Wikimedia LGBT/2023-02-06

This was a semi-private meeting announced in various Wikimedia LGBT+ channels. The most public announcement channel was the telegram group.

Attendees

Owen
Kat
Freddy
Lane
others

Notes

Agree agenda [2 min, chair]
1. Do we have quorum? Yes
2. Confirm the chair? Yes
Required oversight for payments and budgets: relating to QW2022 (1st part) and closing that budget line + Planned budget or funds to be spent on QW2022 (2nd part) [Owen? 15 mins]
1. We viewed and reviewed the budget for Wikimedia Austria's fiscal sponsorship
2. about the budget itself
  1. For anyone who is unaware, this situation persists:
  2. Wikimedia Austria is fiscal sponsorship of Wikimedia LGBT+
  3. Wikimedia LGBT+ has accounting records and so does Wikimedia Austria
  4. We have observed that Wikimedia LGBT+ and Wikimedia Austria have different records, and different ways of presenting their financial records
  5. There seems to be no error here, just some differences in documentation processes.
  6. The key difference is that the original grant proposal overlooked the administrative overheards for the fiscal sponsor. The WMLGBT+ spreadsheet has adjusted the line-item budgets to reflect the same proportions of the remaining budget after that overhead, whereas the WMAT spreadsheet does not (yet) account for that overhead.
  7. The Wikimedia Austria budget is going to be the canonical / official budget. We just have not reconciled the LGBT+ budget with theirs yet.
  8. It is expected that Owen of LGBT+ will talk with Claudia of Austria and talk through the differences.
3. there is a budget surplus
  1. for various reasons we have an underspend
  2. one reason for the underspend is that we had a small Queering Wikipedia 2022 event instead of the much larger one that we proposed in our grant request to the Wikimedia Foundation
  3. another reason is that we planned having other programs after the 2022 event
  4. We have made offers of money and gifts to a number of people. Many people refuse for reasons including the following:
    1. they prefer to have a volunteer-only relationship with Wikimedia LGBT+
    2. if we offer a prize for crowdsourced activity, they like the idea of the outreach campaign, but would not actually want to accept any valuable reward
    3. some people have legal questions about being a contractor for Wikimedia LGBT+, and have no administrative capacity to answer questions. The most we can do is accept an invoice from them and get them paid by the fiscal sponsor. Tax questions are out of scope. Other issues arise and similarly we have no capacity to give responses.
4. Can we close the 2022 budget and transfer the surplus to a new budget?
  1. this would help us communicate more clearly about start and end dates of our project
  2. we would like to separate Queering Wikipedia 2022 into its own budget to report it with finality
  3. We may need to set the endpoint in Feburary because we still have vendors whom we have not been able to pay for the Queering Wikipedia 2022 conference from months ago
  4. Perhaps our 2023 budget would start in March 2023, with everything till the end of February 2023 going in the previous budget which we want to report
5. Action: Owen will need to get the 2022 finances and 2023 budget approved by GovCom over email
User Group incorporation plan [Owen/anyone else 10 mins]
1. Are we comfortable with incorporation plans?
2. Plan:
  1. When we have capacity after the May events of Queering Wikipedia, then we plan more
  2. Anna Mazgal, acting executive director of Wikimedia Europe, will advise is in the future
  3. plan is to incorporate in Europe and get a seat in Wikimedia Europe
  4. incorporate in Brussels as an AISBL, which is a relatively easy place to visit if there is a need, but we anticipate no need as they allow online management
  5. en:Nonprofit organization laws by jurisdiction
  6. Association internationale sans but lucratif (French for "international non-profit organisation")
3. We expect that this will take a few thousand dollars for registration
4. here is the procedure:
  1. application happens in French (or Dutch / Flemish, but not English)
  2. drafting notarial deed <-----this is the hardest step, it is finalising all our organisational statutes / articles of association
  3. executing deed
  4. application for legal recognition by Belgian Federal Justice Department
  5. get a royal decree recognizing the personality of the corporation from the royal court: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_of_Belgium
  6. publication that the AISBL now exists
5. we will need to consult with a local lawyer
  1. we need to survey community for questions
  2. Should we have anyone physically present in Brussels? - No. There could be some parts which are easier but this is not required.
  3. can we have some pseudononymous officers representing the organization? What are requirements for officers?
6. how should we pay for lawyer?
  1. There are nonprofit organizations which provide free or low-cost legal service. We could apply for such services, but that is a labor cost in itself
  2. The Wikimedia Foundation has said they would support us in paying for legal advice and the other costs of incorporation
7. incorporation is a lower priority than Queering Wikipedia 2023
8. Action: GovCom (or a subcommittee team) to prep docs — especially initial questions for the lawyer and setting up a members register — ahead of QW2023 if possible
Agree on whether the new multi-year system of funding the user group [Lane 10 mins]
1. proposed by Chen (WMF grants) and the implications for incorporation is to become part of a 2023/24 strategy.
2. we need to hire an executive director for Wikimedia LGBT+
  1. at minimum, we need a part-time director
  2. we have repeatedly discussed this and agreed upon it
  3. challenges:
    1. if we do not have a very experienced Wikimedian then the executive will need lots of Wikimedia support from volunteers or otherwise, and this is difficult
    2. we need to use a recruiter to help us define this role and seek applicants, because the Wikimedia community as a whole has little experience with converting from an online global group into a formal organization with staff
    3. recruiting is difficult. We want to ask existing Wikimedia chapters for applicants but we think we can get good applicants from outside the Wikimedia community, and we need consultants to help us with that applicant pool
    4. we need to set clear goals for the executive
    5. the Wikimedia Foundation has offered us money to develop in multiple directions, and we are in agreement to accept that money
    6. we do not want to hire an executive until we have a new board in place
    7. we plan to call for board members soon
    8. we need to confirm a multi-year plan with the Wikimedia Foundation so that we can hire an executive with the potential to stay for several years
3. Lane is meeting with this organization - (unable to share publicly)
  1. (organization) is an organization which provides fiscal sponsorship and administrative support for hire for small or volunteer organizations which are transitioning to be more organized
  2. this organization is activist in the Open Movement so ideologically aligns with Wikimedia projects
  3. (follow up from later in the month - that org not interested in Wikipedia, so there may not be further updates)
4. Action: Someone (Owen?): When we meet with Chen next (to sign off QW2022 ahead of QW2023) we should present "this is what we were thinking about how the org would work; does that make sense?"
Plan for WMLGBT+ board and initial composition (bootstrap) (Who's going to lead on this? Jeffrey could provide some useful insight...)
1. One view:
  1. Sometime after QW2023 we set a timeline for formalizing an elected board
  2. start by creating a register of members
  3. publish some information about incorporation and what it would mean for trustees to be an officer for that legal entity
  4. set up an election page to publicly talk through the establishment of a board
  5. we expect that there will be about 4 meetings a year
  6. many kinds of trustees could be effective. Most will likely be experienced Wikimedia editors, but we may have someone with no Wikimedia experience but who can advise on accounting or some special issue (or from elsewhere in the Open Knowledge movement, outside the Wikimedia Movement specifically)
2. English language will be supported and a norm in the beginning as with many global Wikimedia groups. We may establish with support for Spanish for all meetings. We might not support other languages in the beginning. Wikimedians will ask about this and we want diversity but right now we might struggle for capacity.
  1. We may establish Wikimedia LGBT+ with a budget for translation of everything into Spanish, with interpreters at every meeting
  2. There is significant demand for support for Spanish language. For this to happen we would need Spanish interpretation at all public meetings, and this built in from the beginning. This is not necessarily difficult or expensive to arrange.
3. Board membership duration
  1. There is general advice to not replace more than 50% of the board in any one year. We want to plan to avoid this.
  2. For the Wikimedia Foundation, there are 3 year terms and many trustees stay for 6 years. Wiki LGBT+ will probably use a similar system.
  3. For the first election we are considering only having 4 seats, and to grow the board in future years. We might start with 4 non-elected seats, possibly of a shorter bord term.
4. Lane has substantial experience around arranging elections for Affiliates and recommends buying a third-party service that specialises in doing this well — the range and quality of such services is very good right now
Grant applications for research
1. Lane intends to apply for university research funding (non-WMF) to do projects related to LGBT issues in Wikimedia projects.
2. This requires no reaction from Wikimedia LGBT+
3. FYI - anyone can do this, but Lane's participation in Wikimedia LGBT+ makes for better grant proposals to external, non-WMF funders
  1. In the future when there is a board, then there will also be some kind of committee for external partnerships which get logged
  2. Perhaps the process will be that if anyone wishes to disclose anything to Wikimedia LGBT+, they can do so with the designated board committee
  3. there are established processes for doing this in charity law and eventually we will develop our own practices
Supporting minoritised editors (and that we're perpetually under attack)
1. It is increasingly clear that Wikimedia affiliates who support minoritized editors or content are frequent targets for harassment and attack
2. this includes targeting prominent Wikimedia contributors who support entire large communities, to the major detriment of many people
3. For various reasons, Wikimedia LGBT+ community members wish to better document and publicize more instances of harassment of Wikimedia community members
4. There are support services for harassed community members. Each case is special, but in general, victims do not get support without requesting it. Also victims would be more likely to request support if they could do so with the backing of Wikimedia LGBT+ when useful.
5. Some routine cases:
  1. Editors who develop articles about LGBT+ issues, women, and LGBT+ people are accused of bias or problematic editing when Wikimedia LGBT+ sees nothing unusual about their activity
  2. In any places where there is a majority perspective of any kind, people with the minority perspective are more likely to get criticism and accusations.
  3. Repeatedly we have users approach us with years of records of their harassment but who do not want to litigate in the Wikimedia bureaucracy for support and protection, due to the burden of organizing notes and requesting aid. Also requesting help makes victims more vulnerable to yet more harassment.
  4. On-wiki processes are generally ineffective, as they are handled by functionaries elected by the majority and who are not necessarily understanding of or symapathetic to minority issues
  5. We may want to publish open letters to the Wikimedia Foundation, to the world, to other sponsors, or to other partners, for which we will need signatories. The signatories may be vulnerable to extra targeting.
  6. As a global and multicultural community, we have harassment reports and harassment procedures which have independently developed in various languages and communities. Consequently, requests by different stakeholder communities come from different directions and have different goals. We may need to reconcile multiple community members before making bold statements.
WMAR, A+F, WMLGBT+ working together on English translation of WMAR guide to LGBTT+ biographies
1. After Wikimedia Argentina's document "Wikipedia y las biografías de personas LGBTT+", Owen has been working with Vic Sfriso from WMAR and the team from Art+Feminism to translate it into English. Vic has written a guide to the Spanish term "travesti" (very roughly equivalent to the reclaimed English term "queer") and Owen has said the User Group will arrange someone to write a short essay about the changing use of language used as self-descriptions for trans people in English, preferably from the era of Molly Houses to the current day, including the change from 1970s' "cross-dressers and transvestites" through "transsexual" and "transgender" to just "trans" now.
2. Action: GovCom members to think about anyone who might be suitable for and interested in writing this short essay
3. Action: Owen to raise the question on the mailing list and Telegram
4. Action: Owen to arrange for this essay to (at the very least) touch upon how existing MOS guidelines fail the queer community (using the words of UCoC), with the intention of using it in the future as part of an RFC on Meta
any other business
1. none this is enough