Movement roles/Working group meeting 2010-09-10

On 10 September the working group met for an inaugural conference call. In attendance were:

It was agreed at the outset that the meeting would be limited to one hour, though it started approximately ten minutes late due to technical issues.

After an initial round of introductions, Arne spoke for a few minutes about the goals of the project and reiterated the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees' commitment to it. He said that the Board has directed the Foundation staff to provide any resources necessary for its success.

Arne summarized the final objective of the process, a Wikimedia Charter:

Roles and responsibilities of groups to be clearly defined
Agreed upon by all stakeholders
Including a plan for going forward with organizational development
Meant to be sustainable for at least the coming five years

Some discussion for individual clarification followed, and the group was generally satisfied with the purpose and planned direction.

The group talked about how and where the work of the project should take place. Given the fundamental requirement of open participation, it was agreed that the primary workspace for the project's activities should be a public wiki. It is still to decide if this should happen on meta or on the strategy wiki. There is also a separate movement roles wiki (currently accessible to the workgroup members) that can be used for internal/coordination purposes.

The first deliverable, a formal proposal to the Board at its October meeting, was discussed. A first draft will be sent to the workgroup in the next few days. The short time factor was pointed out and it was agreed that extra effort was needed to ensure that this be done quickly.

The group adjourned with an agreement to meet on a future date, to be determined in the next few days.