Chapters & User Groups

C: "evidence" and "consulted" are strong words
C: I strongly doubt that 3,300 members of WMDE can be educated on something like MC, plus 105,000 non-voting members who would have to be informed, too
C: For the first question I think they should also submit to the CEC.
C: in general, affiliates already have processes (some written in bylaws, others not) for this, and those processes should be used
C: So mature vs early stage?
- MCDC: Partially - I think some have a structure but may not be considered mature, and vice-versa. I'm confident the Stewards could give us a trustworthy vote but you don't have a legal structure.
C: correct, and we couldn't exactly supply "evidence" that we "consulted" everyone because it happens on an Access to the Non-Public Personal Data wiki and list
C: @MCDC: not completely correct, we have the Wikimedia Stewards User Group ;) and we have an internal decision making process
- MCDC: I'm aware - but you don't have a legal structure, I assume?
C: correct, it's not incorporated
C: based on how light-weight the user group process is and the fact that there is a cadre of people who lead several, including them make me slightly squeaky
- MCDC: This can indeed be a concern

Individuals

Passage threshold?
- C: I voted 60%, but I am not sure this is a realistic goal.
- C: Not sure if this is a realistic goal.
- C: 50%+1 for the less important things and should strive for more than 60% here.
C: We got to 2/3 for UCoC EG which leads me to believe it’s realistic
- C: 2/3 wouldn't pass an en-wiki Request for Adminship
- I prefer ⅔.
MCDC response: I am a realist, and think that the vast majority of individual contributors don’t care whether there is a charter and so on. With that in mind, it means that people who are strongly in favor or against are going to participate. We will do very well to get 10k votes. Such a limited percentage of people even care or pay attention to this election, how do we address the issue when we look at these kinds of numbers?
- C: En wiki essay on that very idea: form of elite and don't represent editor base. No great answer other than the movement activities are dictated on who shows up. Round 1 to round 2 of the UCoC we increased the amount of voters and the percentage in support. The fact that we increased the percentage and number led me to believe a long lasting threshold for something as important as the charter.
- MCDC: EG revision stage was a success, would it make more sense to have 60% for the first one?
MCDC: Do you know what led to the increase in voters in the second round during the UCoC voting? Was it the text, communications or ?
- C: I was on the UCoC EGDC - a bunch of people didn't like the first piece, when we made the changes we needed to make they felt comfortable to vote. The bigger group - WMF was communicating and got more people to show up. Hopefully MC will be more successful than the UCoC.
C: What’s the opposite – what percentage would we view this as not valid?
- MCDC: No formal percentage, in my view [..]
C: yeah, you're not going to get 50% of eligible voters to even show up
C: If you can't get a significant portion of the people who *are* interested to agree, that represents a problem with the proposal.
C: we've had >17k voters for the licensing update back in 2009: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update/Result
- MCDC support: That had an extremely lighter eligibility guideline… If I recall correctly, the earlier UCoC EG vote didn't have a mass email component. That helps drive votership.

Charter Electoral Commission (CEC)

How?

C: I think it’s reasonable for the MCDC to select the CEC. But I’m guessing that might not be a widely held opinion.
- MCDC: I think it's more that we don't want to make the assumption without asking the question :)
- C: +1
- C: It is a reasonable thing.
- C: Another election is a nonstarter for me
MCDC: The two options we've seen thus far are basically "MCDC" and "meta rfc/"lite-vote"

Who?

C: A percentage of this needs to not come from the affiliates
- MCDC: I would concur.
- C: My fear, a bunch of people see this as moving power away from affiliates.

What?

MCDC: Any thoughts on geographical, gender distribution? Ensuring that there is a range of people and not only those with a particular experience.
- C: I think the smaller the group selecting the easier it is to say diverse group of people. I would have faith in MCDC to consider a broad group of people. Not x - female, x - male, etc. 5 seem like a small number to me and getting diversity is harder with the amount. Meta Rfc vote, start putting more safeguards (characteristics). Experience: competence in organizing wiki processes in large scale work, competence in comms.
- MCDC: Number 5 is half the size of the BOT. The work gets done by 2-3 people and the rest there for diversity. We are looking to get people who will actually do the work and 5 is a reasonable number.
- C: It is going to be difficult to find for this. Problem of finding volunteers who are not currently not busy doing other things. If you start putting on too many conditions before you have people, better to invite people and see from there.
- C: It’s so difficult to find people, the MCDC needs to do the job of finding those people.
- MCDC: I wouldn't expand the CEC just to bump the diversity. It's going to be hard enough to find enough competent members.

C: I am a Wikimedia Foundation staff as well as an active contributor in my own right. Would I be eligible to stand for this committee?
- MCDC: WMF staff being allowed to vote: i think they do as it impacts their work.
- C: General advertisement for the position. Not aware of any issue on our sight that would prevent a staff member being a member.
- MCDC: I can’t see why we would exclude someone from CEC because they are a staff member. Ex: If we got 5 members only one will be from the WMF, you’ve got a broad staff with lots of experience.

Other general discussion

C: I've already noted on wiki some more ways how to manipulate the result: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter#Feedback_on_non-question_areas_note (multiple votes in affiliates, choosing the project you want to vote for)
- MCDC: needs to be noted as a potential issue.
C: I just really want to stress that election fatigue is real
- MCDC: +1
- C: So what you're saying now [previous speaker] is why election fatigue for that grouping isn’t as bothersome to me? Especially if they’re using established decision making processes
C: I support your thoughts on not wanting results to be known before all the results. Suggestion for flow chart: I think you need to work backwards from there, Individual project ended and (then open it for the Aff) result not released before Aff and UG were released (due to their internal work).
Q: How long is it between the draft posted and the voting period started, 1 month?
- It would be at least that long, if we get lots of feedback then the period will extend.
- It will depend if we are going to go with SecurePoll.
- MCDC: Our intention is that we want to run a consultation. Draft of the whole doc will be on Meta, there is a chance that that draft will be revised before voting. Sometime in 2024 is the answer of when the ratification will be. Community members invested a couple of years of our lives, we want to get it right when it goes to the community. We want people to feel what they need in moving forward.
- MCDC support: Timeline will depend on the next round of consultation. The new chapters, core content will be published and this is where we hope to see engagement. Is it just making small tweaks or core work that needs to be done? It doesn't make sense to bring for ratification a doc that is controversial.
- MCDC: There is also at least one chapter that's not yet even started - amendment and implementation. Amendment and Implementation will also take some time and attention, yet it does not make sense to really dive into this before we know the core content of the Charter.(And consultation stages on chapters isn't fixed - especially controversial ones with lots of feedback may have more review stages).
C: For Affiliate vote, is it envisaged that it will be a 1 affiliate 1 vote type of situation?
- MCDC: yes
C: If people are getting to have their voices heard in multiple buckets that’s a privilege for them
C: One of the things we tried to get Chapters to tell is the % split of editor vs non-editor amongst their members. I suspect that the split leans towards non-editor membership which would be one of the reasons why the big 4 affiliates want to have more than one vote as an affiliate. IMHO.
C: Doing this as an open Request For Comments seems like the worst option possible. I look forward to a draft!

Wrap up

MCDC: thank everybody who participated today. You have given us very good feedback and suggestions.

November-December 2022 consultation

Regional conversation #1: Northern & Western Europe

Date and time: Sunday, 20 November 2022 at 14:30 - 16:00 UTC

Breakout room 1 (German)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

GENERAL
* Less denglish... if there is a language version, can't you use language term (original: xxx), or is that just how I see it? 

PREAMBLE
* All essential points are in there, particularly from a global point of view. Text is however somewhat vague, on the matter of the distribution of power is still too little perceptible. 
* The text is a very good introduction, but problematic to translate. 
* The text is very vague. It allows rubber paragraphs that can be interpreted in different directions. 
* What is it about the wording required by WMF legal? - Alternative suggestions from Legal would be good, so things could be discussed without having a legal background.
* A definition for the term "Free Knowledge" is missing.
* DEI is my personal focus. I think the text is good, no problems apparent.
* I like the preamble, I would advocate using as little denglish as possible <--- translator!

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* I like this section too, but it offers possible cause for conflict. It holds inherent contradictions, e.g., fact orientation vs. opinions/beliefs in the context of "marginalized knowledge". (Example: images of Mohammed: such decisions should not be decided based on sensitivities). Balancing these claims in the charter is likely to be difficult. The exact implementation should be left to the individual projects.
* The last three points are elementary for the community and the readers, they are well formulated and understandable.
* What is the movement? What does it consist of? The term is unclear.
** https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Movement_and_partners_social_relation_ships.png
** Answer Ciell: individuals - affiliates/organizations - externals. Individual roles are mobile, fluid, sometimes commons, sometimes Wikipedia. Then there are affiliates and organizations, last but not least readers and other external voices and possible partners.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Membership structures like in German associations would be good. 
* As Hubs and GC are still very unclear, it is difficult to assess the whole matter at the moment and then make a judgement.
* Since not all things are identical globally, but the respective roles are often understood differently locally, it will be difficult to find rules that can be applied globally....

Breakout room 2 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

GENERAL
* Happy to see the MCDC started - it is much needed. It's a bit broad -- more details would be appreciated, especially around the Roles & Responsibilities.
* No Italian translations

PREAMBLE
* (Didn't capture EC's initial question about infrastructure)
* Will the Charter document any changes to the infrastructure or just document the current infrastructure?
** Answer: The Preamble won't be the chapter to document that change; the rest of the Charter will propose the changes.
What's taken into consideration about groups that are associations / non-profits within the Movement because the Movement treats them like "outside" the Movement?
** Answer: It's been difficult to find the balance of including those associations / non-profits mentioned above, while not opening up the definition to be inclusive of ALL associations / non-profits.
** Follow-Up: Chapters in the thematic organizations are also non-profits, but when user-groups are non-profits, we don't know how to include them in the Movement.
** Follow-Up: If it's a non-profit, it should be legally registered with the chamber of commerce.
* Chat: "Are legal entities created by usergroups/affiliates, also part of the Wikimedia Movement"
** Follow up (chat): I think non official groups are not included yet

* Who can be an affiliate?
** Answer: In the future, the Global Council will likely determine who can be affiliates.
** Follow-Up: We should be addressing these tough questions in the upcoming chapters.
** Comment: We have other chapters coming in the Spring.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* The current text is rather high level and hence somewhat difficult to engage with. If we continue with small steps, the discussions might take too much time to keep the engagement.

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Prompting Question: What value is missing in the Values & Principles?
** Transparency (+1 from chat)
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we decided to group "transparency" with accountability
** Follow-Up (chat): about transparency. It would be important to be mentioned specifically the financial transparency as it is needed for community decision making too

--> "Sharing"
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we try to include it in the first section "free knowledge and open source"

--> "Community"
** Follow-up by MCDC member: we did discuss this while we drafted, but we didn't want this text to be lengthy, so we tried to embed the text with "community"-oriented language and framing
** Comment: the previous diversity working group of the MS called out people-centeredness as one of the key points
** Follow-up by MCDC member: this is a great point, and we'll take it back to the drafting group
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): we do mention people-centeredness, I think as part of Inclusion

--> "Anonymity"
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): anonymity is a good point, we mention digital rights and privacy but could be more expansive
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): I like the note for anonymity, too
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): or something more in the direction of the right to anonymous contributions, even if it's not so explicit
** Follow-Up (chat): Anonymity and +secure editing (=strong encryption)
** Follow-Up (chat): I'm on two minds. I think anonymity as a principle is fine, but it can be abused easily. So, perhaps, OK but with a reference to oversight policies (admins, etc.)
** Follow-up by MCDC member: the values can complement each other, they actively balance each other, so we're not skewing too far to one side. (chat) we can't have them all 100% of course) +1 from chat
** Follow-Up (chat): we can technically counter problems that are generated by anonymity with different kinds of karma systems which makes user start zero if they behave badly. So there is costs for bad behaviour

* Prompting Question: What value shouldn't be there?
* Prompting Question: What value should remain, but should be rephrased?
* Under "independence," should we include independence from the potential pressures of Wikimedia Foundation? Or from other governance structures, like local/national governments?
** Follow-up by MCDC member: The Movement is subjected to the jurisdiction where the Foundation is headquartered (right now, it's in the US, but it could move)
** Follow-up by MCDC member (chat): I think we meant to include government through the term "political," but this might depend on which language

</syntaxhighlight>

Regional conversation #2: Sub-Saharan Africa

Date and time: Saturday, 26 November 2022 at 15:00 - 16.30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

PREAMBLE
* Comment: The Preamble is good. It's comprehensive.
* Comment: Compliment the MCDC for this wonderful draft; this text resonates with me; I like the diverse nature of this doc, includes all aspects of the Movement.
* Question: What are some examples of the "organised and informal groups" mentioned?
Answer: There are some groups within the Movement but they are not official affiliates/user groups, but they are part of the Movement and they are volunteer groups
** FU question (chat): Pharos can you elaborate what the thinking was behind the term “formal social agreement”?
** Answer: I meant earlier that some programs will have a usergroup affiliation agreement (or similar agreement), and others will not
* Question: First sentence of the 4th paragraph: "Supplementing these projects and groups is a comprehensive infrastructure with several roles." -- what does this mean? It's a bit vague, and difficult to explain.
** Answer: Thanks for the feedback. We will share with the members of that drafting group; hopefully, we can make it clearer.
* Question: What about the note left by Legal?
** Answer: The alternative sentence proposed by Legal is "The projects are built with systems of self-governance."
** From chat: "I'm good with the replacement."
** From chat: "The replacement look good to me."

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Question: Is there any value about security or safety, digital safety?
** Answer: It is touched on in "equity" with the mention of digital rights such as privacy to our users
Question: There's a lot of mentions of "equity" but we have no definition for equity.
* Question: Is there a point on sustainability?
** Also in the chat: "I think the sustainability section as well should be added."
** Answer: We touch on "sustainability" in "resilience" but it could potentially be built out
* Question: I don't know if "team spirit" is a value or if it should be reflected in this chapter, but if it isn't mentioned, it can be overlooked.
** Answer: "Team spirit" is a value, and we allude to it in "inclusivity" by mentioned people-centeredness and the chapter also mentions collaboration.
* Comment (chat): I think the values can be further more expanded to  incorporate more information about how they relate to Movement Charter.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Question: About #2, how do we identify hubs vs. Global Council?
** Answer: The hubs and Global Council are two NEW entities that came from the Movement Strategy process. The idea behind hubs - at a high level - is a group of affiliates organized around regions or themes to allow them to coordinate and collaborate. The Global Council is "a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement as a whole and represents communities in an equitable way." (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Council) We have not defined them yet; they're ideas and chapters of the Movement Charter that we want to develop with community input.
* Question: Clarity around the distribution of roles and responsibilities for hubs. For example, would the Foundation make rules around the board of the hubs that the hubs would have to follow? (Touching on #3)
** Answer: The hubs would be agents of subsidiarity and localization. The Foundation might be a bit removed from your local context, so the hubs would be more local. Not every hub will be the same or serve the same purpose. For example, the European hub is interested in lobbying and working with the European Union, but that's not applicable to the ESEAP or Sub-Saharan African or the LatAm contexts.
* Question: Also on #3, who will modify the Wikimedia Foundation's roles and responsibilities? And what does "the MCDC will review the previous work by the Movement Strategy 2030 working groups" mean?
** Answer: MCDC will look at the roles and responsibilities established in previous phases, and we will make sure it's still relevant today and potentially make some adjustments, based on community feedback. We will propose those modifications in roles and responsibilitie that might impact the Wikimedia Foundation. We don't have details right now; we want to hear from communities.

General feedback
* Question: what about reaching out to community organizers/leaders to help organize these conversations?
** Answer: We have a Movement Charter Ambassadors program, for those interested in applying to host conversations and gather feedback from your local communities, check this out: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy_and_Governance/Movement_Charter_Ambassadors_Program/About

Breakout room 2 (French)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

Preamble
* The text is appropriate because it is always important to have something clear to be used as a reference. It states clearly the objective
* Some questions arose: 
** What does the infrastructure mean? It is necessary to detail
** What are the "external restrictions" mentioned
* The content is specialized. It should be more general. Instead of being specific. 
* The work is well-structured, but some terms need to be clarified: Infrastructure, for example

Values & Principles
* All values are present
* What does ‘Subsidiarity’ mean? And what kind of ‘authority’ are we talking about here? On the management of the local movement or authority over things? Is this related to the articles? 
* With the MC, it’s like we are trying to document something that already exists in practice, like the management of user groups. 

Roles and responsibilities
* The content is very basic. It needs to be more detailed. How the committee will work is not yet clear. These are statements. The text needs to be reworded to be clear. For each chapter, we need a definition, the objectives statement .…
* Expected to be able to name or list roles and responsibilities. Lack of time to read the whole text. Roles and responsibilities will be listed in another document. Lack of being listed. 
* Some questions arose: 
** Hubs and Global Council are not yet clear. Why integrate it into a big work like the movement's charter?
** Is the application of the charter reserved for the technical space and not the other spaces?

Breakout room 3 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

PREAMBLE
* It resonates well. it is a preamble, getting people in the mood of the Charter.
*  Question regarding the term "formal social agreement". What does it mean, as it can mean anything and nothing?
** Why it is not included that it is legally binding? Preamble says what the document is, so it could be included there.
** Leave a note on the talk page, especially with alternative wording.
* Even stating that the text is ok would be helpful. Essentially trying to understand what is the direction that needs to be taken.
* Question as a follow-up to the social. How binding will the Charter be for all the individuals in the movement?
** Charter will not go down to the level of individual. It will define the affiliates, WMF, Global Council, i.e,. groups of people.
** It is binding in a way that we are working on a model of the movement wide ratification, where people can agree with the Charter.
** Once it is ratified by the majority, it will be binding.
* It reads quite well. It is good for a Preamble. Covers all aspects.
* Question regarding the need to read it many times. What improvements could be made?
** English is not the local language. The reason why re-reading was necessary. To align with the idea. At first a bit lost.
** The more it is explained, the more the paragraphs start to make sense.
** The part about infrastructure is difficult to understand.
** Agreement regarding having difficulties with this particular section with "infrastructure".

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Empowering communities through pragmatic decentralization. At this point of time we should talk about equality.  Creating a level playing field.
* Inclusivity is another one that stands out.
* Not clear with the question of subsidiarity. Feeling of being lost.
** The most immediate local level means bottom-up approach. If the local communities want to decide something, it is up for them.
** The higher up levels come only into play when it is needed.
** We will not have one size fits all approach. There needs to be trust to be showcased in the practices. Allocating powers where they are needed and where is contextual understanding.
** What would be an example of most immediate?
** Example is "deletion policy" decided per project, per language, except for legal reasons no-one is telling how to do it.
** Intention document has been shared regarding Roles and Responsibilities. As a result, what it will mean in practice for each and every entity will stem from that.
* Example of the deletion policy. Deletion policy is affecting editing from Africa. Is that something that Movement Charter can actually address..
** +1 from chat: I agree with you and the preamble talks about equity and inclusion too
** Movement Charter is a high level document, so essentially what is stated that we trust local communities to decide on that.
** Isn’t it support to create that enabling environment?
* Like: Independence is added as a principle. Values and Principles are very brief.
** Closer connection to actual Strategic Direction. This also goes with the Preamble.
** Phase II developed Principles. There probably has been discussion about why not to build on Phase II or just take them forward.
** The values and principles seem to be focused on editing community, while Phase II ones are more focused on the organizational part.
** It depends on the perspectives of particular people. Cannot let go of the experience and perspective. Whether affiliate one or project community one. Neither MCDC participants have been involved in the drafting group.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* One recommendation : The movement charter should clearly state the difference between a Hub and a Chapter. I don't know if this has been done already (i haven't taken a look at the current version)
** Movement entities includes the affiliates and hubs
** Also the difference e between the chapter and the hubs
* Movement Charter will propose new roles for the movement. What does that mean?
* The R&Rs will be clarified. We do not hold any power but when the charter is ratified, it will be applicable to the full movement
* intention 5 you mean? This is about the committee. We, the MCDC, will be proposing the new roles and responsibilities (later in this process). Once they are adopted into the Charter they are definite, but until then we'd happily invite all to feedback on our proposals.
* the sentence "The Movement Charter will be written in simple English to provide a low entry barrier to the complexity of our ecosystem." should probably move to the preamble
* The Leadership Development Working Group is already helping to define what leadership means in our movement. It would make sense to have this definition in the movement charter

Regional conversation #3: Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Date and time: Saturday, 26 November 2022 at 15:00 - 16.30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

PREAMBLE (incomplete note taking)
* Question: if it's "a formal social agreement," then is it binding?
* Question: who is the Charter for?
** Answer: If we think about the ownership of the process, ... the MCDC is not in charge of enforcing the Charter.
** Answer: Once the Charter is ratified, it is the responsibility of everyone.
* Follow-up question: who's the main group of people who will use the Charter?
** Answer: we are identifying the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders across the Movement
** Answer: in theory
* Question: To which group of people will this constitution be for, sometimes it is not a clear line between individuals, groups and affiliates? Is this charter for everyone, volunteers or for affiliates and chapters?
** Answer: Anyone who identifies as a part of the movement irrespective of whichever affiliate or organisation they belong to, this chapter applies to them. We have not yet figured out the extent of application to each of the different stakeholders
** Answer: Some aspect of the chapter will apply to editors, some part will apply to readers
* Question: How many times will you meet with the different entities to talk to them about the chapter? Or is this an onging process
** Answer: It is a bit ongoing. There will be several rounds of consultations and discussions.
** Answer: We have a communcation sub-committee on the MCDC that plans the outreach and communication with the movement. Many more sessions with the community is needed. Goal is a regular and continues engagement with the community
** Answer: After this call, information about different ways that community members can contribute will be shared. There is a meta page, MS Forum and an email that community members can use to share their feedback

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Question: It would be surprising to find someone that doesn't agree with these values since they are not new. But does that mean it's too vague, not specific enough? People centered approach is missing here, it would be interesting to know why?
** Answer: It has been included in inclusivity; we tried to have a short list of values, so we combined a few, like inclusivity with people-centeredness and accountability with transparency.
** Follow-up comment: It's different when people centeredness is not front and center.
* Question: Which of the text is complete or at these like the first draft?
** Answer: It is the the Roles and Responsiblities text that is not complete; it's a draft
* Comment: Values and Principles can only be an idea for me which way the movement trives. I do not care if some is missing. It should give a thinking of the idea behind the movement. YOu cannot make everyone happy. You should rather teach people how to read the values as an idea behind the organisation. I do not have a strong opinion on that.
* Comment: The sentence (“and the prioritization of voices representing community leadership for the roles and responsibilities delineated in our charter” under Accountability) which is marked now makes me laugh a lot because I tried to translate that sentence in German and it seemed almost impossible to translate. I will suggest you stick to your own rules. Stick with simple English. The goal is good but for me, it was very hard to read the values and translate them.
** Response: This phrase was a bit rushed, we had a much simpler phrase. 

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Comment: "The Movement Charter will be written in simple English to provide a low entry barrier to the complexity of our ecosystem." should be in the Preamble section, not here.

General Feedback:
* Comment: I am really concerned about this April 2023 deadline to have the full Charter if you're rushing
** Response: The date in April might change. We want to finish soon but there can be some challenges.
* Comment: You have to strike a balance though, else people will lose interest. Currently we are looking at a hub project, looking at your goal, the first Global Council might be ready by 2027. The Movement Charter can't take that long but at the same time it can't be rushed so I am just wondering how this challenge can be solved?

Breakout room 2 (Polish)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

* Maciej Nadzikiewicz (facilitator): Michał, why did you decide to approach this in this way?
* Michał Buczyński. I will say something obvious: When you see the roles and responsibilities, this chapter, this is not a document that resembles the final roles and responsibilities, there are no exact indications here, while you have a general framework here. As I understand the colleagues and this process, now instead of discussing with you, it is better to put up a general framework and then gradually narrow it down, present it to the community and then see if we think the same way, and if not, do something about it. We build such a very general framework. At the beginning, this document was composed of such very general assumptions. this is what you have on the meta.
* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: Is that clear? Have you had a chance to read it, what do you think of it, do you have comments? 
* Gower: I'm reading it now, I didn't find any obvious mistakes, it looks reasonable.

* Michał Buczyński: Let's move on to the second part - what unites us as Wikimedians, that is, our values and principles. MCDC found such 7 principles by which Wikimedians operate. The first value of the movement is to strive for free knowledge of open-source software. For everyone, on a free basis. The second principle is our independence, we are not guided by political and financial influence. All affiliates and WMF subsist mainly on donations from individuals (...). Imagine that a billionaire wants to buy Wikipedia, Wikipedia wouldn't even be interested in that. (...) The third principle is inclusiveness. Our movement is open to all people who want to donate their time. They are volunteers, we don't close ourselves off to anyone, with an open heart and open hands. Another principle is that all decisions should be made on a level as close to the affected poeple as possible.

* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: The question from me is, do you see any changes worth making here at the moment? Maybe you need to use different words? 
* Gower: We ensure equality of digital rights. I wonder to what extent this is possible, for example, in the case of local rights that apply to us on the Commons, for example:
* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: I take this to mean that one of our values is that we try to make our rights equal. E.g. we are fighting for the freedom of panorama to be introduced throughout the European Union. 
* Gower: I wonder if this resilience wouldn't sound better as flexibility?
* Wojeciech Pędzich: Rather not.
* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: It would fit more with the context of this paragraph, but we translate it exactly and literally according to the instructions. If you don't like the text, you probably wouldn't like it in English as well. There are plans to have the Movement's charter translated by certified translators and lawyers, so it will be translated into much more languages and have much better quality. 

* Michał Buczyński: The desire is to write it in simple English, but then it is not impossible to write it short, and people really want it to be short. Nothing can be too long, everything must be and all at the same time. We are listening, but we cannot do everything. We will try. We all agree that the preamble should be written at the end. I recommend you read the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. It is beautifully written. To me, it was presented in such a way that the committee wanted the community to know what it was working on. It's a presentation of the framework and an explanation of what the document is. It will probably be rewritten because it really is something that is written at the very end.

* Michał Buczyński: Why does this process look like this and go so slowly: Because we had too many resistance movements and various strange situations in the movement, so now we're doing it in a strange spiral way of narrowing the framework. We are arranging one thing at a time for the next steps.
* Wojeciech Pędzich: I respect this spiral way of writing very much. 
* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: It's not even a preamble, it's kind of a letter of intent of the whole charter and it gets rewritten so that it's such a nice abbreviation of the document. We hear this from many communities.

* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: Michał, would you say something more? It is that you have presented us with three chapters of the movement charter, but there will be two more very important chapters and three technical chapters. Have you already started working on the next chapters?

* Michał Buczyński. Very sketchily. I'll go back to the preamble. We wrote this based on the feedback we got in Berlin. Who are we actually, what are we doing, and what is this document actually? Treating this preamble as such a part announced to the world. A little bit like a credo, and a little bit like something public, where we tell people, Hey, this is us Wikimedians, and what's up with that? Something like We, a nation of such and such. If you have comments, I'd welcome them.

* Gower: What puzzles me is how clear this preamble is to people not connected to the Wikimedia Movement. The word Wikipedia doesn't fall there, there are no specifics of any kind. 

* Wojeciech Pędzich: We need to answer the question of who this document is for. Readers probably won't need to look here For me it's cool for it to be an inward-facing document.

* Gower: I was thinking that, for example, if you go to the Polish Wikipedia there is a section About Wikipedia and you could link to the Charter from there.

* Michał Buczyński: I remind you that Wikipedia together with Commons is our biggest resource, but Wikipedia is not the only one. Also, most people will encounter the Movement Charter through affiliates rather than Wikipedia.

* Maciej Nadzikiewicz: We talked about the Movement Charter, very generally, but I remind you that you can still write everyone, privately, on the list, until December 16, that's the time for comments. You can write to me, etc. Maybe there will still be some official WMPL position, not just the personal comments that Gdarin, for example, made. We hope that there will be some concrete commitments and concrete things from the movement charter. If we really want it to be tailored to us, we need to signal now. I encourage you to encourage others to join the consultation. 

* Summary:
* Why does the process of creating the Movement Charter look like this and go so slowly?
* We ensure equality of digital rights. I wonder to what extent this is possible. For example, in the case of local rights that apply to us on, for example, the Wikimedia Commons project.
* The preamble should be written at the end, why is it ready already?
* To what extent is this preamble (or the whole document?) readable by people not associated with the Wikimedia Movement The consequence of the above: We need to answer the question of who this document is for.  Where will it be published? 
* I wonder if "resilience" would not sound better as "flexibility"? 
* Encouraging others to get involved in the consultation, now is the time.

Breakout room 3 (Russian)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

Преамбула:
* Меньше всего вопросов по преамбуле. 
* Стандартный текст. понятно все. Когда будет написан текст Устава и как мы будем участвовать? 
* Вступление - вопросов нет, вменяемый текст. Понятно, что хотели сказать авторы. 

Ценности и принципы:
* Вопрос: Подраздел Свободные знания и открытый источник, начинается все хорошо. Предложение - «Мы обязуемся создать пространство для знаний которые были маргинализированы, в том числе и в наших проектах», не уверен, что текст адекватен. Получается, что весь проект выступает за то, что какие-то знания по обстоятельствам это не являются общепринятые, звучит так как будто мы их пытаемся распространять. Маргинальные трактовки, теории заговора, антинаучные трактовки – они маргинализированы потому, что представляют с собой...не научную фантастику. Отдавать предпочтение исторически маргинализированным знаниям противоречит ценностям энциклопедии. Должны быть понятные и отвечающие по разным параметрам знания. Упор надо делать на научность. 
EN Translation: At the beginning it looks good. But when we look at this sentence: "We commit to make space for the knowledge that has been historically marginalized, including in our projects", there is a concern with regards to the spread of this type of knowledge. Some knowledge is marginalized, the main idea in this sentence somehow contradicts with the main purpose of developing and setting up an encyclopedia. Because here we would like to deliver and share knowledge that meets scientific requirements. 

** Ответ от MCDC: 
Спасибо за вопрос. Устав не ставит перед собой цель стоять выше того, что решают сообщества в отношении правил принятия знаний и вида знаний, которые принимает тот или иной проект. Под исторически маргинализированными знаниями здесь подразумеваются, например, коренные народы в некоторых частях мира. Ранее в движении у нас был разговор о том, принимать или не принимать устную историю, которая не записана. Эта ценность предполагает, что в будущем, после 2030 года, мы также будем создавать пространство для новых проектов и что мы не будем исключать знания из наших нынешних представлений о том, каким может быть и должен быть проект при той технологической поддержке, которая у нас есть. Мы хотим убедиться, что мы не исключаем ни один вид знаний. Это вовсе не означает, что теория заговора должна быть принята проектом.
Response from MCDC: 
Thank you for the question. The Charter is not intendent to go above what communities decide for their rules of accepting knowledge and the kind of knowledge that a project accepts. Historically marginalized knowledge here refers to the indigenous peoples in some parts of the world, for instance. Previously in the movement we had a conversation whether or not to accept oral history that is not written down. This value intends that in the future, beyond 2030, we will also make space for new projects and that we will not exclude knowledge from our current views, on what a project could be and should be on the technological support that we have. We want to make sure that we do not exclude any kind of knowledge. This does not mean that conspiracy theory should be accepted by the project. 

* Вопрос: Сообщество придется додумывать что такое исторически «маргинализированные знания», а что такое просто «маргинализированные знания». Нужно ли это добавлять в Устав? 
EN Translation: The main concern is that it looks like community need to guess or keep thinking what is the difference between this "historically marginalized" or just "marginalized knowledge" and do we really need to keep it in the Charter?  
** Ответ от MCDC: Это моё личное мнение. Я думаю, что нам нужно сохранить в уставе термины «исторически» и «маргинализированные». Если посмотреть на положение женщин и на то, что мы знаем о женщинах, то это все ещё является проблемой. Это исторически маргинализированная информация. Если это не соответствует вашим ценностям, если у вас есть альтернативы, пожалуйста, поделитесь ими. 
Response: This is my personal opinion. I think we need the term historically and marginalized to keep in the charter. Looking at the position of women and what we know about women it is still a challenge. It has been historically marginalized information. If it does not echo your values, if you have alternatives, please share them. 

* Комментарий участника из русскоязычного сообщества: После пояснений чуть более понятно что имелось ввиду. Я говорю сейчас о Википедии - суть в том, что тексты пишут не профессиональные учёные и поэтому в качество одного из основных моментов практикуется требование о проверяемости. Использовать какие-то не записанные и устные сообщения, которые не прошли обработку специалистами, нельзя. 
EN Translation: After the clarification it is clearer with regards to marginalized knowledge. But in this case, I have another concern when you mention about history. I am talking about Wikipedia, the articles are developed not by scientists and there are many moments requires confirmation. To use this type of oral knowledge that was not written before, we are not entitled to and it is difficult to say whether it is a fantasy of someone. We need to make sure that specialists pay attention and only after confirmation we can include them to an article. 
**Ответ члена Комитета: Субсидиарность - сообщества сами должны сделать оценку того, что необходимо включать. Мы верим, что члены местного сообщества являются теми людьми, которые могут оценить должна ли быть какая-то информация включена в статью или нет. Это о доверии людям на локальном уровне. Мы хотим быть инклюзивными, чтобы в будущем не исключать новые проекты.
EN Translation: Subsidiarity - communities should make their own assessment of what should be included. We believe that members of the local community are the people who can assess whether some information should be included in the article or not. It's about trusting people at the local level. We want to be inclusive so we don't exclude new projects in the future.

*Комментарий от участника: По поводу "маргинализации" думаю будет другое обсуждение в будущем. 

** Комментарий от Каарела Вайдла от команды MSG: Что нами движет в Движении? Представьте себе, что каждый человек имеет доступ ко всем накопленным знаниям человечества. У нас есть стратегическое направление в котором мы говорим о равенстве знаний. Трудно например переводить слово "equity". Я знаю Википедия это свободная энциклопедия, но при этом есть и другие проекты. Когда я учился в университете и работал в сфере фольклористики, там есть свои методы как работать с устными традициями и там есть наука. Мы тоже думали о колонизации и деколонизации, раньше некоторые знания тоже не были в Википедии, а сейчас есть. Надо посмотреть какие есть научные методы и мы можем работать с этим, чтобы знания были включены. Я был в конференции Вики Индаба и у них есть проблема, если они хотят что-то важное добавить об их культуре - это невозможно для них. Надо посмотреть есть ли научные знания там. Есть Викиданные и как Сиель сказала там есть ценность субсидиарности. Это о том, что вы сами как сообщество можете решить что будет включено в вашем контексте. Спасибо большое. 

*Из чата: 
Вопрос: That is, in the future there may be fake wiki? Перевод: То есть, в будущем могут появиться фальшивые вики?
MCDC: There might be a proposal for a new kind of project wiki we cannot imagine yet….*in the future. Перевод: Возможно, будет предложен новый вид проекта вики, который мы пока не можем представить....* в будущем.
Suggestion to rephrase: > We pursue effective strategies and practices driven by evidence. Перевод: Предлагаю перефразировать: >Мы придерживаемся эффективных стратегий и практик, основанных на данных. 
MCDC: If this is a value for you, please suggest to add this! Is this a missing value, or would you want to rephrase one?
Comment: rephrase. Перевод: MCDC: Если это является для вас ценностью, пожалуйста, предложите добавить его! Возможно, это ценность отсутствует в черновике, или вы хотите перефразировать?
Ответ от участника: перефразировать

Breakout room 4 (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

*Preamble*

* I’d like to begin with the Wikimedia Movement Charter - That first sentence could distract people’s attention - someone may not know what the Wikimedia Movement exactly is and what it’s all about. The first sentence should, therefore, first explain what the Movement is and what it does. Furthermore, the Movement Charter is not there to describe but to define the Movement. 
* We can define core principles together, and vice versa.
* If we skip the formalities if we don’t go into form but into the structure, then I think the first sentence properly states the most important thing. It’s clear to me, and I think it is perfectly clear to anyone who’s already part of the movement. 

*Rights & Responsibilities*

* Maybe it should be stated more specifically what exactly “rights and responsibilities” are and include at least some of them. That’s very important for people who want to become part of the Movement or who have joined the Movement recently. We have to state at least some responsibilities explicitly.
* It says: “...it's a formal social agreement explaining relations..”. This part says nothing about the resources. How can we define only relationship(s) between the entities, where those entities assume the rights and responsibilities, without defining and discussing the resources? 
* I think the notion of “entities” is far too wide. 

*Values & Principles*

* The question of subsidiarity. How far and down should we go with it?
* It is a double-edged sword. While the draft later states that there are other forms of subsidiarity (besides geographical), we are running the risk of becoming too decentralised.

* The question of authority
** Which authority is it? This part sounds unfinished and a bit naive.
** I agree. I can easily imagine anyone agreeing with those ideas, but the question here is how to make people accountable. How do we implement subsidiarity and, at the same time, make sure someone remains dedicated to our group values?
** The Charter will have an impact on an operational level. It is a document that sets and defines values, while it is upon other levels to determine how exactly those values are going to be respected/implemented.

* Capable self-management
** What is the meaning of this phrase? Is it only bottom-up, or is it also top-down? How do we assess the quality of management on any higher level other?

* Rights & Responsibilities

* We need to have a place where the Movement’s entire structure is displayed and easy to navigate.
* I like this part because it fits well with the creation of hubs and the Global Council. I also think we should look back and review the entire experience of creating the Movement Strategy. There were lots of documents produced, and a lot of content, and it seems like the same could have been achieved with fewer resources - human, financial, time, etc. 
* I am very, very supportive of hubs because they bring freedom to different regions and thematic groups, and they facilitate communication.

Regional conversation #4: South Asia

Date and time: Friday, 2 December 2022 at 14:00 - 15:30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Question: The section under "Subsidiarity" is very vague. Could you explain it more?
** Response: "Subsidiarity" is not a familiar concept to many people. It is the principle that decision-making should be made at the "lowest" (most local) level possible.
** Comment (chat): "Subsidiarity" seems to refers to a kind of "federalism" (a US phrasing), meaning much authority is left to local/provincial/state governments.  Would it be appropriate to call it "federalism" as a sort of synonym?

* Follow up question: What does "organizational governance" refer to?
** Response: This is the structure closest to you - whether that's the user group, chapter, affiliate, etc. - whatever "organization" is determining resources and making decisions. It is written flexibly because not every context will have the same "organizational governance" structure.
** Follow up question (chat): Do non-affiliated user groups also count in organizational governance?

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Question: (wasn't able to document)
** Response: This is a big chapter. This statement of intent is a first step in trying to understand what is needed by the community. We welcome feedback and input from the communities to tell us what they want to see.
* Question: Suppose I am from a cornered group/community. What should I do to ensure that we are not left out from the Roles & Responsibilities chapter?
** Response: You showing up to the conversations is a first step.
** Response (chat): In general, there are multiple ways to engage. We are trying to outreach to as many as possible, but you as fellow Wikimedians can also invite your friends and others who might not already be involved to give feedback! https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Community_Consultation

* Question: Can you give a brief idea on hubs and Global Council?
** Response: These are new, experimental entities that do not exist yet. We want input from the community to help guide us in drafting these concepts.
* Question: There's reference to updating or changing the Charter in the future (#4 in the Roles & Responsibilities statement). What is the process?
** Response: We want the Charter to be flexible enough to adapt to changing times, but we don't imagine updating it every month or something like that. The process has yet to be established, but it is something we want to plan for (there's a chapter planned for "Amendments": https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Content)

GENERAL FEEDBACK
* Question: After today's session, can any amendment be presented in the future?
** Response: Yes, we are taking feedback all the way through the final draft that will be used for the ratification vote. You can continue to share feedback on the Meta Talk pages for that chapter or any of the other avenues mentioned here (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Community_Consultation), including emailing movementcharter@wikimedia.org directly

* Question: Who does the pronoun "we" refer? It is used often, especially in Values & Principles, but it is not defined. It should be explicitly mentioned.
** Comment: The translation into other languages is difficult; we should be using SIMPLER English.
** +1 Agreed -- simpler and sharper will be better.  Easier to understand, and potentially more inspirational. This is a good draft to work from to achieve it, I think.  I find the Talk page to be a good place to recommend copyedits, and responses there will help me understand the intent and meaning.  (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter)  Subtle words like "thereby" should I think be avoided.
** Comment: We should have a glossary.
** +1 in chat
** Response: We have been planning on a glossary for the Charter; we've been building it out as we draft content. What this is telling us (MCDC) is that we should prioritize this chapter more, and share it earlier than just at the end.
** +1 Good thought!  It can be reviewed jointly with each other chapter. It does not need to be complete and finished early in the process.

* Question: Will the translated version be legally enforceable? For example, the UCoC has translations but they say that the English version is preferred.
** Response: MCDC has brought this question up as well. We are consulting legal advise from the Foundation, and we will update the community with an answer in the FAQ: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Frequently_Asked_Questions

Breakout room 2 (Hindi)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

* Q 1: Before we start the consultation with the community, do we have any questions or clarifications that we need answers on. Since a lot of these topics are new for us. 
** A: If you have any chapter specific questions we don't have them since we wanted a free discussion.But have the possible questions above.

* Q 2: We need time to orient people on a basic level of the MC, in line with translations. Do we have any document that we can share with the group? Which can provide an introduction to the MC.
** A: We have documents and are looking for our community ambassadors to help us bring inputs on the needs of the community. We have that in English and will be happy to provide the information in a manner that is needed for better community session. We hosted an AMA session as well, and our sessions are meant for sharing about needs and we welcome any suggestions.

* The MCDC discussed a broad layout and currently have 3 chapters which have been drafted out. These are our priority chapters which define how we proceed further and our values/principles while working on the MC. These chapters define the intention behind the MC and hence we want to discuss this in detail with the community.

* Participant stated the important of translations

* Q 3: Have you faced any question from community members on this topic. 
** A: No, we have not had any community outreach on this so far, especially since the Hindi community is a little inactive. But at present no community engagement has happened.

* Most of our community are interested in a quick summary, translated, into what the MC is. 

* Q 4: We might benefit from the creation of a document like an FAQ that could be shared with the community and also held as reference for the ambassadors. 
** A: We would be happy to work with the ambassadors on the translation and the creation of such documents. We might be able to help with some languages that we know. The validation of the content would be possible of some links. 

* We will create some FAQs based on some of the questions raised during such conversations, currently its too early to create FAQs which we will create post some discussions and commonly encountered questions.

* Q 5: As a ambassador, we have to translate the content about the charter main draft and other discussion pages. Do we have any kind of list or one link somewhere where we can locate all these pages ?
** A: The Movement Charter Meta pages are a good point to start. 

* Q6: The ambassadors have not started community engagements or translations. Are we currently hoping for individual inputs or ambassador level?
** A: We have just started the on boarding of our ambassadors, so we are not expecting a lot of engagement. We are expecting the ambassadors to be ready by Spring, 2023. We have FAQs in English, we need to check internally on the translations but would be beneficial for the ambassadors to have translated material which could be used as a ready reference. We will lean on the ambassadors once we have more chapters in place, since the onboarding will be over.

* Q 7: Will the English charter be legitimate or will it be other languages.
** A: The main language will be English, but the validated text will be used for the language editions. The language validation needs to be approved and be deemed as an accepted translations- via ambassadors. 

* Q 8: Can you give a brief idea on Hubs and Global council ? 
** A: 

* Q 9: Would the MCDC as such make a group of translation validators?
** A: We will have language validators, legal experts who are used to help in this. This is based on prevalent approved framework available in different countries. This is a great point and one we will discuss.

* Q 10: Roles and Responsibilities: When we speak about Hubs, how do we include the voices that are not included in the hubs conversations and make it more inclusive. 
** A: We have seen many communities don't engage directly- this is a space that the Ambassadors would be expected to fill. Through all the calls, sessions and the ambassadors we hope to be more available, connected and engaged with the community. 

* The ambassadors are expected to make consumable and engageable content for the community. 

* It is difficult to have all the voices in the beginning, especially in South Asia where we see is a disconnect. Nothing is really decided yet, things are open and being discussed. Regarding the hub pilots we have not have any discussions on the hubs in South Asia- we might leverage the WikiConference next year to increase the engagement. We have not forgotten South Asia. 

* Q 11: We are struggling on how to engage with the community with the MC. 
** A: We are here to help clarify and support any conversations on clarity of the MC. We are having calls with those who get in touch with us and are happy to continue doing so. 

* Q 12: Are we expected to get the feedback for the local language charter or English one, Keeping in view that even 'Large' word has been flagged by WMF legal department. So, no translation can be 100% perfect keeping in view.
** A: There is important on context and content. We are looking for feedback on the content at the moment. If we are not satisfied with the translations and localisation- we need to know. If we are translating a document that is valid on the entire movement we need to ensure the translation is something that is understood, accepted and contextualized. 

* A volunteer will prepare a set of FAQs and answers, getting it validated from someone from team

Regional conversation #5: Middle East and North Africa

Date and time: Saturday, 3 December 2022 at 16:00 - 17:30 UTC

Breakout room (Arabic)

Summary of breakout discussion presented (in Arabic)

Summary of breakout discussion presented (English interpretation)

 
 الملاحظات
 
 الاستهلال: 
* ما معنى كلمة "رسمية"؟  ("عملية التصديق الرسمية")
** المقصود هو طرح آليات "رسمية" للمصادقة على محتوى ميثاق الحركة، وكلمة "رسمية" هنا تشير إلى إجراء رسمي ضمن حركة ويكيميديا بحيث تنطبق على الجميع، بما فيهم المجتمعات ومجموعات المستخدمين وغيرهم 
** قبل عملية المصادقة، سوف يحصل الجميع على فرصة للتعليق والاعتراض على طريقة إجراء هذه العملية 

* ما معنى "تعزيز البيئات القانونية"؟ 
** محوران: 1. مساعدة الكيانات التابعة لحركة ويكيميديا في تعزيز تمثيلها القانوني، إن احتاجت لذلك، و2. تعزيز التمثيل القانوني للحركة بشكل عام والدعم القانوني في كتابة المسودة 
** بالتالي، الميثاق يخضع لمراجعة قانونية أثناء صياغته. . كل فصل -مهما كان قصيراً -من هذا الميثاق يعرض على القسم القانوني في مؤسسة ويكيميديا، منعاً للتعارضات القانونية مع تشريعات الولايات المتحدة التي تتمركز فيها مؤسسة ويكيميديا. مثلاً، نوه القسم القانوني إلى أن مصطلح "إلى حد كبير" مصطلح غامض ويمكن تفسيره بطرق مختلفة قانونية، ولذلك يجب تجنبه في عملية الكتابة. 

* هل تعني أن الحركة ستدعم الوجود القانوني لمجموعات المستخدمين مثلاً؟
** هناك حالياً دعم قانوني للمؤسسات، لكن من الوارد أن تكون هناك مراجعة من هيئات قانونية للكيانات الويكيميدية في المستقبل

* ما معنى "متعددة الأدوار" ("تكملة هذه المشاريع والمجموعات هو بمثابة بنية تحتية شاملة متعددة الأدوار")؟ 
** الفرد يمكن أن يكون جزءاً من كيانات عدة، مثل أن يكون جزءاً من الكيان العربي والكيان الفرانكفوني وكيانات دعم المرأة. 
** ترتبط هذه بالجمل الآتية، إذ إن البنية التحتية للحركة تدعم أموراً عدة من ضمنها الدعم الفني والمالي والقانوني إلخ.
 
القيم والمبادئ:
* ما هو معنى "نفوض السلطة إلى المستوى المحلي أو المباشر" (مصطلح"المستوى المباشر أو المحلي")؟ 
** المقصود هو حل الأمور على مستوى مجموعات المستخدمين، فما تطمح إليه مسودة الحركة هو ما تطمح إليه استراتيجية 2030 بعمومها، وهو دعم اللامركزية والاسقلالية.  اللجنة تصيغ ميثاق الحركة فقط، ولكن المجتمع وكافة الجهات في حركة ويكيميديا هي من تقرر. اللجنة لا تمثل نفسها، وإنما تمثل حركة ويكيميديا بعمومها. 
** لو كان المقصود هو مجموعات المستخدمين، فلماذا لا نقول ذلك مباشرة؟ هذا أفضل للتوضيح

* ما هو المقصود بـ"السُّلْطة" و"اللامركزية" في حركة ويكيميديا؟
** هذا نص عمومي وليست فيه تفاصيل كاملة، الهيكلية الموجودة حالياً في الحركة بحاجة إلى تنظيم، وفيها مجال كامل لتغيير الأمور، مثل إنشاء المجلس العالمي والمراكز الإقليمية، وغير ذلك. هذه كلها كيانات قابلة للتغيير. 

* تعيد ذكر مبادئ الحركة بحرفية، عنى انها متكاملةولا تحتاج تعديل أي لا ملاحظات.
* لجنة ميثاق الحركة، حركة ويكيميديا ؟؟ الهيئات التشريعية؟ جميع المتطوعين؟ أعتقد يجب ذكر من "نحن" في المرة الأولى 
**تعريف حركة ويكيميديا وما تتضمن سوف يكون مذكوراً بالتفصيل في ملحق للميثاق نفسه، وذلك لعدم ترك مجال للتأويل في النص.

* هل من الممكن توضيح هذين الفقرتين:
** 1. المقدمة: حيث لا يكون من الممكن لمشروع محلي القيام بذلك لوحده. إن طبيعة ومدى دعم البنية التحتية مقيدان بقيم الحركة ومواردها والقيود المفروضة من خارج الحركة
** 2. القيم والمبادئ: تفريع السلطة ...
* من الأفضل أن يوضع في البداية قسم «التعريفات» ليكون النص واضحاً وغير قابل للتأويل بغض النظر إن كانت هذه المصطلحات مذكورة في صفحات ثانية

الأدوار والمسؤوليات: 
*     ما المقصود بأصحاب المصلحة
** ، كل الأطراف المعنية في الحركة، أو "الأشخاص المعنيين" و"المساهمين المعنيين" أو "ذو الصلة.

* آخر كلمة بالمسودة "التبعيات" ماذا تعني؟
** المقصود ب"التبعيات" هو الثغرات المحددة في "اللامركزية". المركز الإقليمي العربي مثلاً هو كيان لا مركزي يهتم بشؤون المجتمع العربي، قد تكون مجموعات المستخدمين تابعة أو غير تابعة لهذه الهيئة اللامركزية، فهذا أمرٌ سوف يتحدد مستقبلاً. 
** هذه المقدمة غير مكتملة، لكن سيستمر العمل عليها في المرحلة القادمة. هذا الفصل بالذات بحالة تغيير مستمر، والمراد بهذه الصفحة فقط توضيح ما سيبدو عليه هذا الفصل حين انتهائه وكيفية كتابته في هذه الفترة، وسوف ننشر التغييرات بأقرب وقت في لقاءات قادمة.

* يجب أن يكون هناك دوماً مجال للتعديل حس المعطيات التي تظهر بمرور الوقت، من الضروري وجود مرونة في تعديل أي فقرة استناداً للمعطيات كما تظهر في حينها. 

* اقتراح: للمهتمين، سوف تأتي لقاءات مجتمعية قادمة ونتمنى أن يكون فيها تمثيل المجتمع العربي ومشاركته ودوره بصناعة القرار غير محدود كما كان في السابق، فهذا يعتمد علينا نحن. وإن أمكن طرح نقاش هذه الموضوعات على نطاق أوسع فذلك سيساعد في نشرها للمجتمع.

What does “ formal ratification process – عملية التصديق الرسمية"” in the second paragraph mean?

Provided answer: “formal” here refers to the ratification action that is taken within the movement, this action and the implementation mechanism will be “formal”, so that it applies to everyone including the communities, and affiliates. Before the ratification process, everyone will have the opportunity to comment and object to how this process will be implemented.

In the last paragraph, a sentence states that “The infrastructure endeavors to promote legal and regulatory environments that enable the movement, …”, what does “promote legal environment – تعزيز البيئات القانونية” mean?

Provided Answer:

** there are two points: 1) helping the entities of the Wikimedia movement in boosting its legal representation if they need so, and 2) boosting the legal representation of the movement as a whole and the legal support in writing the charter.

** accordingly, the charter is subject to legal review during the drafting process, each chapter, regardless of its size, is sent to the legal department in the foundation; it’s important to make sure that it doesn’t conflict with the regulations of the United States, where the Wikimedia headquarter exists. For example, the legal department noted that the term "to a great extent" is ambiguous and can be interpreted in various legal ways and should therefore be avoided in the writing process.

* Does this mean the movement will support the existence of affiliates legally, for example?

Answer: There is currently legal support for the affiliates, but maybe a review will be done by legal bodies for the Wikimedia entities in the future.

What does “several roles – متعددة الأدوار” in this sentence “Supplementing these projects and groups is a comprehensive infrastructure with several roles” mean?

Provided answer:

An individual could be a member in multiple entities, and play different roles. Also this statement relates to the remaining text, where the movement infrastructure supports several things including the technical, financial and legal support, etc.

Values and Principles

What does “immediate or local level” mean in this paragraph: We entrust authority to the most immediate or local level that is appropriate”?

Provided Answer:

It means solving issues within the local affiliates or community, what the charter draft aspires is similar to what the movement strategy aspires which is supporting decentralization and independency. The MCDC drafts the charter only, but the community and all other entities should make the decisions. The MCDC represents the movement as a whole.

· Since affiliates are included in this context, why doesn’t the text mention this directly for better clarity?

* What is meant by “Authority” and “decentralization” in the context of the Wikimedia Movement?

Answer: This is a general text and does not provide details; the currently used structure in the movement needs re-organization, the there is a big opportunity to change these things, such as establishing the global counsel and the hubs. All these entities are changeable.

* “We” is widely used in the draft; what are you referring to? MCDC? The movement? The legal entities? All volunteers? It’s better to mention what “we” refers to each time it’s used.

Answer: The definition of the Wikimedia movement will be detailed in the amendment of the charter; it will not allow interpretation.

The following 2 paragraphs need to be clarified:

· Preamble: where it is not feasible for a local project to do so itself.

· Values and principles: Subsidiarity

It would be better to explain these definitions within the text itself as well as in the Definitions section, this would keep the text clearer and Uninterpretable

Roles and Responsibilities

* What is meant by “stakeholders”?

Answer: All related individuals, entities in the movement, or participants.

* What is meant by “subsidiarity” at the end of the last point?

Answer: ** subsidiarity is the defined gaps in the “decentralization”. For example, the Arabic hub is a decentralized entity that cares for the Arabic community, user groups may or may not belong to the hub, and this will be specified in the future.

** This introduction is incomplete, MCDC will continue working on this chapter in the next phase. This chapter specifically will continue to change; we only provided this page to clarify what the chapter will look like when it’s completed, and how it will be drafted now. The changes will be published as soon as it’s available.

* There will always be changes to based on the inputs we receive and what comes over time. It’s important for drafting to be flexible to accommodate any changes.

* Suggestion by Ravan: for those who are interested, there will be more discussions with the community, we wish that the Arabic community would be represented; we need them to participate in the decision making, which is not limited as it used to be in the past; this depends on us. It would be great if these topics can be discussed widely in the community.

Regional conversation #6: United States and Canada

Date and time: Tuesday, 6 December 2022 at 02:00 - 03:30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

PREAMBLE
* Good writing
* Regarding the note from Legal:
** Comment: Given that this is a future-looking document, maybe it should reflect "intention" rather than stating the status quo -- rather than "The projects are largely self-governed..." maybe something along the lines of "The projects intend to be largely self-governed..."
** MCDC Follow Up: Another word that Legal proposed is "autonomous"
** Comment: "Autonomous" is a better alternative

* - "Projects largely act independently"
** Comment: If it's "largely self-governed," what parts are NOT self-governed? The Legal alternative phrasing or the use of "autonomous" would beg less questions and be clearer
** Grammatical comment: last sentence of the first paragraph, you don't have to include "both"
** Comment (back and forth):
** Attendee W: What about a term like: “User-governed”  ?
** Attendee L: Licensing, anti-spam, NPOV, BLP, etc. are all governed globally
** Attendee J: but NPOV is very different for (say) Commons than for Wikipedia.
** Attendee L: sure, NPOV is one of the policies that only half the projects follow
** Attendee J: And, again, a lot that might be considered spam on Wikipedia is normal on Commons or Wikidata,
** Attendee L: I meant spam on a technical level. The spam blacklist is largely managed on Meta-Wiki and affects all projects
** Attendee J: Ah
** Attendee L: But that does have governance impacts, that Meta-Wiki admins are controlling what links can be blocked everywhere
** Comment: Autonomy and self-governance could be at odds with other values

VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* Comment: very little here about openness to participation by anyone who doesn't actively disrupt; this is a very important value that all of our projects have, but it's not mentioned here. Even including the word "welcome" somewhere would help
** Response: We tried to group a few values together, and this one - we grouped in "inclusivity". We could elaborate on it
** MCDC Follow Up: When we started drafting, we had a list of lists of values present across the Movement, and it was too long, so we attempted to group similar values together to shorten the list

* Comment: regarding "free knowledge and open source" - glad to see it listed first, but it could be elaborated on. "Define opening licensing" - be more specific about 'open' (adversaries are trying to co-opt "open"); "open source" is in the subheader, but it's not in the text. We should be committing to use "open source" software only, otherwise it's too narrow to be useful. We should be specific / explicit.

* Comment (chat): Also we might add something that indicates that openly visible *process* is strongly preferred. E.g., talk pages over private emails, publicized channels vs. private discussions, sharing out what might originally have been discussed privately, etc. It refers to documentation now, but what about processes?
** +1 (chat)
** Follow up (chat): it may be covered with "transparency"
** Follow up (chat): I think the "Accountability" point feels like transparency is after the fact, while the comment's point is about transparency *during* the process

* Comment: The one word I was looking for was "sustainability" and I see it under "resilience." I think it's a very interesting word for the Movement, not only in terms of environmental but also for the efforts of the Movement.

* Comment: The word "empower" is difficult to translate

* Comment: Now that it's come up, I don't think the values section discussed that content should be free in the monetary sense +1 x 3
** Response: We can put in more detail of data privacy in values as well.

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Comment: Am I alone in that or do others feel they don't understand "hubs" so well?
** Response: Hubs could be geographical, could be thematic, could also be linguistically based. It's a gathering of affiliates who could pool together their resources and efforts to achieve great capacity together. For more info: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hubs
** Follow up Q (chat): If Hubs are so not well-defined, does it need to be mentioned in the MC anyways? It's in experimental phase right now.
*** Response: In previous Movement Strategy conversations, the Movement Charter was given the responsibility to define the Hubs. However, the Charter is more of a "constitution" than a set of legal regulations.
*** Comment (chat): Hubs might be better discussed in the context of a broader constellation of entities. E.g. affiliates, GLAMs, etc., etc.

* Comment: Do hubs = money going from the foundation to the community?
** Response: Because hubs are so different in nature and context, it's hard to say definitively now. We'll probably talk about resources in the Charter, but we won't be specific about what each hubs should receive.

* Question: How will Wikimedia Enterprise be covered in this Charter? I think it should be covered because it marks a very divergent move away from work with the community.
* Follow up question: What about the Endowment?
** Response: The Roles & Responsibilities drafting group have asked themselves the questions around those two entities, so they will be considering how those entities show up in the Charter.

GENERAL FEEDBACK
* MCDC Invitation: We're working on new chapters that welcome input from community members who might have special knowledge or experience with those topics. How could we go about that?
** (No response from breakout room attendees)

* Question: How are you rolling out the drafts in a way for people to read without being overwhelmed with all the content?
** Response: We will have multiple community consultations in the next year, during which we will share drafts of new content in waves. We will pull all the chapters together to form 
** Comment (chat): Possibility, and I think you are already going this way, at least somewhat: think in terms of both creating a charter as such and a set of satellite documents (the most obvious being a glossary). But where there turns out to be a need to go deep to clarify intent, it may be that some of that belongs in a separate document. I'm thinking also (for example) the way the Federalist Papers inform our understanding of the US Constitution, and how useful it would be if we had comparable documents from those who were not aligned with that faction.

* Question: One of the key recommendations from the Movement Strategy process was to provide independent, third-party legal advisor for the Movement Charter, since the Movement Charter will lay the foundation for the Global Council, which will have legal status / obligations. So when and how will that process work? Right now, there's only legal advise and review from WMF.
** Response: From the FAQ: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Frequently_Asked_Questions -- the timing of this review is still unclear, but we will be doing that.
** Follow up comment: The sooner it happens, the better -- figuring out the process and selecting an advisor -- because it will take time.
** legal review - When/How?
** WMF legal -> third party entity
** Jorge: "Timing still unclear" "Agree sooner the better"

*Question: "Who is making the selection for the independent legal review? Who is deciding when to do the review?" "Sooner it happens the better"
** Response: "Makes sense to want independent knowledge on this"

Breakout room 2 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

Preamble
* Question: Does Wikimedia movement need a definition, even if brief?
** A: This can be tough! We will be looking at definitions in a separate chapter.

* Question: "infrastructure" line -- not entirely sure what is this getting to? It feels like it's an indirect way to tell something. [Preamble: "The infrastructure also supports content contributors, readers, and all others who are part of the global Wikimedia movement by promoting and advancing a safe and productive environment in which knowledge can be shared and consumed, where it is not feasible for a local project to do so itself. "] I took it to be about some combination of global code of conduct and setting a minimum standard for environment and project (e.g. Croatian Wikipedia) situation.
** Reply from Risker: we have a large number of small wikis some of which don't even have administrators and regular contributors. Providing them with basic infrastructure is important. There's no project that could something into like the European Council -- this is where the infra comes in, including affiliates etc. Legal issues are important and cannot be handled by the chapter/project, we're aware some Wikimedians have run into some issues in certain countries, so "quiet" legal support could make things better and reduce risks posed to them. We used some "jargony" language here, and definitely we can improve.
* Comment: "I read the “Chinese Wikipedia intervention” into that"

* Question: I actually had a bigger question mark around the next one - “The nature and extent of the infrastructure support is limited by the movement’s values, resources, and restrictions imposed outside of the movement.”
** Reply from Risker:  Resources include volunteer time, staff time, equipment, and money too

* Comment: The section should end on something more inspiring.
* Perhaps they should be aligned with the values and not 'limited' by the values.
** "Framed by the values?"
* What is meant 'restrictions imposed from outside the movement'? Is that Government and legal regimes, etc.?
** A: Yes, even there are some places where money cannot be sent, for example
*** Wonder if there's a way to say that differently ('external environment'), etc. 
*** Isn’t this document meant to be general, and not to be caught up in phrasings that would be affected by local/regional laws?  Let's avoid having anything in the preamble that gets tied up in that.
*** Possible definition of the WM movement/projects: We work to develop common information/culture projects in the public domain for people everywhere to benefit from.
*** Suggested wording change to make last sentence more positive, such as "aligned by the values" etc
*** "restrictions outside the movement" = external legal and/or political reality

Values & Principles
* Comment: I like this writeup a lot but want to add more about FOSS and technology development.  We are not just governed and following golden-rule principles -- we also incorporate novel software development and maybe other technologies too.  Wikimedia should definitely be explicitly committed to open/public technology, honoring and supporting innovative software (developed by us or otherwise), and directly and literally helping the history of technology support private/individual people not just big orgs.

* Comment: I like less. People-centered vision has very little meaning, for example. Many of us would like  to use some other software for pictures.
* Comment: WMDE's comment (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Movement_Charter/Content/Values_%26_Principles#Comments_on_Values_and_Principles_by_WMDE) with regard to the MS Principles; perhaps some could have been adapted from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Principles
* What is meant by "the prioritization of voices representing community leadership for the roles and responsibilities delineated in our charter. " ? 
** A: This is meant to say that those within the movement will be prioritized for the roles within the charter, rather than external people that are not participants of the movement 
* "Subsidiarity," what does this mean?
** "Federalism"? "Local autonomy"?  (no, not exactly, says one MCDC drafter)
** Suggestions: “Our Movement will make decisions at the most immediate or local level wherever possible and will open pathways for more participatory decision-making." (from MS Principles)
** Possible rewrite:
*** OLD: Thereby, we ensure a capable self-management and autonomy of communities that acts in accordance with the values of the global movement.
*** SIMPLER REWRITE: This ensures capable self-management and community autonomy that acts in accordance with the values of the global movement.

* Comment: I also don’t love “equity.”  (I’m an economist.). I like speaking in the language of opportunity not strict equality of outcomes.  (The present US administration uses “equity” a lot and while I support that mostly I am touchy about it.)

Roles & Responsibilities:
* Concern: Board of Trustees point out at least two major responsibilities that were difficult or not possible to transfer to a different body due to legal restrictions. Those were: 1. overseeing trademark, and 2. overseeing funds disbursement.
* Question: Will GC will act like a mega-FDC -- driving the financial decisions of the movement?
** Reply from Risker: no decision yet. 

* Comment/suggestion: Okay, but the budget could be approved by the GC even if the WMF had to vary from it a bit when disbursing.  The GC could also write principles constricting the banners which request donations.  (Rather than fighting about it each year.)

* Comment: There's a saying that a university is a group of schools held together by a common heating system. Yes, the heating system has to be centralized.
    
General comments about the draft:
* Question:  How much comparison has been done to other open-source movements?  I am studying analogous documents from Creative Commons.  There are also "charter"-like documents from Debian, OpenStreetMap, Mozilla, etc.  Are we covering the same territory they do or are we trying to do something different?
** Reply from Risker:  We'e read all of them.  :) We've picked out some things that we liked, and also noted some things that we didn't. We also tried to look into how effective they've been within their respective movements.   The CC one is not "popular" among those we talked to.
** Assumptions: We're a very broad organization that covers a lot of ground, so there were a few key takeaways that we thought could be applied here.
** Takeaways: Keep it short, keep it simple. Be precise in what is in each chapter; define terms clearly
** Other considerations:
*** Ratification - how should this be done? 50%+1 wasn't thought to be "good enough"; also how do we get participation?  (that refers to voting support levels, not the US states and DC which are a mess in another way. :) )

* Follow-up: Has there been any consideration to try and "show the work" that's been done - e.g. putting up a list of sources considered and notes about what has been drawn from them.
** A: We hadn't quite thought about it, and wondered how much we should share (too much, too little); that's good feedback to hear that folks would find this useful.   A long writeup on meta might not be popular.

** Comment: A project on Wikispore has been started to make a database of these source documents, and then using it to add footnotes and the like.

Regional conversation #7: Latin America and the Caribbean

Date and time: Wednesday, 7 December 2022 at 20:00 - 21:30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (Portuguese)

Summary of breakout discussion presented (recording of the English interpretation)

COMMENTS:
* Question: Considering the volume of the chgarter, without overburdening the Committee will it be possible to finish within the proposed timeline?
** Answer: There are ideas of launching text blocks in the second quarter of 2023. They are still looking at the timeline, but it is not up to them alone, and it is voluntary work. MCDC may be  

1) PREAMBLE
* In general the structure makes sense and it is good that it is concise. The organization also makes sense. And it is a good way to communicate with the community.  The concern with the legal issue in the notes draws attention because of the difficulty in understanding how WMF's legal structure and mediation with the Global Council actually takes place.
* MCDC comments that this is done (small filter) to be able to avoid something too out there. But it will be an iterative process, there will be several revisions. And that's why the Committee decided to leave the note from the WMF legal team when presenting to the community. 
* The idea is precisely that the Preamble should be accessible. There are still issues of translation of the Charter, according to the language there are challenges and the community can help to solve them. 
* There are doubts about the discussion of creating a Global Council at this moment, in relation to the historical process of discussion of the movement's strategy, what would be the utilities of this Council, and how would be the responsibility and decision making relationships.
* The structure of the Council has not yet been defined, the charter is the first step to define common values and objectives, and it is a long and delicate process.

2) ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
* Regarding the legal points, there is the legal question about the projects and the importance of clarifying responsibilities (content, etc.)
* Question: Does resilience include growth? 
** Answer: There will be chapters that include decision making, for example, which will also have impacts on growth. So there won't be a specific chapter, but the theme of growth will appear in different spaces. There is no text yet, but a statement of intent. During the writing process there are also specific consultations with different stakeholders (in addition to the general consultations).

* Question: Still on the role of stakeholders: within the Global Council will there be people from outside the movement? An NGO board of directors is mentioned and how it works. Will there be external advisors? Or just consultations without them participating?
** Answer: The committee does not yet know how involved these external parties will be.

* Evolution gets attention. It comes up a lot. Transformation is considered very important, it seems. 

3) VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
* Question:: The concept of subsidiarity has appeared in the discussion, is there any inspiration from other historical processes and contexts?
** Answer: More than external inspirations, there is a lot of inspiration in the Movement itself, there is a lot of Strategy 2030 that is inspiring, that has material for consultation and construction. The inspiration ends up being the movement itself. In addition, Mozilla and Creative Commons documents were used to structure the document.
* Question: Do you think that the volume of work that was put into the charter is feasible for the deadline that was given? How is this challenge being met?
** Answer: The community is concerned about the welfare of the writers of the charter, there is a tight deadline for that. The committee is thinking about delivering some of the Charter texts in advance or some such mediation because there is still a lot of work to be done, and this is a voluntary activity and it requires a lot of energy from the people responsible.

Breakout room 2 (Spanish)

Summary of breakout discussion presented (recording of the English interpretation)

General Comments

* There are several English to Spanish translations that sound strange or are not culturally appropriate and there are others that have legal implications that need to be taken into consideration by the MCDC.
* On the preamble, it feels generalistic and wants to reach many things but does not make it clear what the scope of the charter is, especially in relation to certain definitions.
* In relation to values, there was a very extensive discussion of how we can understand this region of the world, especially in definitions such as equity, inclusiveness, and concepts such as subsidiarity. 
* Regarding roles and responsibilities, the main comment was around a clear definition of hubs, and how this could limit participation in this type of collaborative method.

Discussion: 

Preamble
    
* Question (Evelin): Sentence The infrastructure also supports content collaborators. What does collaborators mean in this sentence? 

* Answer (Pepe): It means content contributors, not only editors but all those people who contribute to the content.
 
* Clarification (Francesc): Google Translate translates as "contributors". So finding another one is very complicated

* Question (Anna): What is global infrastructure? And why does it make the difference with respect to the rest of the Movement? Does this letter affect this infrastructure? 

* Answer (Pepe): Infrastructure refers to the methods or methodologies that we have as a movement, either in terms of financing. 

* Question (Anna): Is this infrastructure unquestionable?

* Answer (Pepe/Jorge): No, everything is questionable and infrastructure is no different, we could speak not only of infrastructure but also of infrastructures.

* Carlo: It is important to start from a common basis of understanding to be able to discuss the preamble (for example)... for that there is the section "Definition of key concepts outlined in the Charter" where terms such as "infrastructure", "collaborators", "structure", etc. should be defined.

Values and principles

* Question (Anna): We strive to operate independently, without any favoritism that hinders our mission of free knowledge. We are not driven by commercial, political or other commercial, monetary or promotional influences. Why is this not a categorical principle and gives an option that it may be different in the future? Is it for a specific reason? I feel it is the least categorical principle and would like to know why.

* Comment (Evelin): With the topic of subsidiarity I would expect more talk about the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and the affiliated entities, right? Because I think that what is missing here is the heart of the matter: that today the Foundation has a relationship with the caps where we are "grantees" rather than a relationship of equals and with the current wording, responsibility is transferred (i.e. "authority") but there is no talk about equal decision-making.

Roles and Responsibilities

* Question (Ester): There are already hubs that have started as Wikimedia Europe, without a clear definition from the MCDC, should we wait for this definition or start organizing?

* Answer (Jorge): It is not optimal to wait for a definition, if we can start talking, it would be excellent. Since many of the pilot hubs will be taken as a basis for the co-creation of a common definition. Right now there are many ideas being detonated that will be fundamental in the future in the integral definition of a hub.

Breakout room 3 (English)

Summary of breakout discussion presented

1) PREAMBLE
* Formal ratification process named as being a process of importance that Wikimedians may have lots of feedback on.
* Vocabulary of describing projects as "knowledge repositories" is welcome - leaves room for potential future expansion while encompassing what we have now.
* "Projects are largely self-governed with respect to content creation and management" --> How much obligation do we have to external organizations to understand or mis-understand us? Pharos (MCDC member) explained that in the event of law suits over content, the preference is to protect small Wikimedian groups from lawsuits and to instead absorb the burden of lawsuits by the largest and most well-resourced groups of the Movement (i.e. WMF). Point was to emphasize the autonomy of the project communities. 
* Pharos explained that this is also to clarify that WMF is not running the content.
* Someone asked about how to clarify what role the WMF does have whilst the project communities are autonomously managing the content itself. Would the preamble add a sentence that clarifies that law suits should be directed at the WMF and not at project communities? 

2) ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Facilitator reminded participants that this is a Statement of Intent for this Chapter of the MC. It is not the text of the Chapter itself. Lots of room to hear back and for MCDC to take that as they craft the full text of the Chapter.
* Something that seems missing... Hubs and GC are mentioned and incredibly important, but there is no mention of the WMF and the Board of the WMF. Does the MC include them and their roles and responsibilities or not?
** Pharos shared that he believes the MC does and will touch on these. Indeed, mention of Affiliates is also missing. All of these entities are within the scope of the MC including even other entities, such as the Wikimedia Endowment and Wikimedia Enterprise LLC. While this statement of intent does not deal with these entities specifically, the MC will deal with the inter-relationships with sub-entities, subsidiary entities, and the WMF and its Board. 
* Another stakeholder or entity missing are 'Movement partners' such as The Wiki Education Foundation (there is one other not for profit entity that also falls under a non-standard Affiliation agreement with the WMF that is based in India)
** Pharos shared that he agrees that entities that are outside of the Affiliate model ought also to be regularized by the MC. 
** The point of any Charter is to regularize the inter-relationships between all the different types of entities, indeed. 

3) VALUES & PRINCIPLES
* On Free Knowledge and Open Source --> Welcome the widening of focus by specifying "knowledge that has historically been marginalized."
* On Free Knowledge & Open Source --> There is an extra space before the final dash. "We are committed to making space for the knowledge that has been historically marginalized." Agree with idea but does not agree with the way it is presented as it suggests there is a "we" that has the power to let people in or not, which implies a perhaps paternalistic or controlled scenario. The sentence could be rewritten to be reflective of a welcoming stance and one that more fully recognizes that "knowledge that has been historically marginalized" is what the Wikis are all about.
* What's missing might be a sense of "self-governance". (Though the concept shows up in different ways in the values holistically, after reading through them all.)
* Pharos - a lot of these values are counter-balancing each other. We cannot have 100% transparency while also engaging in privacy protections required in some instances/jurisdictions. Pharos noted the MCDC could help make this more clear in the statement of Values & Principles. 
* Some comments were made about a past incident pertaining to Wikimedia Croatia, but these were a bit of a deviation from the topic at hand, as participants acknowledged. 

OPEN AND GENERAL FEEDBACK ON GLOSSARY OR ANY OTHER PIECES
* The Facilitator and Pharos opened up the conversation for open comments
* Glossary is welcome - even within English, the English and Yanks talk about the same things in different ways, so a Glossary is great
* Ensure that the MC itself stipulates how it itself can be changed... That it ought to be flexible also. 
** Pharos stated that this will indeed be the case, the MC will itself include instructions on how changes can be made.
* Participants asked about how far along the MCDC is in drafting the MC. 
** Pharos replied that the MCDC is at the very beginning. It is delicate to balance contributorship, readership, etc. and ensure that all perspectives are appropriately represented without over privileging any one voice. Inputs on potential formulas for this are welcome.

Regional conversation #8: East Asia, South East Asia, and the Pacific

Date and time: Friday, 9 December 2022 at 09:00 - 10:30 UTC

Breakout room 1 (English)

#1 Preamble
* What is the difference between “self governed” and “built as a system” - does it explain why it would be better? 
** Fairly vague, no sufficient clarity between the two. Actually this part also comes in the Values chapter, we say projects are governed at local level, trust in the community, projects can decide on project basis - it is good enough. 
** Legal proposed to change to “projects are built with…”
** Proposal: how about putting “...with respect to content creation and management,[1] as well as community conduct. Wkimedia Foundation provides the legal framework. OR; Wkimedia Foundation is responsible for the interaction with legal bodies (harsher)” .
** Conversation sought clarification of the legal questions raised about 'self-management'. One suggestion was to include specific reference to WMF (and Global Council?) as systems / infrastructure around content creation and management. Communities don't have ideas about GC; too early to introduce to the community. 
* In terms of content, we are not responsible for content - is that the same for the foundation? Who is ultimately responsible? 
** At the moment, this is the WMF. Usually when there is a request from the government to remove content - the government restricts freedom of expression. WMF refuses to do that - example of Russia - you can put it as a responsibility of the WMF, but AFAIK WMF will never remove the content. Need to talk to Legal about it. 
** Mention WMF in this specific part, we could do a revision on that. After drafting all the different chapters, ensure everything aligns, one last iteration before ratification, we can touch upon these. In first quarter, R&R will be fleshed out.
* Will Preamble be applicable to everyone? Global North / Global South. If the government demands something to be changed in Wikipedia (like in Turkey), they do…but it doesn't happen elsewhere. 
** Preamble only gives an idea of what is the function of the MC.

#2 Values
* Looks perfect!
* People don’t understand a few words and phrases - it is a sketchy word to understand “marginalized community” or “underrepresented region” - more clarity on this would be helpful. 
* In Dutch, there is no word for “equity”, it depends on the context. There will be a glossary of definitions, flagging words that further require explanation. 
* WE want everything to be in simple English.
* Question raised: how do we cater for those who have a core value of privacy, anonymity, and restricted knowledge?
* Privacy and Safety (Responsibility & Accountability) : how does a contributor know what to share and what not to share? Will this be put in the Core Values? 
* A lot of countries are looking into privacy laws. 
** Maybe we missed this. very valid point.
* Example of Delhi Riots: Page was so controversial, ultimately T & S stepped in and protected the identity of the article creator. Sometimes users create articles on sensitive issues but they don't want to share their identities but CheckUser can reveal identity. What about those who want to contribute but also remain anonymous? Hide IP? You need another separate account which can be used to create articles or step in discussions.
* Revision of Terms of Use that might address this more. 

#Roles & Responsibilites
* Raised a concern about the definition of hubs.
* Formation of the hubs should be liberal, based on stakeholder involvement. We don't want the definition, or formation dependent on an outside point of view. Hub's discussion became disorganized in the Berlin Summit, due to the involvement of non-stakeholders- focusing too much on fundraising and governance. What is important is hubs primordial function, and its connect with communities. 
* clarification that the MCDC is watching but not working on hubs at this time, there is a separate drafting group for hubs. This section needs to define affiliates and process, including consultation with other stakeholders
* FAQ document: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Charter/Frequently_Asked_Questions 
* Who is doing this drafting? How were they selected?
* Determination of an affiliate should be written down in Hub - AffCom would have a clear identification of its role and how it is responsive to the needs of the community. We don’t want a situation where AffCom will be approving affiliates without due consideration to other stakeholders. 
* Does the structure of existing "hubs" need to be changed after the Movement Charter is ratified?

Breakout room 2 (Indonesian)

* Which version will prevail above: English or Indonesian?
* Question regarding Footnote no 1:
** Answer: this was marked by WMF Legal when they did the review, it can offer a little flexibility that is the idea of self-governance is -- can be interpreted based on local context. People may think Wikimedia has no "governing body" -- may confuse folks on the legal liability of Wikipedia.
* Comment: when we talk about the self-governance of communities, we can understand. Agree to rephrase.
* Comment: concerns about no one being "in charge" of Wikipedia.
* Comment: must really convey clearly in a glossary
** Answer: MCDC is working on a glossary

* What does independence mean?
** Ad-free, donor-funded, not driven by commercial interests
* Diversity?
** inclusivity
** Suggestion: a new translation for inclusivity
** : if you don't have a term, use a phrase

* Subsidiarity -- autonomy / "grassroot governance"
* Asking if after the consultation period, the community can still review the draft

Breakout room 3 (Mandarin Chinese)

Recording of the Chinese interpretation of the all breakout group presentations

Preamble
* What about the non-official affiliates? It should be clear for the non-official affiliates?
* The Movement Charter does not cover the non-wiki space (e.g. telegrm group)  - The Movement Charter should be like UCoC, which it should be clear about the applicable area(s))
* Although content is mostly self and community-governed, official channels still exist to address legal concerns and fulfil legal obligations.
* Self-governance: We should add one to two sentences to describe how we handle legal issues. 

* The preamble should be more focused on the charter - should explain and define the charter's status and structure
* The four paragraphs, except the first one, seems to be unclear on it's purpose.
* The remaining paragraphs should:
* Paragraph 2 should explain how it helps connect with other movement documents and define the charter's status
* Paragraph 3 should explain the whole structure of the Movement Charter 
* Paragraph 4 should explain the legal status of this Movement Charter (Why should it be considered as the Charter? Where does it come from?) the basis for it's existence (legal existence, etc.)

* The relationship between the Preamble and our vision / Wikimedia 2030 - It should be clear, and with a bit 'imagination' - Now it is too practical. We should add the conclusion about 2030 here - not to create something new again. 

* We should emphasize in the Preamble that the Movement Charter is developing and evolving (Just like the UCoC) 

Values and principles
* There is nothing wrong with the topic - but the content is not that good
* For example - accountability - We should explain what accountability is in this session. 
* The explanation of 'Inclusivity' is better.
* We should explain more about 'Equity', 'accountability', and 'resilience'. For instance, 'Along with equity in the representation of knowledge, we enable equity of resources.' * We should explain directly and clearly what 'equity in the representation of knowledge' is. We should also eliminate the repetitive wordings. The actual meaning should be expressed.

* Value and principles should be separated. 
* There was a glossary when we had Wikimedia 2030 Strategy discussion. We should have a glossary. Without context, it is difficult to know the connection to the previous discussion. We should also add the links to Wikimedia 2030 Strategy discussion. We should refer to other documents. This session is a bit too short. We should refer to the movement strategy principles document.

Roles & Responsibilities
* What roles are present in the overall Wikimedia project and what powers and responsibilities those roles should have -> Roles and responsibilities should be prioritized
* If these roles are established, what kind of authorization is there?
* There should be no special elaboration on the central and global committees. This chapter lists all the roles. Just need to know the rank of the role in the charter. The relationship between levels and levels, who is responsible for whom.
* recommendations from Movement strategy has already been defined. So will the above proposals Involved in the discussion before the restart? Not sure how much can be changed
* Probably better with actual text instead of what is planned to be written.

Breakout room 4 (Japanese)

Recording of the Japanese interpretation of the all breakout group presentations

Overall 
* How to better get MC (and other MS topics) across to the ja community?
** Translation task needs to be something which can be more easily shared by more people 
** Avoiding pronouns and abbreviations as much as possible
** Make each sentence shorter 
** Using more simple English (there's software which can link to MS Words)
*** Information provided post-session 
*** How to write Simple English https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_write_Simple_English_pages
*** Tools which can help to write Simple English https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Aids_for_writing_Simple_English 

* There's still the feeling that the Foundation is imposing their values and MS on to the community (e.g. google, can understand the benefit it brings but imposing on people's lives) 
* Post-session comment: The Movement Charter is too long

Preamble
* "repositories" is a difficult word to understand and translate 

Values & Principles
* Questioning the value: "We share, in the spirit of free knowledge, all of our content, all our software, all our platforms with the world, using the transformative tool of open licensing." 
** Coming from the word "free" being misunderstood in ja as "freedom, open and at no cost" causing issue in japan on individual levels (since there's no affiliate yet. One of the participant is keen to start the conversation around it but has not been followed by other community members) 
** The word "free" is used in Japanese but it usually means "for no cost"  
** Suggested change post-session:  The Wikimedia Movement strives for free and impartial knowledge worldwide.
* The Movement Charter is (overall) too long. Also, it needs reflect the difference of freedom of speech situation in each country. 

* Agreeing to "Advocacy" and suggestion to more emphasis that the MC's backbone lies in the democracy, which is on the trend to becoming minority as other governing style escalate. 
* Also the fact that Wikimedia is fighting against social disparity which fundamentally comes from the disparity in education and knowledge