Movement Charter Drafting Committee’s November 2023 Updates

In November, the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC) members engaged in a series of meetings and discussions, continuing on their commitment to shaping the future of the Wikimedia movement. It has been quite an interesting time for the MCDC to experiment with the open monthly drop-in sessions to engage with community members more regularly. You can read more about their work in the text below. Looking ahead, the MCDC is gearing up for the December 7th open session and is set to share high-level responses to community feedback in January 2024. With the effort and engagement of the past few months, the MCDC is in full work mode to pave the way for their in-person meeting in late January dedicated to consolidating the Charter content and preparing for the next phase of community consultations. 

In November, the MCDC met eight times: 

• November 2 – Monthly drop-in session: This monthly session with the community continued discussions from last month on the structure of the Global Council. The supporting team has provided a recap of the conversation on the Movement Charter’s Talk page. For those who missed this session, recording is available on Youtube. Among the participants of the two drop-in sessions, there was a lack of representation from Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and ESEAP regions. Next drop-in session is scheduled for December 7 at 15.00 UTC (check your local time). We invite you to sign-up on Meta.   
• November 3 – Stakeholder meeting: The MCDC met with Selena Deckelmann, Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, for the second time. The discussion centered around the work that needs to be done to truly pursue Movement Strategy pillars, with a specific focus on Knowledge Equity from a Product and Technology perspective. Some of the topics discussed included volunteer sustainability, particularly providing support to online editors; the importance of clearly defining the scope and expectations from the Tech Council; and exploring the implications for the Movement Charter by adding the lens of content generation.  
• November 9 – MCDC weekly meeting: The Committee members were briefed on preparations for Wikimedia Summit 2024. The Committee has shifted its weekly meeting time to 15:00 UTC due to wintertime changes. Based on the diverse feedback received from July to September 2, 2023, along with insights from the monthly drop-in sessions, various aspects of the Global Council were discussed within the Committee, including financial implications. The Committee is exploring new proposals on the Global Council topic. 
• November 16 – MCDC weekly meeting: Continuing the discussions on the new proposals for the Global Council draft. 
• November 23 – MCDC weekly meeting: The review of the revised Hubs draft was skipped due to not having a quorum of committee members at the live meeting. MCDC members started  preparing for their in-person meeting in January 2024, which aims to produce a preliminary draft of the full Charter, to be consulted on ahead of the Wikimedia Summit.
• November 28 – Stakeholder meeting: The MCDC met with the Senior Leadership of the WMF. 
• November 29 – Stakeholder meeting: The MCDC met with an Affiliations Committee (AffCom) liaison to discuss feedback from the AffCom. 
• November 30 – MCDC weekly meeting: The MCDC discussed proposals on the Global Council draft. 

In other news:

After the MCDC’s in-person feedback sessions at Wikimania in Singapore, the Committee members have been busy in various capacities. Like many other active individuals in our movement, MCDC members wear different hats. In addition to participating in weekly meetings, and drafting work, some members actively presented at regional Wiki conferences from September to November.

• Michał Buczyński presented at the CEE Meeting with support from Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska (Movement Communications team, WMF) in Tbilisi.
• WikiConvention Francophone 2023 in Abidjan was attended by Georges Fodoup and Anass Sedrati.  
• Ciell presented at the German Wikipedia:WikiCon 2023 with the support of Nicole Ebber (WM DE). 
• WikiWomen Camp 2023 in Delhi was attended by Ciell.  
• MC Ambassador Kurmanbek, with the support of Daria, held MC conversations with Wikimedians of Turkic Languages at the Turkic Wikimedia conference in Istanbul. 
• Anass, Georges, Ciell led a panel session at WikiIndaba conference in Agadir with support of WMF staff Yop Rwang Pam and Winnie Kabintie. 
• Risker and Pharos organized MC conversation at WikiConference North America.   

The Movement Charter Ambassadors are finalizing their conversations. You can find more information about some of their organizational efforts and feedback shared on Diff by project leads:

Upcoming Community Conversation Hour: 

• The next open session with the communities will be on the purpose of the Global Council, and it is scheduled for December 7, 2023, at 15:00 UTC (local time). You can join the session via the Zoom link (sign your name here) or watch the livestream on YouTube. 

What’s next?

• Closing the feedback loop: In December, the MCDC will share a high-level response to the community feedback collected from July-September 2, 2023. Response to the feedback received from September 2 to December 31 will be published in January 2024. The Committee thanks those who have shared feedback, including the Executive Director’s meeting statement published recently on Meta, and the Wikimedia Board of Trustees feedback the committee received via the MCDC liaisons. 
• MCDC in-person meeting: The Committee will gather for three days of working sessions in January 2024. The main aim is to consolidate the content and prepare for the next community consultation of the full Charter ahead of the Wikimedia Summit.