WikiIndaba 2024/Proposal/Governance: Share your policies

ID :
Author(s): User:Anthere, Isla Haddow-Flood, We started getting in contact with various leaders to join the roundtable. The roundtable would likely include ED or acting EDs of several usergroups.	Username(s): Anthere and others	Session type: roundtable
	Affiliation: Wiki in Africa	Session track(s): Movement Governance (Includes Legal, Advocacy & Risks)
Abstract: As each UserGroup emerges and grows, their leaders and members choose a path for a governance model, more or less described in their bylaws and related documents, and somehow summarized on meta pages. The basics are here, if only because requested by the affiliation committee... As organizations grow further, their leaders feel the need for more and draft then adopt additional policies, often considered essential as part of a good governance. Examples of such policies adopted fairly rapidly by Wikimedia UG are travel policies, reimbursement policies, conflict of interest policies, codes of discipline, friendly space policy... But whilst some of those (a very few) are shared on meta, most organizations do not mention any of those. The policies might exist... or they might not. And in the event that they exist... are they actually knonwn by the members ? implemented ? enforced ? revisited ? More advanced policies are scarcely ever mentioned. What about a gift acceptance policy, a diversity policy, a bank accounts access policy, a document retention/destruction policy, a whistleblower policy, "guidelines for jurys deciding on gifts during contests" etc. Were any of those developed in our African UGs? If they were, can those policies be shared publicly? Was their adoption easy ? Are they actually doing their job or need to be reshaped? If they were not yet considered... are they needed at all ? When would they be needed ? Which policies would be most useful in OUR specific wikimedia context ? Which of those would be considered "unpractical" or "meaningless" in African context ? Would a list of suggested policies based on the UG development stage be helpful ? The goal of this session will be to start hacking this topic. Mapping the current situation based on our collective knowledge of it. Sort out the existing and the desirable. No pressure, no guilt, no pointing fingers. Just a honest conversation of what is currently here, and suggestions or even "engagement" to what could be improved and be done in one year time ! Possibly useful links Code of conduct and conflict of interest policies Policy:Main		Audience : medium
		Mode: In-person
		Special requirements: Translation

How will this session be beneficial for the communities in the region? Awareness of the need to develop the UGs governance when they grow. Sharing with others what has already been done, or what is in the plans. Sharing experiences. Mapping the situation of the continent

Interested participants

(register below and ask your questions now to the session organiser)

Why do I propose this topic ? I actually started several of the WMF initial policies. I can list all the following as WMF policies pages I created :

For anyone who ever wondered what I was doing back in 2006-2007, now you know. All of those have naturally evolved since then. I am not a lawyer and they needed professional polishing as WMF grew up. But they were already needed in 2006... at a time when the WMF was not the big boat it is today ;) Anthere (talk)