Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/People/Steering Committee

As response to the open call for participation in Working Groups, 172 applications were received. 91 applications were shortlisted by the Strategy Core Team; out of this shortlist, 88 applicants were selected by the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee consisted of 18 people who had already been involved in the Movement Strategy Process in different capacities (see table). The main function of the Steering Committee was to widen the group of people involved in reviewing the applications, and to apply the criteria of diversity, expertise and representation to the selection process as well as the Working Groups themselves. The members of the Steering Committee individually reviewed the shortlist prepared by the Strategy Core team, and 11 members later met in person, in relation to Wikimania 2018, to discuss and make final decisions about the candidates. The Working Group Members were announced on Friday, July 20 2018. However, the Working Groups do not yet have a level of diversity that represents the movement; the application form therefore remains open.

Why a Steering Committee?

At this stage in the Movement Strategy Process, Working Groups are being assembled to develop concrete recommendations for change on the structural level of our movement in key thematic areas, and how we might implement these recommendations. In an open call to all Wikimedians, the Core Team asked constituents of this movement to apply to join a Working Group on their specific topic of expertise.

The Core Team assembled a Steering Committee from members of the broader movement who were involved in Phase I of the Strategy Process. This includes members of the former Phase I Steering Committee, the Advisory Group for Track A, and the Strategic Direction Drafting Group. As with all aspects of the strategy process, the composition of the Steering Committee was sensitive to representation of the many forms of diversity in our global movement.

Members

Name	Affiliations	Location
Andrea Zanni	Wikimedia Italia; Wikisource leader	Italy
Bishakha Datta	Former Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, Current member of the FDC	India
Dumisani Ndubane	Wikimedia South Africa, former member of the FDC	South Africa
Netha Hussain	Diversity	India, Sweden
Liam Wyatt	Individual contributor, GLAM pioneer, member of the FDC	Italy
Anna Torres	Wikimedia Argentina	Argentina
Cindy Cicalese	Mediawiki Stakeholders' Group	USA
Sandister Tei	Wikimedia Ghana User Group	Ghana
Sandra Rientjes	Executive Director of Wikimedia Nederland	Netherlands
Farah Jack Mustaklem	Wikimedians of the Levant / Affcom	Palestine
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight	Affiliations Committee, WikiConference North America User Group	USA
Mykola Kozlenko	Member of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine	Ukraine
Risker	Individual contributor, Functionary, member of the Election Committee, member of the FDC	Canada
Lucy Crompton-Reid	Executive Director of Wikimedia UK	United Kingdom
Liang-chih Shang Kuan (Shangkuanlc)	Wikimedia Taiwan	Taiwan
Felix Nartey	Open Foundation West Africa, WMF Account Coordinator for the The Wikipedia Library, Project Grants Committee member	Ghana
Kartika Sari Henry	Wikimedia Indonesia	Indonesia
Florence Devouard	Former Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation; Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Women	France

Timeline

Date	Topic	Main responsibility
12 June - 2 July 2018	Open call for participation	Core Team
3-12 July 2018	Core Team reviews and assess the candidates	Core Team
13-18 July 2018	Committee assesses candidates and selects members Committee Meeting: 18 July, 18:00-23:00 SAST, Wikimania Cape Town	Steering Committee
19 July 2018	Information about acceptance/rejection to all applicants Invitation to join Strategy Sessions @ Wikimania for those who are there Announcement of the WMF Board of Trustees about their commitment and participation in the Movement Strategy Process	Core Team
20-22 July 2018	Public announcement of Working Group members Strategy Space & Strategy Bar at Wikimania Cape Town, report	Core Team
August-September	Map the gaps and grow the groups – Diversification of the Working Groups	Core Team, Working Groups

Core Team assessment

The Core Team received 172 applications for the nine Working Groups. After reviewing the applications, the Core Team provided the Steering Committee with a spreadsheet including all application data and an assessment of each applicant. The coding the team used for their recommendations is the following:

Yes:
- Yes (r) – Chosen as representatives by their group (WMF, FDC, AffCom, ED group)
- Yes – Recommendation and strong support by Core Team
Maybe:
- Maybe (y) – recommendation with an inclination towards yes
- Maybe (n) – recommendation with an inclination towards no
- Maybe – no preference
No
- Strong concerns about the person’s ability to work in the group, to leave their personal agenda aside or to work towards consensus
- Banned from projects or participant in major conflicts; evaluated with support from WMF’s Trust & Safety team
- Off topic application

Assessment (Coding)	Number
no opinion / COI	0
No	1
Maybe (n)	2
Maybe	3
Maybe (y)	4
Yes	5
Yes (r)	-

The Steering Committee assessment process

The Core Team asked the Steering Committee to present a decision on the accepted and declined applications. They were asked to focus on diversity and expertise of applicants instead of quantity. Overall, the sum of applications did not have a level of diversity that sufficiently represents the movement, that brings in new voices and that ensures a healthy disruption of the status quo. Therefore, the Core Team expected an initial round of members of no more than 6-10 people in most groups, and to open the application process again.

Aside from the individual assessment of the application data, a range of criteria were to be taken into account when making the decisions. Each Steering Committee member was asked to assess each candidate. Steering Committee members were asked to take the overall diversity in background, expertise and representation of each group into account when evaluating the candidates. Diversity or expertise gaps in the group, other remarks or concerns about the composition of a group, should be pointed out in the overall assessment column and – optionally – a recommendation on how to possibly fill them could be added.

The Core Team then converted all assessments that were provided by Wednesday, July 18, 18:00 SAST to numbers (on a scale from 1 to 5, see table), added all the numbers per candidate and divided the sum with the number of assessments given, to produce an average per Working Group. Candidates were then ranked according to their point average.

Per request from the Steering Committee, the Core Team scheduled an in-person meeting at Wikimania to be better able to assess and discuss all candidates as a group. At this meeting (Wednesday, July 18, 18:00 SAST), attended by 11 of the Steering Committee members, the committee assessed all candidates, discussed the issue of diversity and representation and – after 5 intense hours – concluded with a selection of Working Group members.

On July 19, Working Group applicants were informed about the status of their application, and on July 20, group members were announced publicly.

Guidelines for Steering Committee members

These are the guidelines the Core Team provided the Steering Committee with.

Potential Conflicts of Interest

Application from a Steering Committee member

The Steering Committee member declares the conflict in the spreadsheet (by marking the cell with “CoI”) and recuses themself from any assessment about their person, online, with the group or in personal conversations.

Application from a person that is affiliated to a Steering Committee member

“Affiliated” means a person from your home organisation or from a group or committee that you are a member of, too. The Steering Committee member declares the conflict in the spreadsheet (by marking the cell with “CoI”) and recuses themself from any assessment about these applicants.

Any other potential conflict of interest should also be declared to the committee.

The Core Team has declared their potential CoI in a dedicated cell, too, and members have recused from any assessment about the respective candidates.

Guidelines: Confidentiality and privacy protection

Any information in the documents and conversations around them is confidential and should not be shared in any public or private way outside of this committee and the Core Team.