Wikimedia Foundation elections/2024/Questions for candidates/All questions

What would you hope to achieve such that a year (or two) later, you'll consider your work as a Board member a success? Leaderboard (talk) & There has been some trend towards devolving or sharing the governance of the movement, including having a separate endowment board and the proposed global council and movement charter. What do you see as the positives and negatives of this and is your overall assessment of this work so far? Barkeep49 (talk)
1. It is about time that the Wikimedia Foundation decided to include the community and the Movement in the decision-making processes. Several tries were implemented over the years, but if you ask me, none of them have been really inclusive; some of them, I would go as far as calling them condescending/patronizing to the community. Recently the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, after vetoing the Movement Charter, introduced their idea for the distribution of power link. Currently, most of the Wikimedia Committees (regional grants, AffCom, Ombuds, LangCom, as well as the recent Board proposed resource committee) are self-selective; there is little community control over their actions; they are appointed by themselves or by WMF staff. At the same time, these committees are making the decisions, but only within and according to the process, guidelines and criteria, rules and bounds that they themselves have not fully created (set by the WMF). They have little control over the process in which they operate or what resources they are given to function well.
2. I would consider it a success if these solutions were implemented to include more of the community representation; namely having at least part of their membership accountable to the community (through elections, affiliate appointments or a different process, to be decided individually by committee). Another goal would be to dedicate more autonomy and self-control to these committees, to give them real influence over their own processes, to increase their agency and accountability. I would like to see at least one concrete change implemented by the end of my 2nd year on the Board. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
During last years (and possibly still), AffCom have been / is undercapacitated to the point that it needed several months of targeted capacity development to reasonably answer an elementary school level question, if it managed to answer it at all, and have been spreading false information privately and publicly. This enabled and is still enabling continuations of conflicts and created new conflicts in affiliations, between affiliations and community activists, in the movement, and is damaging the reputation of WMF and the Wikimedia movement. AffCom's Board Liasons are well informed about this for years with no significant improvement of the situation. What would you, as a new Trustee, do to improve the capacity situation of AffCom? --KuboF Hromoslav (talk) 18:17, 12 June 2024 (UTC) & Would you support allocation of enough resources of WMF to make it clear what are the currently valid behavioral requirements of various movement actors? --KuboF Hromoslav (talk)[reply]
1. The affiliate model is broken, and all actions to fix in the past few years have been a drop in the bucket. Privately I was hoping that the Movement Charter would bring much-needed clarification and change, but it did not happen. The new Affiliate Strategy is also not enough to fix the years of neglect that have allowed the system to go into disrepair. I ran for a seat on the Affiliate Committee (and joined it 5 months ago) to at least try to fix this issue. After serving on the committee, albeit only for a short time, I see that to run effectively, AffCom and other Wikimedia Committees need major changes.
2. For the past few years, AffCom has been severely understaffed and underfunded, while at the same time, the system grew out of proportion, and was used for things for which it was never designed (governance, elections, etc), it had to fail. If I was a member of the Board, I would prioritise allocating additional resources to AffCom and to other Wikimedia Committees. These resources would be not only funds but also staff support (which has fortunately changed a few weeks ago, I hope that we will all see results of that soon), so the volunteers can focus on non-administrative work that they have been doing for a long time. It would also be training for the members of the committees: in governance, communication and other soft skills that are required in these roles.
3. Affiliations Committee is one directly reporting to the Board of Trustees, it is the BoT's responsibility to make sure that it runs smoothly. To be fair, some changes have recently started, but they are long overdue and I believe that more could be done. My previous argument about allowing the committees more self-governance and autonomy still stands here. It would make the committee more responsible for the process and more accountable, as they would be the actual decision-makers, instead of strictly following the process not of their own choosing. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How do you tend to carry along all Wikimedians by ensuring inclusivity in employment opportunities? 787IYO (talk) & With the divergence of WMF employees away from so-called first-world countries with developed employment rights, to employing in lower economic countries what practical steps do you see the WMF Board implementing to ensure equality of employment conditions and opportunities? Gnangarra (talk)
1. I am aware of the fact that the Wikimedia Foundation offers benefits and labour law protections that sometimes go many times far above what is the minimum standard required by laws in a given country (to maintain similar, but still not the same, treatment all around its staff), or at least it used to be the case a few years ago when I was engaged with them. This can be seen on the WMF job board. If it is our goal to be an ethical organisation, and I believe it should be, we have to maintain high standards; employment should be one of the fields for that.
2. For many years, the Wikimedia Foundation has been a California-dominated organisation; even more so, a US-dominated one. However, things started to change a few years ago. When I started working at the Wikimedia Foundation a few years ago, you could already see the change coming. There has been more visible diversity in the leadership, and there was an increased percentage of staff hired from outside of the US. This way of operations, remote-first, has been included in the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan since 2023 link and I hope to see it continue. We will be at our most inclusive if we look for talent from all backgrounds and regions; this is vital if we want to be a global Movement. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WMF fundraising has grown by 275% over the last 10 years, and 50% compared to the last 5. In your opinion, when should our Fundraising campaigns slim down? Could you name one WMF program or venture from the last year or two that did not work out as expected? Soni (talk)
1. Unfortunately, the Wikimedia Foundation does a rather poor job of sharing the results (measurable goals) of their programmes (and many more pieces of information) with the community, even more so if the results are poor; avoid their scrutiny. While I understand that we cannot share everything – our competition would love us to do so – this also means that we cannot really judge the effectiveness of certain programmes from outside. I wouldn't want to judge the actions of any team, programme or venture within the Wikimedia Foundation without having full information about them. At the same time, being a Board Member is not about going after individual teams, the job of the BoT member is to give the organisation strategic approach and then focus on holding the CEO and the leadership accountable – no micromanaging.
2. About the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising, I am going to offer an unpopular opinion – as a Movement, we do not have a lot of money. While 200 mln USD may seem like a great fund, relative to an individual, it is a sum that wouldn't even raise an eyebrow in the industry in which we have to compete. Google pays just their CEO more each year than our entire Movement (WMF, WMDE and all the affiliates) spend. I would like to see the discussion shifted from the topic of the amount of money we have, to the topic of how effectively we spend it and how sustainable our fundraising is. There is no question that our banner fundraising has been effective, but it was achieved through burning the community's and society's goodwill (a finite resource). We have to ask ourself a question, were these "morally sub-optimal" tactics worth it? To this day, I am the only candidate who requested a meeting with senior staff regarding this question. Informed on the matter and with (hopefully) the community's mandate on the Board of Trustees, I will aim to make our spending more effective and our fundraising more sustainable. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Over the last 10 years Wikimedians have been focused on the carbon footprint of travel as part of the movements activities including holding events like Wikimania, and regional conferences. With the growing use of AI and the ever expanding data centres all of which demand large quantities of power to support the movements capacity to share knowledge. When we add in the exploitation of finite mineral resources with significant quantiities being sourced from places with no environmental protects. What steps to do see the WMF Board can take now to ensure the movement is operating both as a sustainable and ethical source of knowledge? Gnangarra (talk)
1. For a few years now, the Wikimedia Foundation has been publishing its Sustainability Reports, which is a practice I value greatly and hope to uphold. The Board of Trustees must prioritize sustainability and ethics in the Foundation's operations in the years to come. By reducing the environmental impact of data centers (which is already taken into account), optimizing travel for events, and ensuring ethical sourcing of any outside processes, we could maintain our commitment to knowledge sharing while safeguarding the planet. I am glad to state that Wikimedia Poland has had its commitment as a Board regulation for some time now, as do some other affiliates I am familiar with. I believe we are on a right path in this matter and should continue this way. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What are your thoughts about systemic bias on WMF projects, both in their content and their demographics, and including identity-based, language-based, economic/resource-based, ideological/worldview-based, and other forms of system bias? In addition, what measures or initiatives do you think the Board can appropriately take to address systemic bias? Pecopteris (talk) 05:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1. As per my answer here: There is bias on Wikimedia projects. This is one sentence that we can be certain of. It is gender-oriented, language-oriented, and takes many other forms, depending on a project or community. For a long time, the Wikimedia Foundation itself was aiding this bias by contacting the communities only in English and making decisions in a San Francisco-centered way. This has changed to some degree, but there is still room for improvement. I am a big fan of evidence-based policy-making. As one of the other candidates is saying, we cannot change something if we don't know the extent of the problem. We need to measure and learn about the problems we have to deal with. Some of this information is available, either measured by the different Wikiprojects (Wiki Loves Monuments has amazing data on the monuments and their status) or by external research (mostly gender- and language-based gaps). We have to invest more in researching our own shortcomings. It may be uncomfortable, and it may be hard at first, but this approach will eventually lead us to know more about ourselves and our problems. Only then can we start working on them effectively, with a targeted approach. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikimedia Foundation is a large organization, with 600+ employees and a budget of almost US$200 million. What professional experience, if any, do you have with managing employees and budgets? (If this seems unclear or difficult to translate, see User:WhatamIdoing/Board candidates for more context; contact me if a re-write would help.) WhatamIdoing (talk)
1. To answer according to your table (great one!), my answers are here:
  1. Personnel management experience
    1. No/yes (1 year, smaller org)
    2. 1-50
    3. 1-10 (part-time / contractors)
    4. No
  2. Budget management experience
    1. Yes, my annual budget was under US$1M
  3. Prior board experience
    1. Yes, more than one corporation
    2. Yes, a small one
    3. Yes, in another country (countries)
  4. Corporate board training
    1. No, I haven't (yet).
    2. Yes, I'm willing to do that. (already began)
  5. Politician or a Board member
    1. Understanding the legal requirements of being a Board member, I am aware that I will have to put the WMF's interests first, or the WMF could find me in breach of my duties, as was mentioned to us during the candidate pre-onboarding. However, I tend to believe that the WMF's and the Community's long-term goals do not diverge that much. I wish that could have been understood more, and that is going to be my main goal if I get a mandate to become a member of the Board of Trustees. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Working on a Board of Trustees requires collaborating with other Board members, persuading them to support your vision, and compromising to reach a decision that everyone can agree with. Uncollegial behavior, such as inappropriate criticism, encouraging public pressure campaigns on other Board members, or posting information about active internal discussions, usually makes a Board member ineffective. However, there are always a few voters who believe that publicly working against the Board is desirable. If you join the Board, do you think you will be able to effectively work with the other people on the Board? WhatamIdoing (talk)
1. Publicly criticising the Board is something that one must stop doing when they are a part of said Board, no disagreement here. I hope that there is a space for healthy disagreement within the Board of Trustees. We had examples of that in the past, where Board members had the courage to oppose the Board's decision that they themselves had not agreed with. We had Dariusz Jemielniak opposing the removal of James Heilman link, and more recently, we had Mike Peel opposing the Board when the BoT decided to veto the Movement Charter link (as only one of the 6 community-elected trustees). Both of them offered their reasoning for their votes but refrained from publicly undermining the majority decision, as the Board acts as a collegial body and doing so would only diminish their influence within the BoT. If I were to ever disagree with the Board while being its member, I would work to follow their example. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Disinformation has been a major theme running through political and economic discourse over the last decade, and even in scientific discourse (e.g. climate change, the pandemic, evolution). Wikipedia has adopted some new policies to maintain the integrity of our content. How well do you think that has worked? Do we need to continue adapting as bad actors modify their methods? Or perhaps we might consider taking even stronger methods to stay at least one step ahead? Smallbones (talk) & What should WMF do to help improve trust in Wikipedia within the USA? Tonymetz (talk)
1. While Wikipedia has done a relatively good job in stopping the spread of disinformation in recent years, the danger is growing. It is the type of danger that we cannot combat ourselves, we need to engage the broader internet ecosystem. During the Coronavirus pandemic, the Wikimedia Foundation has initiated various campaigns with global leaders to combat the growth of disinformation. The most prominent and one of my most favourite ones has been the collaboration with the World Health Organisation link. As a Board member I would emphasise the importance of such partnerships, include them in the organisational strategy, and encourage further cooperation, not only on the Wikimedia Foundation level, but also by empowering communities and affiliates to pursue global cooperations in their own activities. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The creation and implementation of a Universal Code of Conduct has been a Board priority since 2020. The original timeline for the implementation of the UCoC was wildly unrealistic, the UCoC was implemented by the Board without community ratification, and the first Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee was recently elected without a sufficient number of members to form a quorum. What lessons should the Board take from the UCoC process, especially about how Board interacts with volunteers? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk)
1. It is a bid sad for me to look at the Universal Code of Conduct. Back in 2021, I was working as a facilitator for the Polish community supporting the UCOC process, during which I coordinated the largest plwiki consultations in history. I joined the Foundation a month after the BoT's approval of the UCoC. I believe that this was a bad step. To be fair, this mistake was corrected, when the Wikimedia Foundation compromised and agreed to the community ratification of the Enforcement Guidelines (and then then the second round of Revised Guidelines). While it was a correction, a situation like should not have taken place in a first place. It cannot be that the community can only be treated as an equal when it decides to strongly oppose the Wikimedia Foundation publicly. We recently had a repeat of this situation with the Movement Charter, where the Board liaisons to the MCDC decided to throw some chaos into the ratification process just before the vote by issuing a statement, only to then offer the BoT veto after the vote. So much community attention and resources wasted. I spoke more on this matter on wikimedia-l just a few days ago and organised a global call to appeal to the Board; the BoT has a lot to learn when it comes to interaction with volunteers – firstly, it should start by respecting their time and treating volunteer engagement as a resource, one that too many times have been spent by them ineffectively. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the Annual plan for 2024/25 I note the statement "Wikimedia content is becoming less visible as part of the internet's essential infrastructure because an increasingly closed and AI-mediated internet doesn't attribute the source of the facts, or even link back to Wikipedia." As an incoming board member what responsibility does the Board and the WMF have in enforcing the CC-BY-SA licensing of the content from all projects by AI or other digital media information formats that dont respect copyright. Gnangarra (talk)
1. As I stated in my candidate statement: "GenAI tools are taking over the internet, while Wikipedia is still in the Web 2.0 era. We need to focus so that our Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction won’t change to “By 2030, Wikimedia will still be relevant”.". I believe that we need to find a way to function in this new internet, hopefully by cooperating with it, rather than being forced to become irrelevant. Wikipedia is still the largest collection of human-curated knowledge, with the language reach that many Large Language Models used to train AI models just cannot yet replicate. This is why so many of them have turned to using Wikipedia, without permission, to aid their projects and engines.
2. We already have a tool to facilitate such collaboration – Wikimedia Enterprise. It is a legal way through which those companies can access Wikimedia data, with the Wikimedia Movement being compensated for the use of its infrastructure. At the same time, we could demand that the data being used in this way is also properly attributed. I am happy to learn more about the current process for it, once I am on the Board and to work with Wikimedia Enterprise to support them in this. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you support a Global Council according to the Movement Charter draft? Denis Barthel (talk)
1. Yes, I do. That being said, I do not believe it to be an ideal solution to the problem and can see why other would not support it. My thoughts on this are split into two categories: the need for more community control and accountability ( Support), and the worry of overbearing bureaucracy, as well as a lack of clear prioritisation of the community ( Oppose). The Global Council, as envisioned in the Movement Charter draft, was the first real attempt to de-centralize the decision-making process in the Wikimedia Movement when it comes to the most impactful decisions, the technological decisions and budget allocation, both of which are now firmly in the hands of the Wikimedia Foundation, with very little community oversight or control. This needs to change if we want our Movement to thrive; no single organisation should be a decision-maker on this, it should be decided by the wider community, a group fully representative of our Movement. At the same time, the Global Council, with its membership reaching up to 100 members, raises my eyebrows with concerns over bureaucracy. I agree with one of the current Trustees that this could lead to an almost parliamentary style of decision-making; not something I think we would like to see in the Wikimedia Movement. Costs, logistics and time needed for such a body to properly function is something that I have a hard time agreeing with. To sum up; I agree with the idea of the Global Council and I agree with its ideals and scope ( Support). I disagree with its proposed form ( Oppose). That being said, even this partially flawed proposal is better than the current system, which is why I voted in favour of the Movement Charter. I was hoping that we could change the process designed by the MCDC by amending the charter, but for now, we have no hope for that, as the Wikimedia Foundation does not commit itself to supporting the Movement Charter development anymore for now (and its newly proposed "pilots" are supposed to end in *checks notes* just 3 years...). Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you believe that the Wikimedia movement's primary focus should be the work happening directly on the projects or the values the projects represent, and why? (The work on the projects is aligned with the values, but not everything done to further those values happens on the projects -- my question is about whether we should focus on outreach to further our values (e.g. growing access to free knowledge through conferences/workshops/grants), or to focus more narrowly on running the projects.) Giraffer (talk)
1. I believe that this is one of the tasks that should be divided between different groups in our Movement. The Wikimedia Foundation is uniquely positioned, due to its historical position, to focus on running the projects; in all aspects that it is required. Wikimedia Foundation should focus itself on the technical operations: operating the platforms and continuing to develop and upkeep the software and hardware on which our projects are running. It should also be responsible for other operational matters, such as legal compliance, copyright enforcement, Trust nad Safety operations and public policy (which I mentioned as one of the largest challenges in front of us, in my application (3rd questions)). By focusing on these matters, the Wikimedia Foundation should relinquish in other aspects, such as programmatic activities or stop funding activities from outside the Wikimedia Movement. They should continue these operations only on the request and with the consent of a local community, only when such activities are not already run by a local/regional community or affiliate.
2. Local communities are in a unique position to focus on values and the work on the projects. They have local context and understanding of their own situation. They are in the best possible place to organize and to expand the reach of Wikimedia projects in their countries or regions. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Considering three-year terms on the WMF BoT, please name your three biggest accomplishments in the past three years, be it on the WMF Board of the Trustees (for incumbents), or relevant to this position. aegis maelstrom δ
1. In the last three years I have served in various roles in the Wikimedia Movement, most notably as the Governance Board member of Wikimedia Poland (WMPL; 2020–2022) and the Board member of Wikimedia Europe (WMEU; since 2022). My biggest accomplishment in my role at WMPL was co-leading the organisation through a rough patch (that led to the Membership Dialogue, an organisation-wide mediation with an external faciliation). With the previous ED leaving and the Board reduced to it lowest number ever (just 2 people + myself in the Governance Board) we managed to keep to organisation afloat, while continuing its functions. I led the search for the new COO, who was successfully onboarded over 6 months after the position became vacant. As a member of the Wikimedia Europe Board (and earlier as one of the working group members) we managed to create a new goal-oriented organisation in a record time. With just 6 months between the first meeting and the establishment of the entity, we have created Wikimedia Europe, something that has never been successfully done in our Movement – an organisation of organisations. It is proof that the shared governance model is not only viable but can be practical in helping us to achieve common goals (in this case: public policy work on the EU level and fundraising of EU funds). Two years after this team work concluded, currently Wikimedia Europe hired a team of 5 staff and collaborates with tens of staff members and individual volunteers to further the public policy work of Wikimedia in Europe. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WMF own annual plan recognizes multiple trends negative to the Wikimedia Movement: decreasing visibility, audiences moving to a novel competition including AI solutions and Internet influencers, increasing information warfare and trust erosion, needed technical investments while the revenue growth was flattening. In the same time, our products and processes change very, very slowly. Which bold steps would you recommend to the WMF? aegis maelstrom δ
1. As per my answer in here: I will argue that the reason for the slow change in our Movement is partially the consequence of the distance and lack of trust between the community and the Wikimedia Foundation. The volunteers do not trust the Foundation (sometimes with good reason), and the staff does not understand the volunteers. Some headway is being made towards that, but it still sometimes feels like "1 step forward, 2 steps backwards". In this atmosphere, even the smallest change proposed can lead to a very cold atmosphere in the Village Pump / Discord / mailing list etc. The Wikimedia Foundation needs to own up to its mistakes. Many grievances done throughout the years are still felt by some members of the community, because the case was never fully closed. Some official communication was exchanged, but it sometimes feels more like a legal letter than a simple "sorry, we made a mistake". The community is right to expect clear communication and a certain level of responsibility; after all, the Wikimedia Foundation is responsible for its wellbeing. More clear communication and transparency would do wonders; sometimes, "airing dirty laundry" is the only way to have a clear shirt when we need it most. A bold step I would recommend to the Wikimedia Foundation is to be more open and vocal in its contacts with the community. There is a process in the UK Parliament (1) in which every petition that gets a certain number of signatures gets a response. I am not advocating for the exact model Westminster uses, but I do recommend the Wikimedia Foundation to start answering the community. These should be reliable statements by someone with authority that could later be referred to. It will take resources, but it will allow us to rebuild the trust we lost along the way. We cannot build things and defend ourselves from the outside world if we don't trust each other. Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Should Board candidates respond to all questions posed by community members during the election process? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk)
1. Yes, they should. I value the Elections Committee's work in trying to summarize them, but if a Board candidate for a community elected seat cannot answer ~25 questions from the community during a three-month campaign period, what proof do we have that they will answer any questions once they are elected? Nadzik (talk) 07:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]