User:Risker/MCDC Thoughts

Disclaimer: This is a personal essay detailing my own thoughts on being a member of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) from its inception in November 2021 to its sunsetting in August 2024. It does not represent the views of any other members of the MCDC, the Wikimedia Foundation, the WMF staff who supported the MCDC, or anyone other than me.

The lead-up to the MCDC

In the period 2016 to 2019, I participated in several movement strategy activities, including assisting in drafting the strategic direction, and actively participating in the Roles & Responsibilities Working Group. Because of these activities, I was well-informed about the Movement Strategy Recommendations, and in particular Recommendation #4 (Ensure equity in decision-making), which had primarily sprung from the work of the R&R Group. I was also aware that the MS Recommendations had not really been subject to wide community discussion, and had been approved "in principle" by the WMF Board of Trustees.

I was surprised when I was alerted to the fact that the decision had been taken to initiate a Movement Charter Drafting Committee so early in the process of implementing the strategy. The recommendation itself outlined what should be contained in the charter, and several of the points were the subject of their own recommendations, which were only in the earliest stages of progress. Nonetheless, I was approached by several people from different walks of Wikimedia life to put my name forward for the MCDC, both because of my prior experience and familiarity with the strategy, and because I have a reputation for getting things done within a consensus-based framework.

The process to determine the membership of the MCDC was somewhat unsettling. All candidates had to post their self-nominations (including the two candidates who would be selected by the WMF), and there were rumblings that several people who put their name forward did so under considerable pressure. The self-nomination process was changed multiple times leading up to the election. The process for selecting "regional" seats was changed at the last minute to run subsequent to the election rather than concurrent to it. There was no provision to fill a subsequent vacancy in a "regional" seat. The overwhelming majority of candidates were past or present board members, staff or members of affiliates or the WMF, although this group only makes up a minority of active Wikimedians. Ultimately, the committee that was elected and selected had only two members with no affiliation/WMF ties. In fairness, several of those with affiliate ties had a long history of active participation on one or more projects, which was helpful in considering potential charter effects on volunteers who were primarily contributors. Only one MCDC member (a WMF appointee) had extensive experience in the developer/technical sphere. One member of the MCDC required translation support in order to participate optimally, and the initial call for candidates had anticipated this. I believe all MCDC members felt that this was a very valuable support, and in fact came to regard our 'regular' interpreter as part of the team; however, things could have become quite complicated if several members needed this support.

Recommendations:

The MCDC itself was reliant on a strategic recommendation that had rather narrow community discussion. It may well have been worthwhile to have a community vote on whether or not a movement charter was something the broad community wanted, even before the MCDC process was created.
Concerns about election rules should be addressed before nominations close. Nomination periods should not be extended provided there are sufficient candidates to meet the requirements for membership. Once voting has started, any processes related to election/selection should be considered final and not subject to change. This is applicable regardless of the type of election occurring.
There is benefit in ensuring that there is broad geographic and project-type participation in major movement discussions; however, it may be worthwhile to rethink whether geographic regions should be the same as those for the grant-making bodies. It should also be noted that there is a significant mismatch between geographic regions and language groups, particularly the large language groups of Spanish, French, and English.
Consider establishing a minimum number of seats for individuals who hold no other affiliation than that of volunteer developer and/or contributor to one or more projects for any future committee tasked with developing part or all of a movement charter. It should be possible to ensure that 20% to 30% of members are unaffiliated volunteers. (The MCDC's initial membership was 13% unaffiliated, with no volunteer developers.)
Translation/interpretation support is critical for ensuring diverse participation in any movement process, and that includes participation on committees. Thought should be given to how best to handle this, especially concurrent translation during meetings. It is an expensive process, but is essential to ensuring effective participation in what we all agree is a global, multilingual movement.

Early days of the MCDC

The newly-seated members of the MCDC had their first online meeting in November 2021. While many of us had worked with a few other members before, none of us had met or worked with everyone on the committee. Many members had never been on a committee that would have global impact, and most had not worked with WMF trustees before. There had been no formal structures in place for the MCDC at its inception, and the members were expected to create their own working rules. It was made clear from the beginning that the MCDC would receive financial support from the WMF, but was not considered a WMF committee. The MCDC, in its early months, tried to get to know each other on Zoom calls (a difficult process), and developed some basic structures and working rules. This took a few months. The MCDC, however, did identify early on that its mandate was specifically to create a charter in accord with Recommendation #4 of the 2030 Strategy, and that it could not and would not act as an interim global council. The lack of an in-person meeting bringing all members together was a major block; it was hard to come to agreements or to really understand each other's positions with short, biweekly, online meetings. The WMF had imposed severe traveling restrictions due to the Covid pandemic. These were finally lifted in early 2022, and the MCDC met in person in June 2022. That in-person meeting was very productive, and established the framework for the Movement Charter that was ultimately brought to the broad community. Many of the key features, including the voting process and the key chapters, were outlined at that meeting. Because of the immensity of the task, the MCDC established multiple sub-groups to draft specific content or to carry out specific activities. Chapters were prioritized, and intense work on the first priority chapters started immediately after the June 2022 meeting.

Recommendations:

Based on the number of existing committees within the movement, it should be possible to create a skeleton of minimum structures required for a committee to function, and some options for committee policies such as conflict of interest, managing inactivity, replacing members, and similar.
The MCDC's mandate was unclear at the time of the creation of the committee. This is something that should be avoided for future committees.

The relationship between the MCDC and the WMF and WMF trustees

The relationship with the WMF trustees who were acting as liaisons between the MCDC and the WMF Board was challenging right from the beginning, because their role was unclear, especially as the MCDC was not "reporting" to the Board. There was an offer early on for the liaisons to become full voting members of the MCDC, but this offer was declined. The perspective of the MCDC was that the liaisons should either be full members, or observers only. My personal perception of the unwillingness of the Board liaisons to take on a more active role in the charter drafting process was that it created an element of distrust and distance between the MCDC and the liaisons. On the other hand, the WMF Board had never been in a situation where individual trustees were full members of a committee. Historically, they only sat as liaisons on committees whose mandate derived from the Board; thus, they too were in an unfamiliar situation for which there was no established process or rules. The fact that there were WMF-appointed staff on the MCDC, as well as Board liaisons, created an illusion that the WMF Board and the WMF itself were essentially two entities, and that was unhelpful. Throughout the course of the MCDC, various attempts were made to facilitate better communication between the WMF Board and the MCDC; these started with having two MCDC members invited to Board meetings, and eventually there were full-scale meetings between the full MCDC and the WMF Board, although this was perhaps too late in the process to have as much impact as was desired by both sides. Part of this was timing; the second round of charter chapters was published immediately before Wikimania Singapore, which did not allow the Board enough time to really consider them and offer considered feedback as a group. Having said that, many other groups were able to provide useful feedback within the following 6-8 weeks, at which point the MCDC started to develop its consolidated draft for comment. There was also something of a disconnect between MCDC and WMF executive leadership.

Recommendations:

The WMF Board of Trustees should consider the nature of their involvement in Movement processes. As the leaders of the core movement body, the host of the content that drives the movement, and the chief funding organization of movement processes, they have a role that is very different from any other movement entity. I don't have the answer to what their role should be; however, as leaders selected by the largest group of movement participants, I think they need to figure out how to be more active than simply taking a liaison role. In particular, it is important that non-elected trustees keep themselves informed and involved in these processes where possible. As well, it may be necessary for the Board to authorize individual trustees to speak on behalf of the Board in a more timely manner, rather than having to wait for the next quarterly meeting to have that discussion.
The MCDC, which had staff support from the WMF, and had two members selected from the WMF staff (as well as another member who was also WMF staff but was selected in her volunteer capacity), did not have a relationship with WMF executive leadership until very late in the process, when the VP responsible for strategy began sitting in on our meetings. The MCDC didn't particularly seek out such a relationship, and it is only in retrospect that it seems to me that much of WMF leadership was watching closely but trying not to intervene except at the request of the MCDC. (The MCDC consulted in a limited way with Legal, Advancement, and Finance.) Regularly scheduled discussions between the MCDC and WMF executives would have been useful.

Drafting the content of the charter

By far, the biggest challenge for the MCDC was drafting the charter. Aside from the 2030 Strategy documents, there was no content anywhere that covered the movement as a whole. The initial documents (preamble, values and principles) were created from a mixture of existing WMF documents, some information from the strategy, and the perspectives of the individuals who were drafting these sections. These sections ultimately became the introduction and the volunteers sections in the final draft. The roles and responsibilities section was largely based on the existing affiliate structure that had been in place for 10+ years; this was largely because the strategy recommendations related to the affiliate structure were in their very early stages of action. The hubs section was largely based on a proposal that is still in its trial phase and has had limited evaluation. These two sections were merged together in the final draft. The ratification section was drafted with the range of stakeholders in mind. The amendment section was only published in the final draft charter. What was intended to be a section on decision-making wound up incorporated into various sections. Aside from the amendment section, all of the content underwent a multi-stage review and revision: first from the MCDC as a whole after the initial drafting by a smaller group; then through community consultations, advisor consultations, legal consultations, on-wiki consultations, in-person consultations, and was the primary subject of two Wikimedia Summits. The final draft was the result of all of this collaborative work.

There was no consideration on the part of the MCDC or commenters on the various draft chapters and final draft that any sections of the proposed charter should be approved separate from the charter itself. Even at the earliest stages of the development of the charter, we knew we were running the risk of creating "voter fatigue" just because of the extensive consultation that was being undertaken, so additional votes were not considered.

It is difficult to comprehend the mental and physical workload involved in all of this consultation. Feedback was often contradictory, which made reconciliation between the feedback and the draft nearly impossible. Most members were putting in 10 hours or more a week - some as many as 20 or 30. It had significant impacts on the mental and physical well-being of many MCDC members, affected our ability to maintain strong connections with contributing, and created tensions amongst others outside the MCDC who turned out to have disagreements amongst themselves. And that's before I even start talking about the Global Council.

The Global Council

The topic that created the greatest disagreement throughout the MCDC, the affiiates, and the contributing community, was the Global Council. Its inclusion in the charter was a critical aspect of the MCDC's mandate. Many affiliates appeared to believe that it was the principal purpose of the charter. And yet, there was little agreement anywhere within the movement as to what it should do, what problems its existence would solve. The opinions ranged from "the WMF should be reporting to the Global Council" to "we don't need or want any more bureaucracy" - and there was very little middle ground. Perhaps symptomatic of the fact that the purpose of the Global council was so unclear was the fact that everyone (MCDC included) spent more time and energy on the form of the Global Council than its role within the movement. And again, there was little agreement as to what it should look like, ranging from "every project and affiliate should have a seat" to "we don't need this at all". And again, there was little middle ground, although a Global Council with around 75 to 150 members seemed to have some support. Of all the time the MCDC worked on this charter, the Global Council took up more time, energy, and mental workload than the rest of the charter put together. Ultimately, and with an extraordinary amount of work by just about everyone on the MCDC, we came up with the final proposal that outlined a few specific responsibilities (mostly related to managing affiliates and grantmaking), and a two-layer Global Council that started with a comparatively small number of members and a phased-in growth plan. Nobody really liked this one either: it was far and away the area of the charter draft that received the most negative commentary during the ratification process - and that included negative feedback from people and affiliates who voted to support the charter.

Recommendations:

Perhaps we were wrong in giving no thought to approving some of the basic philosophic underpinnings of the charter in advance of completing the charter as a whole. In particular, there may have been value in having a broad discussion of the purpose and mission of the Wikimedia Movement, and the values and principles under which the Wikimedia Movement would operate. Those conversations didn't happen even during the development of the Movement Strategy, except in a very broad way.
- Future iterations of a movement charter would likely benefit from there being a firm, global agreement on these points.
The lack of any consensus at any level on the purpose and form of the Global Council is a major issue. It should be noted that very little feedback on the purpose and form of the Global Council resembled the actual text of the strategic recommendation, which implies that even the recommendation was not seen to have merit. Absent consensus about the purpose and form of a Global Council separate from the charter as a whole, then a Global Council should not be included in future iterations of a charter.
The important and valuable "building blocks" of the charter with respect to movement entities and bodies were either outdated or too premature to be included in what was intended to be a guidance document for the future of the movement. There is ongoing work to modify the affiliate structure and process, and this should be completed. There is an ongoing trial for hubs, and this should be completed, the results analysed, and decisions made as to next steps. Both of these need to be done separately to the development of a revised draft charter.
A significant level of focus in the original recommendation and the rationale behind a lot of the feedback on movement bodies and Global Council seems to focus on the relationships between the WMF and affiliates. It makes more sense to fix these issues than to write a Movement Charter that focused so significantly on this specific relationship, and was creating a new body to address these issues.
One of the core underlying philosophies of our content projects is "there is no deadline." A lot of pressure was brought to bear to prioritize writing a Movement Charter over many of the other recommendations in the Movement Strategy. It actually made work much more difficult for drafters, because the strategic recommendations that were in their early stages but were directly related to core charter content were difficult to include in a useful way. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference it would have made to have had affiliate/WMF relations already satisfactorily addressed, or decisions about hubs had been made. Future iterations of a charter should wait until there is consensus on these core issues.

Final thoughts

I've worked on a lot of committees and functions within the movement and in my own home project over the last 16 years. This was by far the most challenging, difficult, and contentious undertaking I have ever made. The need to constantly reformulate text and seek consensus on a near-weekly basis was mentally and (at times) physically exhausting. Much of this could have been avoided if we, as a global community, had done a lot of work in advance. Leaving it to a small group of individuals to create a document that many expected to solve problems that have existed for more than a decade was unreasonable and created expectations that could not be met. Movement charters aren't about solving problems; they're about aggregating decisions that already have wide support and agreement. The MCDC did not have that to work with. I would caution anyone who wants to draft a future charter that includes all the elements that the MCDC had to include that they want to ensure that there is already widespread agreement throughout the movement (in particular, with the contributing/developer communities) about those elements.