Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/News and notes

Wikimedia community ratifies Movement Charter, Wikimedia Foundation rejects ratification
As The Signpost has recently reported, the Wikimedia Movement Charter is a document which negotiates power sharing between the Wikimedia Foundation as a corporation and the Wikimedia community of volunteer content contributors. One way to describe the situation is that the Wikimedia Foundation does fundraising and holds the money which sponsors the Wikimedia Movement, but the Wikimedia community of users actually produce the content and define the ethics and values which motivate donors to give money.

With increasing regularity, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia user community have differing opinions of right versus wrong, which strategic direction is preferable, and what projects get funding when resources are scarce. The hope is that a Movement Charter would clarify which powers and responsibilities are in the control of paid staff versus the volunteer user community. The stakes of this discussion include determining who decides how to spend Wikimedia Movement money, which include the US$250 million in assets and $180 million in revenue for the last reported year. The Wikimedia Foundation is keen on using the money to support programs of interest to Wikimedia Foundation staff, and the user community of content creators wishes to use the money for different programs of interest to content creators.

The present news is that the Movement Charter ratification vote was held between 25 June and 9 July 2024. The results were as follows:
 * ✅ Ratified by individual Wikimedia users Individual voters like you voted 73% in favor and 27% opposed. There were 2,446 valid votes, with 1,710 “yes”; 623 voted “no”; and 113 "neutral".
 * ✅ Ratified by Wikimedia affiliate organizations Wiki community organizations voted 86% in favor and 16% opposed. There were 93 votes for “yes”; 18 “no”; and 18 "neutral".

On 8 July the Wikimedia Foundation board held their own vote for ratification and on 11 July, before the community's election committee announced the results of the community vote, the WMF gave their position:
 * ❌ Not ratified by the Wikimedia Foundation The Board of Trustees voted 11:1 to approve a Resolution rejecting the movement charter and setting out a timeline for alternative steps. The only dissenting vote was by Mike Peel, who according to the Minutes stated his support for the draft movement charter in the meeting. Board member Nataliia Tymkiv (user:antanana) announced that the board would not ratify the Movement Charter.

WMF Trustee Victoria Doronina criticized the Movement Charter because it "clearly presents an attempt at a power grab by the affiliates." Regarding the Wikimedia community election on ratification, it lacks validity because "'The quorum' is only 2% (!) of the eligible voters, and who know how many of them are the affiliates members". As an option for community members who disagree with the board's actions, Victoria suggests "By all means, replace me and the other (Board of Trustee) members running for the reelection by the candidates that supported the charter – and see if that changes anything." The Wikimedia Foundation board has proposed its own alternative plan, the Appendix to the Vote on the proposed Movement Charter.

Wikimedia community members are discussing the results on Meta-Wiki talk pages and in the Wikimedia-l email mailing list.

-Bri, BR, AK

WMF soft launches Bulletin
The Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin is "an experiment on establishing a regular communication on highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's technical work, work with communities and affiliates, as well as other stakeholders like readers, donors, regulators, the media and the public."


 * Listing of 2024 issues: Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin/2024
 * Latest bulletin (as of 11 July 2024): Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin/2024/07-01
 * Subscribing to it: Global_message_delivery/Targets/Wikimedia_Foundation_Bulletin

U4C Special elections
The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election is accepting candidates through 19 July, with voting from 27 July – 10 August. The first U4C election which concluded in June only filled 7 of the 16 seats, one short of a quorum. There are four community-at-large seats, plus five regional seats open.

The regional seats are for:
 * North America (USA and Canada)
 * Latin America and Caribbean
 * Central and East Europe (CEE)
 * Sub-Saharan Africa, and
 * South Asia

A rule to ensure diversity across home projects, means that candidates from the English, German, and Italian Wikipedias – which each had two members elected in the first election – cannot run in this election. This rule has resulted in the odd case that the North America (USA and Canada) regional seat cannot be filled be somebody who claims the English Wikipedia as their home project.

Brief notes

 * Annual reports: Wikimedia Community User Group Tanzania
 * New AffCom newsletter: The Affiliations Committee published the first issue of its newsletter Affiliations Committee/News/Issue 1
 * Global bans: Nipponese Dog Calvero/KAGE/影武者, since 2024-07-09


 * New low ebb for active administrators: While we were getting ready to go to press with the last issue of The Signpost, a new low point of 430 active administrators was reached on June 30. It has risen above 440 just once since mid May.