 starting admitting people from the waiting room at the time of the start of the call, but we will make another two minutes for people to trickle in slowly. Welcome to this very first edition of the Open Movement Charter Traffiting Committee call, a new format that we're trying out regarding the engagement. My name is Karan. I'm a member of supporting staff for the Movement Charter Traffiting Committee and designated facilitator for this call. I'm supported by Nu and Meredad, also helping out with the breakouts, and Aida and Ramsey with documentation, so that's the supporting team for this call. Welcome everyone. We will come to a short welcome from everyone in a minute, but first of all I would like to go through some of the basics, the general setting for this call. So this call is about the Movement Charter Traffiting Committee and the drafting work. On this picture you see them happily drafting together, and now it's an occasion to invite all of you to the table and draft together, discuss together, so that's the general idea of this call. Regarding the space we are trying to create, we want this to be a safe space. The organization team is dedicated to providing a harassment-free space and experience for everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, physical appearance, age, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, national origin or religion are not limited to these aspects. We do not tolerate any form of harassment of conference or co-participants. Sexual language and dimension is not appropriate for any conference space or talks. Any participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the call at the discretion of the organizers. If you have questions or need to report an issue, please contact myself, Carter Weigler, Nufan or Merda Prozaki from the organizing team, all present in this Zoom call and also in the breakout rooms, and you can message them or us on Zoom, privately, because we are all co-hosts. You can reach out to us with a direct message option. Regarding the oral purpose for this call, we want to provide a platform to discuss charter matters with wider range of people, so really opening it up, maybe diving deeper in the conversations we are having and bringing a fresh perspective into the drafting process. We also want to have a better understanding of your thoughts, expectations as you represent different stakeholders. Also, it would be helpful to start slowly developing convergence among different perspectives and develop a shared understanding and agreement between opposing or even contradictory perspectives that we sometimes find in the community consultations discussions, so this is a space to deliver or move towards that purpose. There are some ground rules for the conversation. Please enter the discussion with an open mind, so try to be explorative, strive towards awareness regarding your own biases. We all come with plenty, either we are experiencing comedians or newcomers, there are biases nevertheless. Let's try to listen carefully to what others really have to say. If you do not understand clarify, ask a question in chat or directly and show that you have all the information you need from peers before jumping to conclusions and the core rule for these discussions, at least as far as I feel it is not about being right, but getting it right together, all of us together, so that's my hope regarding the conversations ahead of us. There is a disclaimer. This is an open discussion that will inform the charter drafting. However, there is only a small fraction of them were present in this conversation space, and as a result, the ideas generated conclusions made during the discussions first need to be validated before the audiences, before they really will be integrated in the charter draft, so there is no direct lineation here. At the same time, I do believe that the conversation will be helpful in any case and really informative and eye-opening also. Regarding the agenda, the plan for today is to start with a short welcome icebreaker to see who is on the call, get to know each other before really diving into a topic, and then really look at the structural aspect of a global council. That was one of the contentious points in the community conversations. We held also discussions at Picomania, and we want to see what is behind different thoughts. We want to do a deeper dive on three different models. One of them is the idea of not having a global council at all. Then there is a proposal of a general assembly model, and there is also iterations of a small committee model that the movement charter drafting committee presented during the consultation. We will be exploring these three different models in three different breakout rooms. Then we rejoin in a circle of converges, it's coming together, and make an attempt to come to an agreement regarding the path forward among this small group of people and different perspectives. That's the idea. Let's see how it goes. For me, the call is not completely about the checkout and also appreciation for the contributions, thoughts. I think we need more of a positive reinforcement culture in our movement, and I would love to see this at the end of a call to provide a closure for the discussion. That's it regarding the framing. Let's dive into the introduction. I'm really grateful that you have taken the time to be here. I know that the movement charter drafting committee members and the support team members feel the same, so very, very, very warm welcome, and I would like to have a very, very brief circle with all of the people on the call, quick introductions. State your name and community affiliate name can also be the username, whatever you're comfortable with, and also community affiliate provides a bit of framing where you are from, and together with that, let's do only two words, choose two words, how are you arriving today to this call? Just checking in with each other. For me, my name is Carter Weidler and I'm working with Wikimedia Foundation. To our check-in, I am cautiously optimistic. Let's do the popcorn, not popcorn, but passing the ball method, so I will choose another person, and that person chooses another one, and let's try to cover all the people. I see on my screen next Nu, so over to you. Hi, my name is Nu and I am with the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm going to popcorn to Frank, who's on my screen. And thank you. My name is Frank Schulenburg and I'm with Wikimedia Education Foundation and I'm interested and curious what's going to happen today, and I pass it on to Nicole. Thank you. I'm Nicole Eber from Wikimedia Deutschland, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to have this conversation. And I'm passing it on to Anders Wienerstein. I'm Anders Wienerstein. I'm from Sweden, Wikimedia, the Swedish community. I'm a very heavy user there, and I pass it on to Eva. Hi everyone, I'm Eva from Wikimedia Germany, Wikimedia Deutschland, and I'm optimistic and curious about the call today. And I pass it on to Louis. Hi everyone, I'm Louis from Wikimedia Canada. Thanks for the invitation, and I'm also pretty curious to see how it's going to be, everything about the discussion. Yeah. I saw that Anna is here, so Anna, she's not there anymore. So let's go with Caitlin. Hi, I'm Caitlin Virtue from the Wikimedia Foundation, and I'll steal Carl's. I'm cautiously optimistic. I'll pass to George. I'm George, MCDC member. I'm here to know more about our different advisors, and also to hear about your different comments of point of view about our work. You are welcome. Yope, please. Sure. Thank you for this. So I'm Yope Rangpal. I'm with Wikimedia Foundation. I am optimistic, excited, and eager to learn. I will pass over to Aishik. Apparently, Aishik cannot speak here. We also have some of the introductions made in the chat for people who cannot speak up. So Aishik writes, sorry, it's Storm here. So you can write in chat if you cannot speak up. Let's try to go alphabetically. So I think we missed out. Thank you. My name is Alta Kosofe. I live in The Hague, the Netherlands. I'm part of the Dutch Wikipedia community, affiliated with Wikimedia Netherlands. I'm optimistic and grateful. Thank you. And I pass it on to, I have to check the list, Mirdal. Hi, everyone. My name is Mirdal. I support the movement, the MCDC, with communication. And it's my pleasure to be here today. And I'm also really excited. It's the first kickoff of these regular engagements. So let's see how they go. And I will pass it on next to Janer. Hello, my name is Janer. And from Wikimedia User Group Turkey. I'm curious, excited. And I select Ruhayat. And let's pass it on alphabetically. I think the next one would be Shiko. I think it didn't go yet. Shiko went in chat, I think. I'm happy. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Catch the popcorn. Then do the introduction seal. I'm Sue. I'm a Wikimedean from the Netherlands. I'm on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee. And I'm enthusiastically looking forward because I think there are several of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee members, ambassadors in this call as well. Looking forward to hearing from you. Should I go in alphabetical order or cannot popcorn? I'd like to popcorn to Lucy, because I know that Lucy is actually one of our ambassadors in Africa. So Lucy, Yawala, if you have, if you can, please introduce yourself. Hello, everyone. I'm Lucy from the Wikimedean User Group, and also from Wikimedean User Group, Nigeria. I look forward to getting more insights on how to go about carrying my MCDC projects or session in my community. So I'm glad to be here. Thank you. And I pass the baton to Goodnes. Hi, everyone. I'm Goodnes from the Ibo Wikimedean User Group, and I'm very curious and eager to learn more. I pass to Hillary. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I'm O'Galley Hillary from the Ibo Wikimedean User Group and Wikimedean User Group, Nigeria. I'm very happy to be here. I'm looking forward to learn and know my role as an advisor in the MCDC. I pass it on to Richard. Hi. Hi. I'm Richard Nipel, user Ferros. I'm coming to you from New York City. I heart Q60. That's New York City. I'm on the the Movement Charter Committee, and my username is Ferros. And my words for today are inquausiously optimistic. I'm hopelessly optimistic. I'm sure that we're going to accomplish total consensus today. So proceeding with that assumption, I'm sure it'll happen. And I'll pass it on to Nanor. Thank you, Richard. Hello, everyone. This meeting today is reminding me a little bit, the 2020 discussions. And I'm so excited for that. I'm Nanor from Arabic Projects and Communities, one of the underrepresented communities in our movement. And unfortunately, lately in the Ambassador Program for the Movement Charter. So things happen that make a little bit affect us negatively, but we keep our enthusiasm to be here, to participate definitely in making decisions and be part of this Charter. Thank you. And I'll pass it to Sandeep. I think Sandeep wrote that it's late that they are not able to speak up. I'm passing it over to Runa for whom it might be as late, but maybe you can speak. Sure. Thank you. My name is Runa. I am also with the Wikimedia Foundation. And I'm also part of the Movement Charter drafting committee as one of the nominated members. I'm based in India. And for me, the word is also curiosity. I'm looking forward to hearing more from the knowing more about the advisors whom I haven't met yet and would like to know more about what your comments and opinions would be about the Charter so far. Thank you. I can pass it over. I think I'll have to go to the next room. Maybe Iflak. Let's see Iflak there. Hi, everyone. Am I audible? Yeah. My name is Iflak. I'm from Kashmir and I work with the Kashmiri Wikimedia User Group. I'm happy to be here and excited to learn from all of you. Thank you. I'm working on this alphabetically. So I see that we have Mr. Krestov. So what's your? Hello. Yeah, this is Kashyap, representing Vicky Education. I'm a Vicky evangelist and my passion is openness and equality. I work towards inter-language. Thank you. I nominate Thay. I'm Nithya Sai Kiran from India. I work with Kondya and Kulami languages from the Wikimedia User Group. And I'm excited to learn more about Kulami Charter today. And I pass it on to Sandeep. No, I think Sandeep wrote in the chat. I think at this point, it might be helpful for those who are able to speak up to maybe raise their hands. So we create a queue. It's easier maybe for people to see that. I would pass it on to Riska. Hi, everybody. I'm Riska and from my background is in English Wikipedia mainly and on META. And I've been involved in an awful lot of committees over the years. And now I am on the MCDC. I'm thrilled to be here, hoping that we're hearing some voices that we haven't heard before. And I will pass to Berthesha. This is Berthesha from India. I'm representing Kerala Wikimedia User Group, working for the Tulu language Wikipedia. Yeah, I learned two new things so that I'm with you. Thank you. Passing it on to Liana, who has raised hands, so there's also who are available to speak. Raise your hands so we can see you. Thanks, Karol. Hi, everyone. I am Liana from the Wiki Education Foundation and Wikipedia and Education User Group. And I am hopeful and excited about this call. Other people who'd be missed who would like to speak up who didn't write in the chat. You can raise your hand. Otherwise, I would slowly like to guide us towards the content discussions. I think it's about time. So welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and also feelings. How are you are arriving? Let's get to the rational level of the topic, introduction, the content of the charter. And I will try to be really brief. We will dive deeper in the breakout rooms and also in the later convergence circle. So not everything will be presented here. Also, I have brought this kind of ambiguous picture to start with. It really is both sides. It's reassuring. And basically, it also highlights that we might be seeing the charter from different angles and in different ways. So let's see. I will try to be brief with introduction. We will have some movement charter crafting committee in the rooms and also the supporting staff. And we will also maybe have some time for very brief questions and clarifications on the call. But I will try to highlight the global council and especially the structural aspects of the global council. So the whole recommendation of a global council on one hand is based on historic discussions starting in early 2000s already around the wiki council. They're having debates. Going forward, it was discussed during the movement pros project in 2010-11. And then we moved into a movement strategy. There was a recommendation, recommendation number four ensure equity in the decision making that has a subsection around enable equitable representation in global decision making. That's the basis foundation of the global council recommendation. And in that recommendation, you said that the newly created body of the global council is to oversee the implementation of movement strategy, oversee further development and endorsement of the movement charter, enforce accountability of all movement organisations around, first of all, use of movement funds. Secondly, alignment with the immediate mission, vision and strategic direction. Thirdly, compliance with the movement charter and for appropriate use of movement branding and mocks. That was the texture for recommendation. In addition, it was said that the global council is to set frameworks on resource allocation and revenue generation for the movement. That was pulled together in the recommendations. So that's the text there. Things have evolved slightly. So I'm putting to the side here what we currently have in a movement charter draft in the global council chapter. And in that draft, it is stated that the global council is a governance body responsible for development and implementation of movement strategy, closely aligning with the first point from the recommendation. There are points regarding the resourcing. So there is an advisory role suggested regarding advising the Wikimedia Foundation on fundraising efforts to secure financial resources for a Wikimedia movement in alignment with its mission and values. And there is also the point regarding establishing standards and guidelines for the equitable dissemination of funds to support Wikimedia projects, communities, affiliates, hubs and other movement entities. So that's related to the frameworks of resource allocation and revenue generation and also use of movement funds in the recommendation. In addition, there is a point regarding ensuring inclusive and transparent decision-making processes, providing guidance and exercising limited executive responsibilities over specific cross-movement entities. So that's already getting more specific when things are said in the recommendation, but overall it's connected to enable equitable representation in global decision-making. There is a point about create or modify committees for the overall governance of affiliates and hubs, creating channels to simplify access to resources for individuals and empower communities in an equitable way and assure accountability by setting processes and reporting standards. So these are already more detailed points, but generally in connection with the recommendation text one way or another. This is the text that we have, kind of a foundation, the baseline we are working with. In the conversations that we have had, the movement charter drafting committee presented was the small committee model. So the idea is small body with qualitative representation across movement stakeholders. There are two options of that presented, one really small body with qualitative representation and then the representation of diversity increased by a wider advisor body. That was what was in the text and in consultations. The upside of that approach seems to be small demand on the communities and more focused work. The downside seems to be that probably there would be additional community processes needed for more important decisions. So maybe shortcoming on legitimacy front regarding how a movement functions. During the conversations, two alternative options that are strongly suggested. So there are of course modalities and differences I tried to really encapsulate the essence of these suggestions. So one of them is general assembly model. That means that the global council would be large body with quantitative representation across movement stakeholders. The upside of this approach is wide range of perspectives and good representation is ensured around all decisions. So they are there as members of the council. And the downside is that nevertheless, most of the work will be probably carried by a small group of people. What is not on the slide, the other concern there is the administrative overhead for such a model. The third option that was suggested was not having a global council trying to enhance the system as they are not creating a new body. And the idea there is also having the movement stakeholders represented via direct participation. So using direct participation mechanisms instead of creating a new body. The upside of this proposal is that no additional administrative burden is created with the establishment of a new movement body. The downside is clearly that current equity issues in global representation are not resolved. So they have to be resolved in our ways and the attention needs to be brought to them. That's a very high level, very short summary regarding what is in the charter draft and what was discussed during the community conversations. I would stop here regarding the presentation. Let's start to get to a discussion mode and let's open the floor for any questions, any clarifications you might have regarding what has been presented. And I would give about five minutes for a short discussion questions, clarifications and complete. I'm starting this with reading out the points from the chat under the in the chat has written important cannot mentioned representation with small committee is very limited. So there is a downside regarding the small committee model highlighted and that's representation with small committee is very limited. Are there any further questions you can use the raise hand function or write your comment question in the chat. Grisker. I just want to point out that the large or general assembly model in conversation we have understood from those who've advocated for it that they envision a large council or assembly, but that there would be a small executive body that does most of the work. So that would be parallel to the con that Andrew Lee is mentioning as well. The bulk of the work being done by a small group. I'm complete. Thank you so much, Grisker, for complimenting and also if there are other MCDC members that would like to compliment my really brief summary, maybe the floor is yours. I guess one of the sort of the wild card option that's listed at the end, the no global council. I think that was to put it for context, I think that was suggested partly as you know, are there are there existing structures that we could reform is the way the Wikimedia Foundation Board operates because that be reformed in a way that it could perform some of the functions that we would describe to the global council rather than creating a different entity. Obviously this would require, you know, the permission and cooperation of the media foundation at a deep level, but it's another option that we're looking at as a possibility. Thank you, Thoros. There is a comment from Liana in the chat. She's like, there are a lot more pros and cons for each, but based on Berdard's comment in the chat, we will discuss these more in the break-up rooms. Yes, that's the idea. We just try to highlight kind of a key, key con, key pro aspect. We have a raise from Anders over to you. I wonder, have you discussed time issue, the thing that you could start with a small committee and later on make a bigger council. Has this been up anywhere that it could look different over time? Yes, I think from my perspective, having supported the discussions, there have been proposals regarding kind of having one type of approach at first and then going to another. At the same time, there have been concerns regarding what should be, what is the right level of the documentation being captured in the charter because we don't want to go through the amendment of a charter too often. It would be good to kind of have a solid chronic from the beginning. I think there can be space for more detailed discussion regarding starting with one approach and going to another and how do we actually lay the ground for that approach in the charter. There have been mentions of it, but it has not been duty to discuss. I'm complete. Thank you. I see two more raise hands. Over to Nicole. Yeah, thank you. I have a question. I want to be super sure that I understand. The scenarios that MCDC suggested in their drafts, how do they relate to these three that you now proposed? Are they all related to the small committee model or also to the General Assembly? Can you elaborate a little bit on that as well? Thanks. I will start with a different response, try to be brief, and then maybe MCDC members want to compliment. Essentially, what was in a draft currently was a small committee model, and then there was the advisory idea attached to it, so that could be one of the options to mitigate some of the downsides of the small committee model. However, it's essentially what has been proposed in the small committee model. There is a resemblance with the advisory body added to the small committee to the General Assembly, but essentially it's not the General Assembly, so they only have advisory role. The General Assembly model suggests equitable or same level participation and membership from all the members involved, so there is an essential difference there. I'm complete. Thanks, Kava. I also missed a direct comment in the chat, so Christoph Henner wrote, I think, in response to Anders. Given how much friction to change the reason, I personally fear first a small and then expansion. Sounds, I think, expansion would never happen, so that was a direct one. There is a point from Krupal Kaysiap. Are these groups functioned democratically or emphasis on mission objects? Regarding the purpose of a council that has been outlined also here in a brief summary, I think the overall anticipation is around private democratic participation, like the members being equal on the same level. You can also specify your question in the chat. I would not take more hands. I think we have a direct regarding some of the points made from Art, and then we also have a get-go in queue, and then we will wrap up the questions and answers. So, Art, over to you first. Yes, thank you, Carl. What I would like to weigh in is to bring up the fact that for almost the past 20 years there's been an animal conference and our different names, chapters conference, Wikimedia conference, Wikimedia summit, most times held in around April in Berlin, can ring in the last years about 200 people, which you can see as a kind of large or big council and that the movement charter would codify that structure and give it a formal position within the movement. So, in my view, what will be the position of the Wikimedia conference or Wikimedia summit in the future? Yeah, I think it's guiding us a bit further, I think this can be discussed under the general assembly breakout group potentially, because it doesn't mean that essentially it will have a global council-like function. So, I would actually move that to the general assembly discussion. How do we actually want to hold maybe the general assembly in general? I think the question is valid. I don't think there is a clear answer. I don't know if my Wikimedia touch on colleagues want to comment on that. I don't think we have an answer yet to that one. I mean, the only answer I can give is that is one of the purposes of next year's summit to figure out what a future structure would need in terms of affiliate and movement gatherings. So, no, I'm not having the answer. I hope many of you have ideas and answers to that. Thanks. There is a comment from Frank Schumann in the chat that the recommendation talked about enforcement and oversight. And I'm unclear how we ended up with a purely advisory role supported by Andrew Lee. I agree the words that showed up in the MCDC draft seem to fall short of those goals. Advice, guidelines, guidance, ensure accountability. So, there is not so much enforcement and oversight. So, it's a comment. It's a concern. There is no direct answer to that, but it's well noted. Gergo, you were in a queue. Thanks. So, my question would be how is the next six months going to be different from the previous six months? Because none of this is very new, right? The recommendations have been written three years ago, and the charter draft has been written three months ago. And this whole question of small versus large and the other ones have also been out there since the draft was written. And the MCDC has been doing these listening tours and community meetings for a while. So, do you feel that the whole thing is generally going well and you just need more of the same? Or do you think that it is in the need of an intervention, in which case I think it would be interesting to hear what that intervention is going to be? I'm also maybe interested in hearing the committee member thoughts. I can start off with my perspective. I don't think all is going all that well. I think we are meeting, again, an issue we've had, at least from my perspective, in the movement for some time. And that is we actually have difficulties as a movement consenting and truly listening to each other's arguments. So, we need to improve the facilitation of the discussions, but also the mindset with which we enter into the conversations. We are trying out different models, like this open call is one of the ways. Let's see how it goes. Then we will evaluate after that, like is this functioning? And the same regarding the different discussions we are holding. Currently, what we often see in community consultations is we have a bunch of people and also organizations just coming and stating things, rather than building on each other and building consent and consensus on the go. And this is, I think, the key thing we need to change. And we already see some of the change. So, for example, the commenting method that we see how to choose was not to have a statement paper of the role, but they actually went in there and endorsed some of the comments, added their perspective on some of the comments. And this is the path we need to facilitate it into to improve. So, all is not going that well. We need to improve, but I think it's a general cultural shift that we need in a movement in having these type of conversations and really embrace the approach of consenting. Robin just arguing for one's perspective and agenda. That's my personal take on this. I'm complete. And there is also a comment from Mardad in the chat. One intervention is regular check-ins as the crafting progress is instead of big shareouts. So, we try to have continuous engagement. I would like to wrap the question and answer section. I do see the hand of the noob. So, this is the last question we will take before we dive deep into the breakouts. Actually, it's not a question. It's just reminding myself and the other, especially the ones that I are here from the underrepresented communities. This is happening. And yes, the recommendation, if we are saying it's advisory, but the advice is to ensure the equity in decision making. So, we are here to ensure this equity for decision making. Please keep that in your mind when you are going to discuss which kind of structure that we need to build in the future our movement, especially the underrepresented that they are so not many here, unfortunately. And as I said, when I represent myself, unfortunately, the last thing happened. It was very obvious and clear to me that we need to be here to ensure that this equity is happening. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your comment. Let's move on. Let's dive deep. So, there are points being made regarding some of the aspects around the general assembly and small committee and maybe no global council models. Let's move into breakouts. So, we will open the breakout rooms. You should have a choice to freely choose one of the breakouts. A breakout one will be about no global council. The second one will be about general assembly model. And then there is a small committee model in the third breakout room. The main room where we will stay empty. Instead of having a breakout discussion, the YouTube viewers can go through another bad exercise with us as we are discussing in the breakouts. So, that's a general idea. Not a break, but regarding the methodology, we will have the guiding question. Why do you think the proposed model is the best for the global council? And then we try to unearth the rationale. So, sometimes we say the same thing, but the rationale is the same. And sometimes you are saying different things, but actually we are trying to solve the same root problem or provide the same kind of, try to fix the same thing. And then we are using a five-wise method to discover the root reasoning. So, we are trying to answer wise on five different levels to see what is the reasoning behind proposing one model over another for the global council, which should also serve as some of the pros and cons of different models. We will have a jam board to document the discussion. And we will have approximately 20 minutes for the conversation. It's like four minutes per level, but I presume that first you might be faster and then we get slower as we move forward. Let's see how it goes and however we need some extra time in the breakouts. We will have further ado. Let's split to the breakout rooms. Let's open them and you should be able to freely choose the one you are interested in joining. You can find the breakouts on the remote and there are rooms already open. You have to go to the menu, choose more, choose breakout rooms, and then choose our no global council, the first breakout room, second breakout room general assembly, and third the small committee. Support team will be there to help facilitate the conversation and we will also have the movement charter drafting committee members joining the different rooms. So, let's try to get to the breakouts. And Merdad wrote in the chat, please let us know if you would like to be manually assigned to rooms so we can do that. Also myself, Merdad and Nu will move on to the breakout rooms, each of them helping providing facilitation support. Aida will stay behind to provide support to anyone who needs support in the main room. Thank you very much for the lively discussions in the breakout rooms. As we are already 75 minutes into the call, it is healthy to take a quick break and then we return. I would like to have a quick poll regarding how should we continue, like do we want to start reporting back converging together with a group on three different models or do we still want to unearth further wise and consolidate the ideas inside the breakouts, dive a bit deeper. So, let's do a break now. Then we return, we will decide together and then move on with the call for last portion, about 40 minutes. So, a five-minute break, probably five minutes are up. It's time to return from the break. I was looking for the poll function on the call, but I didn't see it. The question for me was whether we should continue diving deep. We did wrap up the no-global-console discussion, but as I understood, actually the general assembly and the small committee discussions there in the midst of things while we call the break. So, I have a question for you, whether you would like to continue in the small groups to dive even deeper to unearth further wise and concerns and ideas regarding the different models or should we move towards quick reporting back on what was discussed? I don't think we have time for a full convergence circle, but we can initiate a bit of convergence and maybe pick things up on the next community call. So, I'm wondering what would be the preferred option and I would suggest actually voting and using emojis for voting on this one, but I do see a raised hand from Riska, so maybe you have a suggestion. I am wondering if part of the challenge that we are facing right now is that people have converged on the choice that they preferred rather than the choice that they needed to understand better, for lack of a better way of putting it, and so we're going to get some serious confirmation bias happening here, which is something that we really, really wanted to avoid. So, I'm hesitant to say let's keep going because people have already made their decision, have come in with an idea in mind and have converged on that idea rather than learning what other groups have to say or what other ideas there are out there and the reasoning behind those other ideas. So, I think reporting back would be more helpful. I'm complete. Thank you, Riska. I see another comment from Christoph. Yeah, are you, Riska? But the thing is because it was not designed to make sure that we would be exposed to the other ideas. I don't see any other way. I mean, I don't see any other way going. I mean, when you go to one of the three, we didn't have like the presentation of the idea and then discussion and so on to make sure that when you are not in agreement, you take the act of finding the good, the upside. So, I agree. I mean, I think that what you're showing is a good idea to do is a good exercise, but perhaps it needs to be more designed that way and to be very, very, I'm not going to say enforced, but pushed onto participants to make sure they go where they don't feel comfortable with, if I'm making sense. So, we can share in here, but the confirmation bias is going to be there because there was no clear cut on where we should be as a person. Yeah. So, the help with the design was that we have kind of a mixed group, both at degree and both at disagree, and the hope was that the convergence will be built during the actual convergence cycle design. So, that was kind of what we were going with regarding the design. I think Riska is making a fair point and if you want to move away from the confirmation bias, and that was one of the things we actually discussed in preparing for the call, then I think it actually would make really sense to have reporting back from all the different groups. So, we can, at least from this call, have an insight to all the different models and the ideas behind that rationale so it can sit with us and we can work on the convergence maybe next time around more deeply. I see hand from Gerga over to you. Thanks. I think what would have been useful at the beginning of this call, and maybe that's useful for the follow-up calls, is for the MCDC to explain what they see as the roadblock in the process and what they expect from this call to have with that. Like, do you disagree on, I don't know, committee size and do you want to see more opinions to get a feeling of what the consensus of the community, the consensus of randomly selected 20 people in this case is, or do you feel that the opinions you have heard so far are not diverse enough and you want to see a bunch of sticky notes from a bunch of people you haven't heard from yet, or do you feel that you don't have heard good enough arguments yet and want to hear people argue about the pros and cons of the various options, like those are meaningfully different problem statements which would require meaningfully different ways to organize this session. So I think I imagine someone thought about this and just didn't tell us, but if you tell the meeting participants at the beginning, but how you expect their participation to be useful then that generally produces better outcomes. Yeah, so what was the agreement that we had in turn, like it's a high level one, it's around the purpose, like why do we want to have these discussions, but I hear the point regarding more clear guidance regarding the engagement and participation coming from both Christoph and Cargo, like it should be outlined better. The point taken for future calls, that's fair enough. I would go to reporting back still, so maybe we can have a quick recap from all the different groups. I'm wondering how it is best done. I think we will try to do a very brief overview with the support team and then we will invite people to complement, to actually participate in the room. I think it will make sense to kind of have it as the deliverable from the school to have all these report packs delivered, so we can maybe have seven to eight minutes per group, so we can go all free before we run out of time on this call and also have a quick checkout before leaving. So let's go to the first breakout first, which was the one I joined. Here we started with the question, why do you think the proposed model is the best for a global council? There are no global council models, and there are several ideas pitched, but the core idea seemed to be we do not seem to have a consensus to have a global council, and it seems that it would take a long while until we actually build that consensus, so that was one of the key points made. And the number one, which seemed to be going deeper, was that and was surfaced from the community consultations that people perceive that it will be a large administrative burden to participate in the global council. It would be difficult for people underrepresented now to take part in the global council and also people do not feel that their voice would be represented in the global council anyway, which led us to the second level of why do people think that participation at the global council will not be worth it. And there, essentially, it was two key points. One was that small communities expect to have a limited number of seats, so it does not make a difference. So it was kind of arguing from the small community side, but overall, what seemed to be one of the core issues that even with the drafts, even if like all the work done, it still is unclear regarding what is the actual scope, power and responsibilities of the global council to understand its actual impact on the movement. And that's why they are really hesitant to go forward with ideas. So that was what I heard. Anyone from our group, would you like to complement this short overview of the discussion? Are there any questions regarding the discussion, this part of presentation? If not, I think it would make sense to move on. I just wanted to thank this group. I think it was interesting to look at an anti-alternative as this is. So I just want to thank you for doing this. Thank you so much, Anders. So let's move on to the second group. I'm handing it over to Merdad as a facilitator of a group to do a really short overview and then other people who actually participated in the discussions can complement. Sounds great. Thank you so much, Carl. Actually, thank you to everyone who participated. It really was a great group. So with the first, we clustered a bit around the ideas and no surprises there. There is the questions about authority versus advisory and how this has changed. Perhaps some see it that way as this changed from how the recommendations were written and now how they've been translated into the model here. Also, one strong thread through the discussion was that more people will just naturally bring more voices and it will naturally create representation, even statistically. And so this greater number, greater representation was a big theme, which then led to our second why. And also another discussion that was had, which was about we shouldn't frame it as general assembly versus the Foundation Board of Trustees. It's not like that at all and that perhaps is a misconception. And that the Board of Trustees is responsible for the foundation and responds to the foundation and that's great for the foundation. But there should be another body that is also responding to the community and has the authority there for them. And so there was an ask that we don't pick them against each other and in fact that they can work side by side. Yeah, there were lots of great discussions here. I invite you all to read the Jamboard seal. You were also in that group. Would you like to add anything? Did anything really resonate with you? We also discussed some of the blocks and barriers that is perhaps perceived like why not fix the Foundation Board of Trustees, which is why we had that subsequent discussions. Anybody else from this group who would like to share thoughts? Another great comment was a great summary that received multiple plus ones was that at the moment in our movement, there is one organization that is in control of technology, the brand and the money. And that perhaps not all three should be centralized in one place. And that the hope and aspiration of this is that they don't, that they are decentralized. If not, then we can move on to the next group. Andrew, is that a legacy hand or are you? No, just a quick meta question because I think I've heard it stated twice now. And maybe just this is a good time to clarify. I heard both from Rysker and CL that one of the reasons perhaps why there's a leaning towards advisory rather than having any real authority is because the recommendations have never really been ratified by the whole community through any formal process. So therefore maybe the MCDC is operating on the recommendations as being much less or much less legitimate than maybe the rest of us think they are. If that is true or not, I'd love to hear some feedback on it because that would surprise me if that's the case. But maybe Rysker and CL, you could elaborate on that. I'd be happy to elaborate on that. It's actually something that we have spent some time clarifying in, well, since Wikimania, the closest thing that we have to a ratification or even formal support of any kind on the movement strategy recommendations is an agreement in principle pending finalization from the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. That's it. That's it. The communities has never been asked whether or not it agrees with these strategies. The affiliates, as best I know, have never had that discussion. Some individual affiliates have come out in support of it, but as a group, we don't have a confirmation that this is where we all want to go. And even when you look at the recommendations and the entire report holistically, there are contradictions in there that play against each other. If you do A, then you can't do B and things like that. So we have to be very cautious about recommending things that really have never been shown to have global support or even movement support. I understand where you're coming from, but I think I agree with lots of what's going on the chat. What have we been doing for the last number of years in Berlin and at Wikimedia and getting feedback and post-its and refinements and online? I thought the recommendations, even if I don't buy 100% of recommendations, but I agree it's our North Star, that guides what we're doing now. If we're going to basically say that we can't even agree on the recommendations as being kind of rough consensus, then I think we're in much worse shape than I thought we were. I think we're in pretty rough shape. I'm going to be very blunt. But there is not consensus on those recommendations. Maybe we can try to get consensus on these recommendations. So we just fixed that part. I would make the argument we have consensus on it because we've gone through years and years of rounds with multiple chapters, multiple in-person meetups. We have the document out there for comment. If there's any major feedback going against those recommendations, we would have heard it by now. It's not a secret what the recommendations are. I've been in the middle of implementing them in my glam space, so I'd love to hear from other folks. Nicole, I think since you've been the center of the facilitation of this, you had a comment in the chat about this. There are very few people who have participated in these discussions. Less under 1,000 people in the entire movement over the course of the last seven years have participated. There's other hands up. I want to make sure they get the chance to speak. Just so that we're clear, most people don't even read meta. Most people have no idea that there's even a strategy. I'm complete. Since you mentioned my name, indeed in the breakout room, I refer to that one, but it was not to say that we should not have a global council at all. Oh, no, sorry. To address why is the current global council draft speaking mostly along the lines of advisory versus enforcing, it does not have to do with that. For me, it does mean that I would allow the movement charter drafting committee to be more creative than maybe a limited scope that is in the movement recommendation as it is now. Maybe we want to look beyond. That was actually why one of the questions was some people say that the global council should be brought to life to fix Wikimedia Board of Trustees. Well, is that really the right approach? The same argument that Risker is giving, I allow myself more freedom in thinking and freedom in problem solving and in the approach that I'm taking. I'm complete. Thank you. I think I'm the next one up in the hands line. As Nicole has written in the chat, unfortunately, she cannot speak up at this point of time in a silent mode for the last portion of the call. I have also been the supporting staff member for the movement strategy process and the process of coming up with recommendations. The guidance that I have also voiced to be MCDC and what I can give here is that yes, I agree. What we came up with are recommendations. That doesn't mean that they all need to be implemented 100% word by word. That's the nature of recommendation. It's recommended to do something. We'll see what we will implement to what extent what makes sense also in the changing world. At the same time, as we see also in the chat discussions. That's the point that I have been making. There were more than 100 people coming together in the working groups to work on these recommendations. Not just random people, but people who applied, who went through a process, who spent two years discussing back and forth, having debates between themselves and trying to come up what is the best for a future of a movement. Brilliant people from the project communities, from affiliates, from the Wikimedia Foundation, all across the wide movement actually capturing a quite good constellation of what are movement deeds. Maybe as a factor, like a portion of what it is. We did have many community conversations. Some of our recommendations, they're not received as well. We had three iterations of them and we tried to get to a point where we actually did have, maybe consent would be the right word. It didn't have such strong objections to what was being written there. We tried to mitigate them. That has come with a downside of maybe recommendations being too high level, maybe not that concrete, maybe not that all too clear, but there seems to be a consent coming out of that process. And I have been operating under the assumption that we will do our best as a movement to look into these recommendations and making a sincere true effort in implementing them. So that's kind of a guidance I have been also giving to the MCDs. Regarding SEALs last point, the 10th recommendation says evaluate, iterate and adapt. So we need to be perceptive of the changes of the dynamics in the world around us, the opportunities and risks that rise there and also the changes of dynamics that we have within our movement. So having recommendations doesn't mean that we shouldn't be iterative and adaptive to the changes. So there needs to be this level of openness and it is in line with the principles of movement strategy and also the 10th recommendation itself. So there is also this kind of room of flexibility. But at the same time, I do believe that we have put in a lot of effort into coming up with these recommendations and we need to see them through. For me, like I said earlier on the call, what has been lacking is really arriving to the consent across the different stakeholders on the part of how, like how do we implement in detail these aspects. And I think this is also what is causing trouble for a movement chartered drafting committee because people come arguing with different even contradicting perspectives. And it is really difficult to consolidate that to understandable consent across the movement. So that's my take. I'm complete. I'll hand it over to Gergo who is next in line. Thanks. So I can interpret what Triska said in two different ways and maybe it will be helpful to clarify which one of those is more present in the MCDC thinking. So one of that is especially coming from someone who is sort of like representing English Wikipedia in the drafting process. So it's basically saying that English Wikipedia is not really on board with this charter or recommendations or the whole direction. And that's a big problem. And we need to rethink the recommendations in a way that more incorporates English Wikipedia thinking, which is a position I have a lot of sympathy with because talking as someone who was involved in writing the recommendations, I think one of the biggest failures of the process that we recognize is that the large editor communities were not nearly well enough involved. But then none of what the MCDC is doing recently seems even remotely going in the direction of building consensus on large because so if you really think that's the problem, then I think you just need a completely different strategy from these community cause, for example, then you need to organize serious on wiki discussions and RFCs and whatnot. And obviously it's a very disruptive change at this point to try to renegotiate the recommendations. But again, I sort of agree that this was a big problem with them. But then you really need to say that and do that and with the strategy around that. And the other way I can interpret what I'm hearing is that the first phase two of the process, the recommendation writing process just didn't do a good enough job of reaching out and gathering diverse viewpoints and synthesizing them into the recommendations. And the MCDC can just second guess it and do it better, which again, I have some amount of sympathy for that position because I think it's a very common trope with the foundation that processes start small and in the most important phase is when they kind of look in the future direction, they have very little resource to manage. And as the process grows and moves forward, you have more and more resources, but less and less sexual freedom to change things because you need to adhere to the earlier steps of the process, like case in point, even knows how we choose the strategic direction for the movement phase one, but in some sense that was the most important. So again, I see the point in that, but at the risk of sounding unkind. If you think that the MCDC is more competent at at figuring out consensus position on the movement for the movement and recommendation writing phase was then I think you really need to to demonstrate that competence. And it's just sorry to say, but MCDC so far has not shown itself like it's not presenting itself as a competently run thing. So I think if if that's the direction you are taking this whole process, then you really need to figure out how to seem like the whole process is going somewhere and not just years and years of not really producing anything. Thank you so much for sharing, Garga. Next in line is Stephen. Hey, thank you very much. So I want to definitely add my voice to those people who are disputing the validity of the recommendations and let me explain what I mean. I don't in any way oppose or condemn the recommendations, I just question their effectiveness, relevance of the community. So what do I mean by that? I'm not your core audience because I don't edit Wikipedia a lot, but I do have a solid body of work. So the people who could accept the recommendations and express the community view are people who run really active Wiki projects. Like if you go to Wiki project military history and on the English Wikipedia and you show them their recommendations and they say yes, these are all great, then you would have a real strong basis for saying we showed the recommendations to the community and they accept it. The other place is the women in red project and the head of that is a board member. So go to her and see what she thinks are the recommendations and if she loves it, then you could come back to someone like me and say we already spoke to the community and they like the recommendations. If you can't do that, then that's the point of the recommendation. So let me say a second point. I've personally created a whole new type of history article. It's called 2020s in political history. It's a narrative format of the decade for political history. So you can all look at it on English Wikipedia. So why did I do it? I just thought we needed it. So did I do it as a recommendation? No, I just created the article and there it is. And the community has basically adopted it and they've been using it. So do I think I did anything amazing with that? No, other people, I don't have any great science knowledge. It was just the type of article and I created it. But my point is it moved ahead because it was an idea and the idea served the community and other people in the community liked the idea. So to me, we don't need recommendations. We need ideas. But again, I don't think I have a pivotal role in whether we do or don't accept recommendations. What you need to go do is go to people who run highly active Wiki projects and say to them, what do you think of these recommendations? And if they say to you, we could take it or leave it, they don't seem that useful, then that's the idea and the focus you need to focus upon. I don't think the recommendations are that useful, but I don't think my opinion has to be pivotal on this. I'm not that active, but I agree wholeheartedly with those who don't agree with the recommendations. For those who do agree with the recommendations, I really respect you. I respect your hard work. I respect your dedication, your commitment. I think you have really, really high noble intentions. I just question whether it's really of any relevance to the community. Thank you. That's what I want to say. Thank you, Steven. There was a question in the chat regarding the movement, the Charter for Often Committed Principles, Working Principles. I have added the link. Article 2 says, the MCDC will consider the decisions and definitions made during previous discussions in the movement strategy process. When changing these is necessary, MCDC will share this clearly or transparency and awareness of the process. So that's in the principles I wanted to satisfy. Over to you, Shiko. I just want to react a little bit to this. And I hate to be put in this position of defending this strategy process because I could speak at length to the issues we've had with the strategy process. But I think Gregor put it very well when he said that if we find that the recommendations are lacking, we need to have something that is more legitimate, has more participation. But it's not enough to say that 1,000 people congregating to make the recommendations and all the work that was put into that isn't all everyone that is in the movement strategy process. I, in the MCDC, have more people participating than that. This is the question that I would probably answer in the negative was betting on it. And we need to move forward with something. Even if it's not ideal, we need to get the basic consensus and have harder for our movement. We're a 20-year-old movement that has no guiding principles up to now, rather than collect the knowledge of all humanity. And that is not great. There's a lot that gets lost because we need to get something done. And we got these recommendations and we thought we agreed that this is the way that we would go forward with the drafting. That's it. That's my reaction. Thank you so much. So regarding the conversation we are having here, it was a bit unexpected, at least for me. And at the same time, I'm very, very conscious regarding the timing. As you really went on a tangent, I don't think it's appropriate to just go back to the reporting back from the third group because I don't think the attention would be there. I think it would be good to move a bit towards checkout from this call and reflecting on how do we live. I am also reflecting on some potential next steps regarding this. I see some questions being asked in the chat. And actually, now the chat activities are more lively than it was previously. So for me, regarding the whole situation, I think there is a really big tension that has been surfaced or unearthed during this latter discussion. Something that needs a rather swift resolution as we move forward. And there has been a recommendation for the MCDC to be more clear regarding the principles. We have shared the link. I'm wondering whether we can have some reflections from the movement charter drafting committee members who are on the call. If you would like to do so, reflect on the situation and maybe voice yourself what are the next steps you see coming from this discussion and the expectations we have from our participants from this call. So I think that would be a good closure at this point of time regarding these concerns being raised by the people on the call. So if anyone would like to speak to that part, what do we do about these concerns raised? What are our next steps? It would be great. If not, we can also follow up later having had internal discussion with the committee. So I'm opening up for MCDC members, if you are ready to speak to that point. See you. Thank you. Yeah, so I'm a bit surprised that this is such a big surprise to everyone or at least as Carol linked in the chat, sorry for my cat, Carol linked in the chat. It is in the movement charter drafting committee's principles from January 2022 onwards already that we, if we see that it's necessary to change a bit or to maybe move away from the recommendation itself just a bit because it fits the intention of the recommendation better. We think we should allow ourselves to do that. I think one of the things that we should do better and I really want to do this differently is for instance in the global council draft when it's published on meta indicate what were, why did we choose a certain way? Why did we choose a certain approach? Why is the language here advisory instead of enforcing? Where does this come from? I know we can add notes. We did it in the roles responsibilities chapter. We used notes so if you who were over you can see the subtext. I think that's really helpful and I'd love to hear after this call, love to hear from you how you think we can improve as well. Thank you. I also see a raise hand from Christoph so please go ahead. Christoph, are you there? Sorry, I was thinking there was someone before me. Sorry, I was waiting. You were asking what are the next steps from my very personal perspective that's mine is right now we are witnessing like a huge breach for me in the trust there should have been between the MCDT and people that are involved in that discussion. So to me there is only one next step is that the MCDT should get back together and come before the people that choose them because all of them were chosen and just say how they see rebuilding the trust rebuilding the discussion so that we can move forward because as is right now I have but it's very fresh so I don't know about tomorrow but right now I have a really hot time seeing how we can have an open and trustful discussion when there is no trust or the trust to go hit. So that's my only point but I don't think I'm the only one but right now the discussion is going to be very very tough because I don't know if we can trust. So thank you for voicing the concern. I see a raise hand from Manas and then we will wrap up the call after Anas's comments. Oh thank you very much Karel for giving me the last word joking. Yes so I just wanted to have the direct answer for Kristoff but also answering some things that were in the chat. So basically I kind of don't understand one thing which is that some people gave an opinion about something. Okay these people are members of the MCDC they're our colleagues but it was nowhere written that MCDC says this or MCDC says that. So I fail to understand why the MCDC have to provide the statement or why the MCDC has to defend itself. The MCDC is doing the same work it has been doing for a long time. If you are concerned with something that was said by someone it's better to discuss with that person who gave that opinion but unless the MCDC as a whole writes on meta or writes somewhere that we the MCDC have had a meeting and agreed that we don't care about recommendations or we the MCDC have agreed about this then maybe the discussion can be taken with the MCDC but me as an MCDC member I don't understand why I have to get into a discussion that I don't look like involved in. So that's what I'm trying to say and also one other thing I really don't like this categorizing people this person is influential and this person is not. All MCDC members have the same value they are all voting members and I think all of us have the same value. I understand that you don't like the opinion from some people but it doesn't mean that the committee is saying this and yeah and unless the committee comes with a statement I don't know why I should be involved in this discussion and many of my other colleagues that are not even in this meeting. Thank you. I'm really conscious of time some people have to leave I presume Christoph has direct but I also feel that this might be a snowball so let's close this discussion at this point of time we had some suggestions or the next steps to rebuild the trust and work on it and there are also comments regarding hope for driving this work forward nevertheless to move forward from these recommendations and let's say at that I'm very very grateful to everyone who took the time to participate today and also for openly sharing your perspectives so we could really dive deep regarding yes the structural aspects of the global council but also during this meta-level discussion regarding the implementation of recommendations overall. I think we discovered and unearthed some things and now we have to work through them and I expect that we will get back with a movement chartered trustee committee regarding some of these points rather sooner than later to build a better connection and manage the expectations as we move forward so that's my summary I'm really grateful again for your participation and I hope to see you in future iterations of these open discussions at the MCPC. Thank you for your time today.