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Wikimedia LGBT+/Governance/2023-10-13

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This online video conference is focused on the tasks of governance and the LGBT+ User Group. The meeting is intended as an opportunity for core organizers to discuss shared opportunities, challenges, and ideas.

The Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct will be followed for this meeting.

Attendees

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Agenda

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notes - https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Wikimedia_LGBT%2B%2FGovernance%2F2023-10-13

  • Reminder: October User Group mtg, @ 4:00pm GMT/UTC+0 (9:00am PT/12:00pm)
  • Membership registration
  • Board elections: Wikimedia LGBT+/Elections/2023, to-dos and who will do them
  • QW grant submitted
    • Context: We applied for 2022. That proposal changed from a conference in 2022, to events in both 2022 and 2023. The reporting of all of it changed to only close out now.
    • Last QW2023 expense was within the last month.
  • Grant proposal submitted Wikimedia LGBT+ requests US $100,000 from Wikimedia Foundation for administration in 2024
  • Fiscal Sponsorship
    • The Peace Development Fund was recommended to us.
    • We have a draft application, GovComm feedback is needed
    • Peace Development Fund, and many other fiscal sponsors, ask 7.5%
    • Let's state norms about how much we expect to spend on financial administration
    • We additionally have our own labor costs for financial administration. 2.5%? 5%? 10%?
    • We should discuss, because both Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia community often have expectations that the correct number is 0%, and no labor investment
    • Admin costs are to be expected and not a source of shame!
  • Conflict Management and Safe Space Complaints
    • Creating a plan
  • Updating Membership
    • Review email draft to membership with Governance updates
    • 10/16 submission deadline for The National LGBTQ Task Force, Creating Change Conference Proposals https://www.thetaskforce.org/creating-change/proposals/, Conference, New Orleans, 17-21 Jan, 2024
    • Anything else to discuss?

If we have time

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  • Movement Charter - drafts published, comments invited
  • How to react when experienced LGBT+ editors quit wiki due to harassment
  • Mapping out process after Board elections take place
  • Please add topics to this list here

Notes

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  1. Membership registration
    1. Membership registration launched Tuesday 12 September Wikimedia LGBT+/Membership/Registration-questions
    2. Advertising outside the Telegram group and mailing list?
    3. To-dos and who will do them
    4. currently have 48 responses
    5. deadline to register and be eligible to vote in next election is the 31 September
    6. Who can see the membership list?
      1. Right now, just the election committee, because that is the only group with a need to know and considering privacy considerations
      2. Current practice is that membership list is on a need to know basis, so governance and even board of trustees will not get default access to membership list without a governance decision
      3. Lane is point of contact for questions about access to membership list
    7. Can we invite the Queering Wikipedia attendee list to register as members of Wikimedia LGBT+?
      1. As always, we have privacy concerns.
      2. We think it is okay to email Queering Wikipedia attendees and invite them to register as Wikimedia LGBT+ members
      3. We will invite them
  2. Board elections: Wikimedia LGBT+/Elections/2023, to-dos and who will do them
    1. Only registered members can vote
    2. Only registered members can stand as candidates
    3. 1–15 November 2023 - candidate nomination period
    4. 16–30 November 2023 - Voting
    5. This is the last governance committee meeting before election starts!
    6. What documentation do we need translated?
    7. FYI - notice given to Wikimedia Foundation elections committee at Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee#Local_elections_for_Wikimedia_affiliate_roles_and_issues
    8. (Lane explained the process to attendees)
    9. Can we see a sample of the ballot before the election?
      1. Yes - the election system allows a practice vote before the election
    10. What will the practice vote look like?
      1. probably fake candidate names
      2. we could also do a ballot which is an exact copy of the actual ballot, except that it is clearly labeled as a ballot for pre-election examination
    11. How will we check eligibility of those registering for membership in Wikimedia LGBT+?
      1. It is challenging but the election committee will attempt to do so
      2. If anyone is deemed ineligible, the election committee will take that to the governance committee before taking action or disallowing someone's membership
    12. How can we get people to stand for candidate for trustee?
      1. We cannot rely on the reputation of Wikimedia LGBT+ to draw people to volunteer for board
      2. Tell anyone to personally invite candidates
      3. We do not have confirmation that any individual is going to stand for candidate
    13. How do we get suitable candidates for trustee?
      1. We are going to have to develop this process over time
      2. There are best practices for this
      3. The Wikimedia Foundation has talked for years about developing resources to train leadership, but have nothing which is broadly recognized as popular or helpful
      4. New organizations like Wikimedia LGBT+ often first have boards which focus on operations and administration, which is not ideal. Eventually we want a board to help guide strategy
  3. QW grant submitted
    1. See 2022-2023 QW grant report: Grants:Conference/QW23/QW2023/Report, submitted to the WMF, under review
    2. Context: We applied for 2022. That proposal changed from a conference in 2022, to events in both 2022 and 2023. The reporting of all of it changed to only close out now.
    3. Last QW2023 expense was within the last month.
    4. We had about US$3000 left over. We could return, but requested to spend this money on administration through 31 December 2023.
    5. No reaction from Wikimedia Foundation in response to submission
    6. no acknowledgement of receipt
    7. no news is usually good news
  4. What about next Queering Wikipedia event?
    1. We do not have a budget for one - the grant request we made is for Wikimedia LGBT+ administration and not an event
    2. the Wikimedia Foundation suggested that they would fund a Queering Wikipedia on a two-year cycle of doing smaller strategic planning meetings then larger public LGBT+ conferences
    3. We would like to do a strategy planning meeting in 2024
      1. this should include some expert participation from outside the Wikimedia Movement, such as a partnership with LGBT+ organizations
      2. We should plan to take a position and response on major global issues, like widespread anti-transgender violence and sentiment
    4. We have relationships with two Wikimedia Foundation grant office affiliations - Chen for Queering Wikipedia and strategic planning, and the North American grants committee for administrative support of the routine Wikimedia activities which we want to do, and the WMF also wants us to do
    5. volunteer commitment to Queering Wikipedia
      1. running a conference is a big deal, takes lots of volunteers
      2. A lot of people love Queering Wikipedia and believe in it and invest lots of time into it
      3. In Queering Wikipedia and as a pattern with lots of Wikimedia Movement conferences, volunteers get disappointed that conferences are insufficiently resourced to address major problems, credit contributors, or otherwise do anything like a normal conference
      4. Wikipedias will tolerate conferences in harsh conditions because they believe in them and because everyone knows that we do not have the resources that typically are in place for typical conferences
      5. For other Wikimedia conferences, it is known in the Wikimedia community that conferences can burn relationships with supporters who volunteer and get disappointed with the chaotic results
      6. Queering Wikipedia seems like it was a good conference, with few problems, and no serious issues
      7. There are some volunteers whom we expect to rejoin organizing future events, but who also expect us to somehow better resource the event and have a more organized event
      8. Again - none of us know of any destroyed / burnt relationship from anything Queering Wikipedia related
    6. Separation of Queering Wikipedia from Wikimedia LGBT+
      1. there is no desire to separate Queering Wikipedia from Wikimedia LGBT+ exactly
      2. however, Wikimedia LGBT+ does a lot of things, and the Queering Wikipedia team could be relatively independent as conference organization is a specialized skill set which can be distinct from many day to day operational issues in Wikimedia LGBT+
      3. We have no staff, we have no money, all of our activities are volunteered managed, and our community expects functionality of all things
      4. If we had a standing organizational team to run Queering Wikipedia, then Wikimedia LGBT+ would like that
      5. There are so many other requested programs where if we had staff, we would run them through a program manager. Again, no staff
  5. Grant proposal submitted Wikimedia LGBT+ requests US $100,000 from Wikimedia Foundation for administration in 2024
    1. Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Sustaining Wikimedia LGBT+
    2. Much discussed for years and much developed for months
    3. Sharing details with membership Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Sustaining Wikimedia LGBT+
    4. Should be no surprises to governance committee, but questions now?
  6. Fiscal Sponsorship
    1. A WMF contact recommended the Peace Development Fund to us as a fiscal sponsor which has previously supported Wikimedia organizations
    2. We have a draft application, GovComm feedback is needed
    3. About that application
      1. It took 20 pages of single space text
      2. Much of that text is original content
      3. Some of the questions make sense for us; some do not apply
      4. They ask about finances for past few years, and wanted to know our smaller scale stuff
    4. Can we repurpose this application?
      1. Some of this is a snapshot of where Wikimedia LGBT+ is now
      2. there is no one in particular who has requested to see this
      3. It may be a historically curiosity but it is not where we were a year ago, and not where we will be next year, so this is not a resource which we want people to use to learn about Wikimedia LGBT+
      4. There are some personal details in this which we would remove
    5. Let's state norms about how much we expect to spend on financial administration
      1. Peace Development Fund, and many other fiscal sponsors, ask 7.5%
      2. We additionally have our own labor costs for financial administration. 2.5%? 5%? 10%?
      3. We should discuss, because both Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia community often have expectations that the correct number is 0%, and no labor investment
      4. Admin costs are to be expected and not a source of shame!
  7. Conflict Management and Safe Space Complaints
    1. Creating a plan
    2. Updating Membership
    3. Review email draft to membership with Governance updates
    4. Election is the main reason for doing this, but we should be giving periodic updates
    5. Do we name Dorothy as administrative executive?
    6. She is already serving in this role
    7. We have crazy stalkers who harass everyone we name
    8. If we name Dorothy then that makes another call for stalkers to harass her
    9. Dorothy consents to be named publicly
    10. 10/16 submission deadline for The National LGBTQ Task Force, Creating Change Conference Proposals https://www.thetaskforce.org/creating-change/proposals/, Conference, New Orleans, 17-21 Jan, 2024
      1. Could be an opportunity for connecting our challenges with infrastructure in the broader LGBT+ movement
    11. Grant application for conflict management
      1. We applied for money from a civic organization which wanted proposals for developing conflict management infrastructure
      2. our application was denied
      3. the organization gave reasons!
      4. They told us we should get money from the Wikimedia Foundation. Of course the Wikimedia Foundation told us to get external money for this
  8. Anything else to discuss?
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