Talk:North American Wikimedians/Hub founding/Agreement draft text

Great update on this text

I appreciate how this latest draft incorporates and feedback on the earlier draft. This is looking good; it illustrates the breadth of what members can expect and is something groups can engage as much as they have capacity. –SJ talk  13:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

More thought is needed on simplifying decision-making and ways to avoid voting: the text says voting will be rare, but devotes a good deal of text to specifying membership and who votes on what. I don't think we need a large steering committee, a small focused group would do.

Voting: I don't think we need an approach to membership that excludes unaffiliated projects or gives each user group one vote, especially when so many active projects in the region aren't associated with an affiliate, and most affiliates are based in the US, and some editors are part of multiple small user groups. It is helpful to have a list of trusted editors who are part of any projects in the region. In the rare case we need a vote, I would generally trust the conclusions of a small voting group chosen by sortition, or of an RFC all are welcome to join, both aiming for consensus beyond a slender majority (or a version of these where the selection/consensus criteria are tuned to counter bias in the pool). –SJ talk  20:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Excellent start

This user supports the creation of a
North American Hub

As a representative of the Wikimedians of Colorado and the Wikimedians of the U.S. Mountain West, we support this agreement and this draft text. I'm certain most other Wikimedia groups in North America and the Caribbean will also wish to join this effort.

Yours aye, un saludo, et bien amicalement,  Buaidh  talk e-mail 07:10, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Steering Committee

Thanks, folks!

I certainly agree that we don't want lots of voting or bureaucracy.

But I'll note that the current language seems to only allow voting to take place when "all" "member groups" respond, which is a very very high bar (100% quorum). I suggest requiring a smaller quorum (2/3? less?) of just the steering committee members.

> Voting is expected to be rare and can occur in person, by email, or on an online platform, as long as all member groups can feasibly respond in time.

=> Voting is expected to be rare and can occur in person, by email, or on an online platform, as long as a quorum (2/3) of the steering committee can feasibly respond in time.

I also suggest adding some flexibility and allowing for better use of individual members by allowing a member group to appoint anyone (including non-members of the group) to represent them on the steering committee, and/or by encouraging anyone to serve on some organizing body that does the actual work but isn't involved in voting.

Or perhaps, as SJ suggests, we switch so some other approach for involvement and decision making, like an RFC. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The textual change looks good! I'm happy to adopt it. I agree that the member group can decide who represents them in principle, although we have the logical problem is that many of our user groups are small, and several don't have well-defined decision procedures to pick a person. I struggle with how to write this document in that context. Chapters have formalized meetings and it is possible for them to document that they have chosen representatives. Maybe we could just say that attendees at steering committee meetings can represent an affiliate if they are active in it and no specific representative has been chosen. I'm thinking. I don't WANT this process to involve lots of formalistic certification. I just want it to be well-defined enough to function. -- econterms (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2024 (UTC)