Movement Charter/Content

Movement Charter

Updates

Content

Community Consultation

Committee

Ratification

This page highlights some of the draft content of the Movement Charter. This content will keep changing until the Movement Charter is ratified, which is expected to take place in 2023.

Charter Content Narrative

Draft visualization of the "Community" area of the Movement Charter's narrative (from the Committee's in-person meeting in June 2022).

(A preliminary narrative of how the charter content is to be developed, from the Movement Charter Drafting Committee as of May 2022.)

The movement charter has as its preamble a Values Statement, which summarizes and eloquently expresses all that we hold dear in the broadest terms.

Actionable items that drive the actual policies can be drawn from a broad range of potential ideas and are sorted into three categories or buckets: for Governance, Resources and Community. These can also be conceived as the basic mechanisms that play a role in (1) political, (2) economic and (3) social/informational domains, and are a very functional way to divide the roles. All potential ideas and proposals that have a direct impact on policy would be sorted into one of these categories, including proposals from previous phases and also new proposals from the communities.

Each of the categories, or buckets, would be seeded by the MCDC with the best and broadest of ideas drawn from previous phases, as well as the MCDC’s own discussions. There would be room for review, clarification and new proposals from community members on the Meta-Wiki content-category subpage and through other platforms that will be cross-posted.

Outline

After its in-person meeting in June 2022, the Drafting Committee agreed on a rough outline or "table of contents" of the Movement Charter. The agreed-upon outline is the following (the orange color indicates that a chapter is being drafted and may have ongoing consultations, consult the timeline for details):

Chapter	Content description
Preamble	Definition of the Charter and its purpose.
Values & Principles	Core values and collaboration principles for the whole movement.
Definitions	Definition of key concepts outlined in the Charter.
Global Council	Definition of the Global Council as the main future global movement governance body. This section will expand the description of the Global Council's role in the Movement Strategy recommendations. It may also outline the process for setting up the Global Council.
Roles & Responsibilities	Definition of roles and responsibilities of movement entities. This likely includes definitions about the roles of entities like the Board of Trustees, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia affiliates and communities, among others.
Decision-Making	Definition of global decision-making processes. This may apply for decisions that simultaneously affect many stakeholders across the Wikimedia movement, including the Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates and communities, among others.
Amendments & Implementation	Definition of Charter amendment and implementation processes. This describes how the changes to the Movement Charter are made after it is first ratified. It also describes how the changes envisioned in the Movement Charter to the Wikimedia movement will be implemented and enforced in practice.
Appendices / Glossary	Detailed outline of key content and definitions of the key terms used in each chapter of the Movement Charter.

Start reading the first 3 draft sections of the Charter →

Related documents

• “Ensure Equity in Decision-making” strategy recommendation in the Movement Strategy 2030 - the recommendation in the Movement Strategy 2030 that asks for a charter.
• 12/13 June Global Conversations 2021: Community dscussion of the content and structure of the Movement Charter.
  • The outcome: The proposed content frame of the Movement Charter that emerged from these meetings.
• Discussion notes from a meeting on drafting the movement charter (April 2021)
• Roles & Responsibilities recommendations 4&5 in Strategy iteration 2 (2019) -- Draft of the Movement Strategy proposal to introduce a Movement Charter.
• Wikimedia Chapters Association: Charter (2012) -- The proposed Wikimedia Chapters Association had a Charter with some similar aspects.
  • Chapters Council: Draft charter of the Wikimedia Chapters Association -- March 2012 prehistory of the WCA chapter
• Movement roles project: Charter issues (2010)
• Movement roles project: Charter topics (2010)
• Movement Charter input by User:The Land (2021)
• Nano Charter concept page (2021)
• Wikimedia Deutschland: The Future of Wikimedia Governance (2021)