 Still waiting for people to join. Let's start three minutes or 33 minutes past the hour. So one more minute and let's get going then. Okay. It's three minutes past two hour, 33 if you're in other time zones. Let's get slowly going with the call. So welcome to the second edition of the Movement Charter Open Community Conversation. I'm your host, Karol working with the Committee of Foundation as a support team member and we have our supporting team members, Nuu, Merdad, Aida, Ramzi supporting the call. We also have a couple of MCDC Movement Charter Trusting Committee participants joining today. I see Daria, I see Jorge, I see Manav, I see Richard Farrows. Also, I think Runa will be joining later, so we actually have quite good presence from the Trusting Committee, which is great. But let's get to the discussions and conversations. I will provide a bit of framing up front, so we get started on the right footing. First of all, safe space. We want to provide a safe space on this call. 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 participants. Sexual language and dimetry 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, Karel Weidler or Nufan or Merdad Purzaki. So the organizing support team, all present in this Zoom call and also in breakout rooms if you happen to open any, you can message us on Zoom privately, each and every supportive member is a co-host, so that feature should be enabled for you. Also, we are live streaming. Not everyone can or chooses to join these calls live in this Zoom meeting space. They still might be interested in following the important discussions of the movement charter so for that reason, we are doing the YouTube live stream, which also stays live as a recording which people can refer to and watch later. Hopefully this will also support the transparency and accessibility to these discussions that we're holding in this space. So just for your knowledge, it's a Zoom call but they're also live streaming on YouTube. Disclaimer from a movement charter drafting committee. This is an open discussion and it will inform the charter drafting. However, on these calls, we have a small fraction of the movement present. The ideas generated and conclusions made during the discussions need to be later validated if either audiences before they will be fully integrated in the charter drafts. So it's not a guarantee, but definitely it will have an important weight as we dive deep usually in this face-to-face or at least virtual conversations. Purpose of a call. Provide a platform to discuss the charter matters with wider range of people, bring in fresh perspective into the drafting process from you all, have a better and deeper understanding of thoughts and expectations of different stakeholders as we have quite good representation of diversity of perspectives on the call and also develop shared understanding and agreement between opposing or even contradictory perspective. So it's a space for us to bridge the gaps that we see in our conversations. Ground rules. Enter the discussion with an open mind. Strike towards awareness regarding your own biases we all have. Listen carefully to what others have to say. If you don't understand, clarify and show that you have all the information you need from peers before jumping to conclusions. And for me, the most important one, it is not about being right, but getting it right together. So this is what we are aiming for, writing the movement charter, getting to a shared understanding. The proposed agenda for today is to again start with a welcome and icebreaker. We will have a topic introduction again. At this time, it will be a brief overview of where we ended up last time around with previous conversation around the general, the global council models, general assembly, small committee and the no council. And then we will try starting pulling the threads together between the different models, see what is a common ground. Essentially, I would like us to use a consenting process and get us to a clear proposal, which usually is on a higher level. We will get into details of that. So this call is more about the convergence when holding the diversity of the different models and the complex between them. We'll see how it goes. We will also do a checkout at the end. I would love to kick us off with a short introduction. Thank you all for taking the time to be here. If you're a full-time participant for full two hours or just jumping in, participating for some time, leaving still, thank you for taking the time and contributing. And I would quickly love to have a round of introductions, just your name and maybe community and affiliate and maybe two words regarding how are you arriving today? I can start. My name is Karel. I'm from Bikimedia Foundation and I'm arriving, again, cautiously, optimistically. I'm passing the ball to Jorge, who is the next one on my screen. Hello, everyone. I'm Jorge Vargas. I'm dialing in from San Francisco. I am the director of partnerships at the Bikimedia Foundation and a happy member of the Movement Chartered Drafting Committee. And in two words, I am cold and hungry. I need to eat. I've been in front of my computer since 6.30 a.m. and haven't had a chance to eat and it's kind of chilly here in San Francisco. And should I kick it off? Is this popcorn style? Should I just move on? I have Katelyn Virtue next to me. Yeah, pass it on. Cool. Katelyn. Hi, I'm Katelyn Virtue with the Bikimedia Foundation and I'm hungry and hopeful. I will pass it to Nicole. Thanks, I'm Nicole Eber from Bikimedia Deutschland. And I just come home from the hairdresser, so I'm in a very good mood and look very much forward to our conversation. I'm also hopeful. Thanks. And I pass it over to Frank. My name is Frank Schoenburg. I'm the executive director of Bikimedia Deutschland Foundation and I'm also hopeful. And I'll pass it on to Andrew Lee. Hi, yes, I'm Andrew Lee in the United States. I'm active with the Bikimedians and Residents Exchange Network and my two words are seeking solutions. So how about Nanor? Hello, good evening. I'm joining you from Sweden. I'm an active member in Arabic communities and projects. And I'm looking forward to listen more today. And I'm passing it to Robert. How about you, Ray? Hi, everyone. My name is Robert Sobri. I'm the program manager for Bikimedia Organisers. So I'm hopeful and hopeful to be here. I'll pass it on to Lori. Oh, OK. Yeah, good evening. Hi, hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm Gloria Moka from Bikimedia. Is a group Nigeria. I'm happy to join you. I enjoyed myself today in the office. I ate ice cream. Thank you. So I'm passing it on to the next one. I see on my screen. Tulsi, Tulsi Bagata, what's your? Hello, this is Tulsi from Nepal. And I'm one of the advisors for MCDC. Thank you. Let's keep it going. Richard, Farros, over to you. Hi, Richard. Richard, user Farros, coming to you from New York City, a member of the Movement Charter Committee. And my two words today are I am certain of success. And I pass it on to Johnny. Hi, I'm Johnny from Manila, Philippines. I'm a movement charter ambassador. And just like everyone else, I'm hopeful. Let's keep it moving again, passing it over to Numi Zuhair. Hello, I am Zuhair Khan from India. I'm a volunteer affiliate of the Urban Bikimedia user group. And I am charter movement charter ambassador also. And I'm here for I'm hopeful. Just I can say that I'm hopeful. Thank you. Next one in my list is Merbat. Hi, everyone. It's been long since I participated in any discussions related to the charter from back. I'm also hopeful, really. I do not know who's next. You have been in terms of Maggie maybe. Did I hear my name? Yeah, I think it was Maggie. Yes. Yes, yes. Thank you. I'm Maggie. I work for the Wikimedia Foundation. And I don't remember what else I'm supposed to say, other than my two words, which are working together. And I'm going to ask Karol to because the people I had thought I would call on if I were called on have already been called on. So I'm afraid I'll call on someone who already spoke. Yeah, it's a bit difficult to follow. I see that has written in the chat. Antonin and Atomkin still curious. Do you want to speak up or that's it? Yeah, cannot. So passing it on to Margie, over to you. Hi, everyone. So nice to see you faces. My words today are catching up. I have been out of the loop, but would like to get back into the groove here. So glad to see you all. Nice to see you here. Passing it on to Manav. Thank you, Karol. I was typing when you actually called up my name. So I'm Manav and based in Punjab, India. And I'm hopeful. And I initially thought, OK, probably like I'll be the one who will come in with this energy because I'm coming back after a break. But yeah, excited. And so looking forward to the discussions, I'll pass this on to Liana. Hi, everyone. I am Liana Davis with Wikia Education. And I am cautiously optimistic. And I have no idea who's not gone yet. So, Karol, can you help me out here? Yeah, yeah. Let's go to Lucy. Well, Lucy, are you available? If not now, then can we do it? And that means you are Lucy. OK, yeah, Lucy. Go, you are Lucy. The ambassadors. Yeah, I think there might be connection issues. So it's a one of the movement charter ambassadors. Let's move on to Nvidia and Lucy. If you can, you can write in the chat because you didn't hear it properly. Very. Hi, everybody. Manuel, good by the username Nvidia on Wikipedia. I'm with the Global Open Initiative Foundation in Ghana. And two heads, I'm hopeful. And I'm excited to pass on to Caitlyn. Caitlyn already went. I see Fluck has written the chat. Hi, I'm Fluck from Kashmir Wikimedia User Group, hopeful. Do you want to speak up, or that's it, Fluck? Can't we pick up? And also, we have some people checking in also from YouTube. So, Suyash Trivedi, hello from India. Namaste, I think I also saw Jan earlier from a sustainable Wikimedia user group connecting with us from the storm. Daria, you're the next one up in my list. Yeah, I am Daria Sebuskat, Director of Programs Wikimedia, but also I'm a CDC member. I'm a bit sick and a bit apprehensive. And I will pass to Christophe. Sorry, I had to mute you. Hi, everyone. I'm Christophe from France, a community member, I guess. And I'm eager to have the discussion we need to have. And I leave you, Carol, to tackle the piece. Thank you so much, Christophe. I think we have Anders left. Hello, I'm Anders Svenestehen from Sweden. I'm a Wikipedia, non-Swedish Wikipedia. And just for the moment, I'm part member of the Northwestern Dissemination Group or whatever it's called. Yeah, thanks. Thank you so much. And maybe quick hello also from a supporting team who will be busy ensuring that the call is success. So let's talk to Ramsey. Hi, everyone. Ramsey from Jakarta, Indonesia. I work for the committee support team at the foundation. We're ready to support you here today, my two words. Over to Nu. Thanks, Ramsey. My name's Nu. I am the project manager at the foundation and as well as for the MCDC. Daria, you and I are on the same wavelength, a little bit sick and a little bit anticipatory. Merdad. Hi, everyone. My name is Merdad. I'm joining you from Toronto today. I'm also working for the foundation and in support capacity for the MCDC. And my two words are inspired and hopeful, inspired by all the passion here and hopeful for what we can accomplish together. And Aida, please. Hi, everyone. I'm Aida joining from Mumbai right now. My two words are optimistic and a little tired and really looking forward to this conversation today. Thanks for joining, Carol. Over to you. Thank you, everyone, for checking in. I see also from YouTube, Ana Torres from Wikimedia Argentina joining us from the YouTube livestream. Let's get going with the content discussions. Time is precious and I think it's time to move to that part. As I said, I tried to be brief. I already wrote the recap on Telegram following the previous call, which is also shared on Meta. But overall, on October 5th, almost a month ago, we had free breakout discussions on different models that had been proposed from different community members. And one was a no-global council option. The second one was general assembly model. And the third one was small committee model. Regarding the no-global council model, what you discussed is that there does not seem to be a full consensus in the movement regarding whether or not and how to set up the global council. And as a result, the bottom line was, we are far from alignment across the movement. It doesn't seem that it's a feasible idea to implement. And also there was an anticipation that maybe the global council would not change that much. It will be kind of a status quo with maybe different flavor. And especially when it comes to representation of a smaller community center affiliates to have a voice, so it would not really support to ensure equity in the decision making recommendation as the conversations are going. At the same time, the discussion group was really small. So it was not that representative of diverse voices. And also it feels that because most people choose the other groups, we are currently not exploring in depth the no-global council model as we proceed, but rather try to see, okay, if you did a global council, what it could be or should be. So that will be the attention of the discussion. The other one we discussed was a general assembly model. So that was a deeper dive with a larger group. And key areas of reasoning why we would choose the general assembly model was the diversity and representation aspect. So essentially it's a point regarding quantitative equity actually having people in the room, including and representing diverse voices directly. There was a point made regarding the legitimacy and transparency of the general assembly model. Important decisions will be made with actual direct representation. So that seems to be the key for legitimacy. And the third key point was that human and community capital is important. And in the reasoning that was there, having more people will ensure the general assembly to actually fulfill its mission. So having a wider pool of people involved. It was noted also that the general assembly model would codify existing annual convening. That's more affiliate directed. So essentially saying that we are coming together to fulfill the three committee conference or committee summit. So maybe that could be a new general assembly. That was one of the point raised in the group. It's not comprehensive overview. These are kind of the key points from a discussion. We will also be sharing the jam boards with you where you can see the full content from the conversation. The third model that was discussed was a small committee model. And essentially putting forward the idea that this is a model that is actually feasible and effective, that was kind of a key grounding reasoning for the small committee. And it was suggested that it has functionality. It can make decisions faster and it creates a platform for actual meaningful discussion. Essentially upholding the diversity. This model has been referred also as qualitative equity model. So quantitative equity for general assembly, qualitative equity for both small committee. And also it was suggested that we would need to perhaps start with incremental change to keep things realistic. And the small committee seems more feasible than a large body. And also the hope was that it can be less taxing on volunteer time. So while in the general assembly model we had the upside of having more people involved, creating the sustainability, the question was raised that maybe with a small committee like overall use of volunteer time will be lesser. And also there would be lower administrative overhead. So these are kind of argumentation why the small committee model would be the best one for the global council. That's it regarding the overview. Are there any questions, clarifications regarding the content? I take it as a no for now. So I would love to move us towards the goal or purpose of today's call. So trying to start pulling the threads together. The Jamboard links were already shared in the chat. This is where you have the full content. I would like for us all to get kind of tuned into the conversation to read through the Jamboard documentation. I would give you maybe four or five minutes. Be attentive and emphatic. Try to understand the other perspective. Be open for new perspectives. And also reflect on how it all connects with your own perspective. Are there any changes in your perspective after seeing the documentation from other groups? So I will start the timer and let's do a bit of silent reading to ensure that we are all on the same page updated. The links to the Jamboard are in the chat. And I hope that this can also be shared on the YouTube live stream. So let's do a bit of reading to tune in. Teresa, hello from YouTube, from Nicola Zeuner, or Nicky Zeuner from Germany, and she has asked also a question. I would like to know the definition of qualitative equity. So regarding the discussion around the general assembly model and the committee model, essential argumentation goes that in the general assembly you would not actually have equity, but you have it as a sounding board of the loud voices or in the rubber stamp. And in opposition to that, there is a proposition that the smaller committee provides qualitative equity. So actually you can make all the voices heard present in the smaller group. You can facilitate them in, you can create the intentional space for different culture backgrounds and contexts. And so you can have the discussion across a board which is just not feasible then the number of people in the conversation increases. And so as your argumentation goes that actually brings a quality of conversation and the equity is achieved through representation of diverse perspectives that are actually being heard and listened to in the conversation. So that's the difference between quantitative and qualitative equity as your argumentation goes. I'm complete. I missed a raised hand on that really sorry over to you. Could you clarify, is the new global council, is that out from now? The first option. Yeah, so essentially what I said is that it seemed to have low traction in the conversation. So we might look at the argumentation regarding the new global council but regarding the consenting, I think it makes sense to most look at the information from a small committee and the general assembly. So yeah. Okay, I agree with that too. And thank you for that also. Okay, thank you. Two more minutes and then we start discussing. Okay, I would stop the silent reading time now to get us to the conversation. I will be sharing some of the kind of from basic rules also for that. What is the intent here is look for commonalities. So essentially instead of endless divergence, let's try to start a bit of a convergence cycle. Look for a common ground that we can build on. And at the same time, be open to new perspectives from others. What we need to be mindful of is that consenting often starts on a higher conceptual level than the detailed idea each one of us has in the room. Essentially what we are looking for is common denominators. The example here regarding agreement might be, we have an idea of sparing volunteer time or not wasting volunteer time both in a general assembly and the committee support model. So that might be one of the common denominator. Ensuring that the volunteer time is well used in a global council. So essentially we might be leveling up in a bit of design principles level for the global council and then find an agreement there. So this is what I suggest to look out for. What do you see is the common part in both of the aspects? Where do we actually agree regarding the global council? And so we can then later start outlining the structure based on these agreements and shared understanding. So that's the idea. Let's see how it goes. We will be capturing the notes. So we'll have either pad. We can also share the either pad link. Everybody is welcome to jump in. But essentially as you are discussing we are also capturing the notes. So you don't have to worry about that. You can take your thinking time essentially if you're ready to go raise your hand and have a go on what you see as a common denominator or common principle between the different perspectives. I will read out a comment from the chat. So Christoph writes, I do not want to be a pain but I feel I have to raise again. We are talking about operational implementation while foundational questions have yet to be addressed. And until then we might struggle at convergence as you might be discussing very radical conception of what we're doing. So essentially asking us to take even further steps from the content that we have and essentially coming to agreement regarding the foundational aspects of what are we expecting from the global council. So that's pretty substantial comment. That can be achieved like if you want to level the conversation on that level I don't know how others feel on the call. Let's see what are the reactions. I also did see your hand Richard. So maybe you also want to speak up and complete. Yeah, so I see an agreement in the chat from Andrew Lee. I agree it would be good to address some of the foundational issues early on. Fine, but that sounds fair especially if you want to move towards convergence and consent. So maybe Christoph Andrew I also see agreement from the other in the chat. Maybe you can get us going with naming some of these foundational issues that we need to address we will document and then then we will try to see where we will take us. So any of you who has supported the idea maybe you can share some of the foundational issues you see that need to be addressed first. Request from Christoph if anyone opposes or dissents the idea then it would be good to provide that perspective. Do not think we have a strong opposition or disagreement regarding this discussion of the fundamental issues. So the floor is yours. What are the things you think need to be addressed first to start the true convergence cycle? Yes, Anders you also wrote in the chat a bit of different points over to you. Yes, I think if we talk of things that's common I think we all want to have matters purely related to communities, our communities, how we work, how we as volunteers work in our communities and also in the affiliates. They should be handled outside the board of trustees that I think we agree on. Yeah, so the first point of alignment that seems to be present in all the different models is that matters related purely to communities and affiliates process should be handled outside of board of trustees. So that is stated as a point of alignment between the different proposals. And at the same time Christoph has taken the time to outline some of the points of contention and foundational issues in the chat. So we can take them forward in some of the discussion portion to see whether they can take us to some level of agreement or maybe these are the root disagreements. So the first one is a question around being organized in a centralized way or more distributed way, which is the way we want to take. So the question is about the centralization decentralization that has been touched upon from different angles in the movement strategy and the example given is cathedral versus bazaar. So I'm wondering what are the thoughts in this space regarding the centralized or distributed approach for the global council or the movement at large. So maybe also you can add context around the cathedral versus bazaar. So I think there are different ways how to approach that and then different metaphors can be used. But overall, as I understand a centralized model is where you have one centralized organization and then it kind of is more kind of top-down vertical axis that is the key. And then you have the bazaar model which is distributed and the emphasis is put on the horizontal connection between the entities. So that would be my short summary, but thank you for sharing also very appealing. I would also kindly request people if possible to rather speak up and write in the chat. So we have quite active chat section going but the people on YouTube cannot follow the chat as well. So maybe it would be possible to speak up. I guess I'll speak up a little bit. Hi, Richard, you're a Ferris. I think definitely, I think it's the broader conception that we're moving in the direction of decentralization. The question is how to what degree and in what aspects. And those are some of the questions that Chris has raised and that folks have been discussing globally in the movement. But definitely I think the whole, I mean, my perspective, the whole purpose is to move in the direction of decentralization. And the question is how to do that in the best possible way. Thank you, Ferris. Liana, I see your hand. Yeah, I will just repeat the comment that I wrote in the chat here, which I think the question, the big question in my mind that still remains is which powers that are currently held by the Wikimedia Foundation is the Wikimedia Foundation willing or comfortable to moving to a global council. Because I think understanding the boundaries of what we can and can't even have this global council do is going to be critically important as we understand sort of how we wanna put together a model, understanding which powers it can even have to begin with, I think will help us then think through what's the appropriate structure for that. And I think that gets at some of the questions Christoph was asking there around like, do we want it to have powers of a brand or other things like that? Thank you. Thank you so much, Liana, for sharing your comment also in voice. Anders, you're next and then to Christoph. I'm not at all interesting for the global council to be above board of trustees. I think it's important, you can compare with the German way of organization company, they got two steering groups, they got an overview steering group and an operative steering group. And I believe we must have a steering group that is not set up from below because every democratic group can be manipulated. So I think we must have someone the core things, brand and things like that. But then we can have a council for the other things, volunteers and stuff like that. But I'm not willing to support that we ask the board of trustees to be part of the general council. Thank you, Anders. Christoph, I see your hand. Yeah, a couple of things first to answer the comment you made. I think it's good to know where the foundation is standing on the different topics. But on the other hand, I do believe also it is good when you're doing this kind of process to do it in the, I'm going to say from scratch. So given our vision and our goals to be the backbone of the infrastructure for open knowledge and stuff, what do we need to do to achieve that? And then we see, I mean it's rich engineering that thing. If to do that we need to be in that structure then to reach that it means A, B, C and D. And then you see where there are the blockers because if you do that the other way around there is a bias that comes from habits and from what we are used to and I would say it's very correctively to say, oh no, we shouldn't change that because it's been that way forever. And going against that when you don't have a clear vision of where you want to learn and with a clear why is other. So I agree, it is an information that is interesting but it should not be structural in the way we're thinking. And as for the comment that Anders just made that is a really critical discussion because I will not be hiding that I'm in the exact opposing view which I think that our distribution should be much more shared than it is today. But I think that that discussion on how we structure our set and how we distribute power and what it means distributing power or not and what it means in our organization is critical to be able to have the next discussion on how we do it. One question I used to ask years ago to provoke the discussion on that is why, and I know the why. So it's a third question but why don't we have the media USA? And that question is actually a very good symptom of what we are doing today and of the discussion we don't have today. We do have a Wikimedia foundation which is global slash local. We don't have a Wikimedia USA. And if we were to have a Wikimedia USA what would it mean regarding fundraising, regarding local laws and stuff and so on. And I'm using that specific case. It's not the only one but that one is very structural in power distribution. So that's my two comments. I'm not sure I was clear and incomplete. Yeah, thank you Christoph for sharing. So essentially Christoph is bringing to the space one of the discussion points that has been there in the community engagement which is around function before form. So essentially really defining the function and the remit of a global council before having any discussion of the structure. So that's a very common thread. I also see Nikki engaging with us from the YouTube. So I will just read out her comment regarding the general assembly model. The concept of a global assembly is not well understood as evidenced by the very leading question on the board. More people equals more representation. Question mark. Global assembly would meet once a year and be complimented by a board and staff together forming the global council to make sure it can make actionable decisions. The assembly itself only reviews and makes high level decisions on strategy policy and budget. So it was clarification point regarding the general assembly model. Thank you for engaging with us from YouTube. Maggie, you are in here in Zoom, over to you. I know this is weird. I'm probably scaring my team. So let me say first, I do oversee the team that supports the MCDC and I usually therefore try to have no opinion about anything to make sure that I'm just supporting. So as a visual clue, I'm changing my hat. I have an opinion. I really agree with a lot of what you said, Christophe. I think we really need to think about what the function is and what we're trying to do here. One thing though that I wanted to react to, Leanna, you were talking about the powers that foundation are willing or comfortable moving to the global council. This is always a question where I think about my own experience, right? I've been in charge of trust and safety at the foundation for a long time. When it comes to what are you willing to give up? What legally do you have to keep? That answer isn't clear because sometimes what we are looking at is how much risk is it if we do this or don't do this? How much risk are we willing to take on? So sometimes when people have come to me early on, the MCDC came to talk to me about trust and safety and what we could put down, what we could give out. And it's like, it depends. I honestly think that for a really well functioning system, whatever we build is gonna have to work really well and build a lot of trust so that we do have the ability to look at some case by case basis and say, the risk is high here. This should probably not be open to a general vote. This is safe. And just make sure that we have clarity around how those things work rather than a list of you can have these cases, you can have those cases. I am, as Karol says, complete. Anyone else wants to have an immediate reaction or point regarding some of the points that have been made? Yes, Jorge, over to you. Hi. Yes, I think that I appreciate how this is being framed and I hope that we can definitely like try to make a couple of steps forward on what I think it's been like the revolving question for a very long time. And it's the idea of like, what is the foundation willing to give up, right? And I'm not speaking on behalf of the foundation or with like a lot of expertise here beyond what the consultation process has given. But I think that the framing of the question actually should be looked into ways, right? Like one thing is, what is the foundation currently doing? What are the responsibilities, right? So like foundation hosts the servers. One, foundation raises the money. Two, foundation provides grants, three, et cetera, right? And based on that, then we can look at what are the things that the movement is asking to have some sort of influence, buy-in, decision-making authority versus the ones that are not interested in, right? And oftentimes it boils down to three things which are money, profit and tech, and or something in connection to those two which are the brand and the brand association to it. The whole point of why we also engaged both WMF Legal and an external law firm to provide feedback on that, on the drafts and on further questions that I wanna keep asking them is understanding what is legally possible? Cause we really don't want to be in a situation where we are proposing and discussing and doing a lot of things that later Florida law, which is the legislation in which the foundation bylaws and the foundation is registered, basically says we cannot do anything, right? So there was already a very clear initial set of legal feedback from both WMF Legal and an external law firm saying, this is what the fiduciary duties of the foundation are. These are the hard lines of things where you cannot delegate even if you want to, right? And I think that for me, it's very important that we keep that in mind because oftentimes we have of course an eagerness towards decentralization and towards like, what are the things that the foundation should stop doing? But also in reality, what are the things that we actually can propose that have legal viability? And that is a very complex tension that we're trying to like figure out. And one of the things that we're gonna go back to the external law firm with, and I can share that is with more questions. So I'm like, okay, you said that you cannot do that. What about this other model? What about this other way of doing it? Like if there's any potential avenue here that we can explore that actually works. So we know that we're operating under a certain, let's say like frameworks of things that would actually work. I also know that you can ask as many attorneys as possible, it's just as you can ask as many doctors as possible for an opinion. But at the end of the day, there is some sort of like agreement on what are the hard lines of things that we can and cannot do. So I just wanted to bring that perspective to say one thing is what are the things that the foundation is quote unquote willing to give up. But also I would like frame it differently and what are the things that the foundation can indeed legally give up. And I also don't love the idea of giving up because like it's really coming like this power play of like I have the power over this, so like let me give it up to you. I'd rather see like what are the things that we really need to find better ways or models of agreeing on certain ways of doing certain things that the foundation is currently doing. And I think that those usually boil down to fundraising, grand-making, product and tech from all the conversations that we've been hearing. So I would love us to be able to evolve from the idea of giving powers back and forth but like maybe do the double click on what are we talking about? What are the things that we're specifically interested in finding ways to have different influence to the foundation is not the sole decider over it. And maybe that's what will evolve into what are the models around? Is it a general assembly? Is it a global council? Like what would that be constituted? Is there a difference if then the GCE is legally constituted versus it not being constituted? Should it be an advisory role? Should it be a more compulsory role? Is that legally feasible, et cetera? So sorry for my long intervention but I really want us to be able to evolve into like a little bit of like grounding on that. Thank you. To continue the line of thought, I quickly take a comment Niki has posted on YouTube. So engaging with us actively. Would agree with Maggie and Jorge. It's not about willing but about what makes more sense to have decided by movement stakeholders. It's not about disempowering the Wikimedia Foundation but about creating a better system. So it's a direct on Maggie's and Jorge's comment. So plugging it in here, I see your hand, Christoph and Liana and Q. So Christoph. I'm going to answer to Jorge and I, Christoph. I'll agree on this spread of power and make this exact same comment as you in the same time on the chat. Just on what we can do, I would like to politely push back on that because that's a narrative I've heard a lot. Even a few years ago when I was myself in the foundation, I would like to remind a couple of things. First, the brand at first was owned by BOMIS which was a for-profit organization and was transferred to the foundation. So anytime I've heard that the brand cannot move away from the foundation, in our history, it's started by being transferred. That's the first thing. The second thing is in my professional capacity, I've been doing a merger and acquisition of organizations and carve out organizations. And when you go to a lawyer and you ask them, can we do X, nine of the time of the 10, you're going to have as an answer all the risks of doing what you ask. When you go to them and say, we need to split that, then by magic solutions appear. Because in the global world and in the Western world even more and the US even more, transfer of assets between organizations is possible from a legal standpoint on anything. And again, I would like to remind everyone that our history is rooted in the fact that there was a transfer of us. The first infrastructure was owned by BOMIS and it was transferred, same for the brand. So if there is a world and we think it's best for the movement and that for me is a corner question, then we will find the way of doing it. Lastly on that ground, because that is a narrative that I'm trying to take home but that's a narrative that really annoys me is that, and I really wish it never, never, never happens, but it happens is that in the USA, we start having laws that are very, very dangerous to us that would expose us to high risks to our content and our money. I'm pretty sure that the foundation then would find a solution very fast to move assets away. If we were in danger of existing, we would find solutions. So if we can find solutions when our existence is in danger, it means that even if it's not in danger, we can find. It's a matter of what is important, what is not and what we want to do or not. I'm complete. Thank you Christoph for sharing, Liana, how about you? Yeah, and I mean, I was the one who originally used the phrasing that I think several people have pointed out was perhaps not the best. So I will withdraw the sort of framing for how I did that. But I do think following on sort of Christoph's comment, I wanted to specifically respond to Jorge because I think that sort of anchoring it back in the sort of Florida US law is the same challenge that I feel like is where my question emerged from. Like if there is an actual basis of the foundation is coming, is not willing to do anything that is not different from what is currently applicable in Florida US law, then I think that is a position that I have not heard clearly articulated before and is the kind of thing that I'm looking for, right? Like I would be much more in favor of sort of as Christoph was saying, like, let's say what are we trying to do? What is our goal? And then if there needs to be some sort of merger or transition or something like that, then let's make that possible rather than starting from we are anchoring this in Florida law because we incorporated there out of happenstance years ago. Thank you, Liana, Jorge, over to you. I was trying to type answers and I was like, we're in a call, let's just talk. So first of all, just quickly, Liana, like I really appreciate that you framed the question as you did because that was what actually has been very helpful to be the moving piece for us to have the conversation. I wanted to share a little bit of the process of how we engage with the lawyers and what we're thinking about doing that as a next step or as a next approach with them. The first thing that we did with the lawyers was for them to review the drafts as is, right? So like it was not a Q&A or it was not like us framing things like different hypotheses or different things, but rather these are the drafts that we are putting out. Can you do a check, right? And based on that, we received an initial set of feedback which they decided to make public and we put in on meta on each of the drafts, but it was really like feedback specific to the draft. After all of these conversations, after talking to folks at Wikimania in this calls, et cetera, we are going now to a model pretty much of what Nicole just put on chat, right? Which is like, okay, now we are collecting questions, very concrete questions around some hypotheses and asking them things like, I mean, I have a list of questions that I'm collecting because I'm leading that process internally and very much on the line of what you were putting there, Nicole, right? Okay, this is what we want. Now you understand, because those are the lawyers, of course, the external law firm needed a little bit of ramping up and understanding the context of all of these questions. These are the different hypotheses. Like, this is the problem that we're presenting to you as lawyers, what are the different solutions, ABCD, right? I do think that, of course, there's always an area of stopping the foundation to be registered in Florida and move the registration or like, there's always those scenarios, right? But I do think that that is also where we're trying to get very clear clarity on what are the hard lines that we would also have, not just in the abstract of legal things, because as I think Christoph said, like there always could be like a legal solution if one really needs to do something and also what is the willingness? And then I would actually say that word, willingness of the board or the foundation to say like, sure, we're gonna move the registration to a different state or a different country, right? That's also an open question. So we're trying to tackle the different lines of questioning at the same time, one being like the willingness line, but also one understanding the different scenarios. And that is why right now, what I'm trying to bring up in this call is we're trying to handle the theoretical, the practical and the legal at the same time and trying to share that as much as possible and also feed from this conversations that we're having to keep having those questions brought to the lawyers, to the board and to the community consultations in general. Hope that that helped clarify a little bit more, but I'd love to keep the conversation going. Jorge referred to Nicole's comment. So I've been really talking from the chat. I didn't know if you're going in that direction or continuing with previous discussions. So Nicole brought in a chat. If you talk with that external law firm and present them the different scenarios for a future global council to ask them questions along these lines, do these scenarios or aspects of them present a risk to the tax exemption status of organization A? Is there a case law presidents of 501C, losing exemption because of C3, losing exemption because of influence of an international body organization? What steps have to be taken to mitigate such risk both in the bylaws charter of A and B and or in the agreements between them? So I just wanted to read that out. It was a question posed by Nicole and I see a raise hand over to you, Nicole. Yeah, thanks. There is a longer text that I could also copy in here, but I think we can't post such long comments that describes what these exact scenarios are, right? Scenarios A and B and it's because you read here losing exemption because of influence of an international body. That scenario that we like to describe there is this of a general assembly that is made up of a global board and a global, no, a global council made up of a global board and the global assembly that where the Wikimedia Foundation will be a member of and would transfer some decision making power and also power decisions about money and so on to this international organization. And what we would love to see figured out is what would this mean in case this becomes the case for the Wikimedia Foundation and their charity status and so on. And not asking like, is this possible? But if this scenario is what will become true what would have to be done? What steps would have to be taken to mitigate such a risk? And that was just maybe an encouragement to the MCDC to go ahead and ask these kinds of questions. Thanks. Thank you so much. There's an encouragement from Ramzin Machat who is one of the support member writing up the notes and all of that. Please feel free everyone to contribute to Vibrapad the link has been shared. So you can see what has been documented and how and you can also compliment the documentation there. There is also a comment from YouTube from Nikit Zainar decentralized core functions is a way of spreading minimizing risk. So in addition to the risk management point that has come up with legal aspects. We are 65 minutes into the call. I would make a break here to reconvene in five minutes so we can stretch, breathe some air and then continue this really important to the core essential discussions. So let's do a quick break. Let's reconvene in five minutes, 10 minutes past or 14 minutes past depending on your time zone. Let's reconvene then. Five minutes has generally passed. So let's start slowly reconvening. I hope some of you had a good stretch maybe a brief of stretch air or something like that. It's not easy if it's two hour calls but at the same time if you want to get really into the weeds of the discussion we need that time. So thank you again for taking the time to be here to have this conversation. I think it's really helpful that we talk about these things and connect and it will help to increase the quality of the charter drafting. So thank you for taking the time. Regarding the overall idea for the call, like I said I would love to see us moving towards some agreement, some shared understanding, some consent regarding what you would need to do, what you're expecting from a global council. And I'm just wondering whether we can find some of these common denominators from the discussion we just had. Like where do we actually agree? I think I felt some resonance regarding the point that Niki was making around the benefit for movement like this is what the organizational design should be built around not just moving power for moving power sake but rather what is the actual benefit for movement and then let's try to build things on that. So that seems like a point where we seem to be consenting. So other others, maybe you can pull out from the discussion we've had some points and probably like I said earlier, it starts on a higher level, on a different level than maybe the detailed discussion. So maybe if you take a step up maybe we can see some core principles, some core ideas we are agreeing upon that we can use them as a stepping stone to advance the discussion. So opening up here the floor for anything you have seen around the common denominators and then we can go to the hornet's nest but Maggie is eager to poke in the chat. So Richard, over to you. Yeah, so looking at the previous proposal. I think there's some consensus that we might have like two bodies, one of which is about 10 or 20 people and one of which is about 100 or 200 people. There isn't consensus on what those should be called what exactly their powers should be but I think there's maybe some common understanding that in practicality we'll have one larger body that meets less frequently and one smaller body that is more of a day-to-day operative group. And I think the term general assembly is a bit confusing because it means different things and every different legal jurisdiction. We might want to think more about the particular powers that the larger body might have, the smaller body might have and the relationship between the two how probably the larger body chooses the smaller body and how it helps guide it. Thanks. Thank you, Richard for sharing. I also see Daria's point in the chat regarding common denominator, she heard change. We want a setup that shifts the current system. So that seems to be a common denominator. Do you want to comment on that or is that it? Well, that's it really. I mean, in some ways it's not a profound comment but I think it's important in that the setup we are seeking with the global council has to make a substantial change. It's not like a tweak or it's not something that roughly preserves the current system. Complete. Thanks much, Daria. Also there seems to be a supported idea regarding the process. So it's kind of a meta level agreement not related directly to the content or the setup of the global council. So Leanna wrote in the chat as we were heading to the break. It was really helpful to hear from Jorge what the movement charter drafting committee is doing with regard to consulting legal. Maybe it would be more helpful to have movement charter drafting committee members share things like that so we can understand what steps we're doing now in light of the discussions we've been had over the last few months. And it has a couple of thumbs up seems to have support and this is something that we have heard in some other community discussions that having more transparency into the discussions of the movement charter drafting committee, what they have been discussing what they have been considering would be helpful in bringing us all to the same page creating shared understanding essentially creating potential for consenting around things proposed. So that's well noted from the chat. I see also points from Medavat from the chat. It may take long to reach consensus. What are your expectations for moving to the next step? So again, it's a process question. And as you know, I'm especially using the word consent rather than consensus. Consensus is built around a true agreement. Consent is more built around not objecting. So agreeing in that way that you don't have objections it feels safe to try. It is usually easier achieved and more easier to negotiate. Consensus, yes, takes a lot of time. Regarding the consent, it is more feasible. Essentially, my design idea with which I entered into the call is like trying to take the steps back from the disagreement until we find a common ground and then we can build proposals based on that. And as today's conversation is going, I see and also comments that Christoph made early on regarding the design is that, yes, we need to take many steps back and really have some difficult yet open discussions around some of the functions, expected functions of the global council. And they really focus the conversation there. And then we can build towards consenting around some of the ground principles. And have disputes and maybe come out with maybe not the strong agreement but a shared understanding and consent regarding what are we actually expecting from the global council but then can be written down in the movement charter. So that's what I'm feeling in response to Merbat's process question. There is a chat going on. So I'm wondering whether people want to bring these points to the main room as I see energy there. Maggie wrote in the chat earlier but I'm curious how folks think about money in relation to all of this but we're looking at Hornets test and then Christoph responded, et cetera. I see already Maggie's had prepared. So over to you, Maggie. Going back on, thank you. So I'm speaking on behalf of me, Maggie Dennis, not my team, not my boss, not my boss's boss, not my board of trustees. And when I started as, oh, great. Now my picture is really big for me. That's disorienting. I don't know if I like this hat. Okay. When I started at the foundation, we were like around a hundred people and then we got big. And I was like, wow, this is really a lot of money. Should we be spending all this? And then it began to look like the money was just gonna go on forever. I remember at one point where we were thinking we have to invest big to be big, to have global impact. We have to spend a lot of money. And I think it is not a secret in this group that last year there were some layoffs in my team. The foundation's operating budget diminished relative to the amount of money that it took in because inflation is real, things cost more. And I understand that this is impacting not just in the US, it's all over the world, that some affiliates are having problems with their own funding. And what I'm thinking about is we are basically taking one big pot of money and we're planning to redistribute it so that we govern the movement in a different way. And I'm curious how people are thinking about all that. Like, how are we going to fund all this? Are we going to, it's not just about shifting things, but if we have a general assembly with a staff, that's a whole new cost center. It's not just moving stuff, it's like more money. And I'm not saying, I think we should condemn you doing what we do. For those of you who are like, well, of course you asked this question because you work at the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation has big bucks. But I'm a few years away from retirement so I don't have that much invested in this question. But it's a curiosity I have. How do we sustain growing the budget of our infrastructure in a world where referrals are down, where we are seeing potentially some shrinkage in the challenges faced by AI? I'm going to shut up now. Head off. Thank you, Maggie. I see Anders is on, so over to Anders. Yes, I would like to turn that upside down, Maggie. I've been a volunteer for 15 years. I spend eight hours every day on Wikimedia and I've been in 12 different groups. Like now I'm in Northwestern Grant group. And there I see also, I give grants to different groups and there are also a lot of volunteers. So instead of talking about money, I would say we use more volunteers. We don't need any employee. When I look at different entities, I think they need one executive director to keep things under. But then they can live with volunteers. So instead of talking so much about money and BMF, we should talk how to utilize and make more out of volunteer power. Because that's our strengths and we should use that. Thank you, Anders. In the chat I see Kristoff's commentary seeing shrinkage of our current models that have not drastically moved for years. If you had five national organizations performing as well as Wikimedia Deutschland, he's in fundraising but discussion is behind us. So direct reaction to the money conversation. I saw you also actively in the chat, Kristoff. So are there further points you would like to bring to this common space? I'm just being mindful I talked a lot and I used to talk a lot, especially on that topic. So I don't want to take too much time. I mean, I'm happy to talk, but I'd rather have other people, especially Zoo that didn't raise anything until now to take my time and me commenting on the chat on the ad. Unless no one's once stocked, then I can go for hours. Yeah, let's test. So I see Nicole wrote the writing in a chat. My question would be, how much can the increase revenue by decentralizing fundraising? I'm also curious about the decentralization part there because essentially every affiliate has their right to fundraise. The only thing that is centralized is the banner fundraising, which is just one type of fundraising. So maybe you can unpack your question to make it more clear. So what's your Nicole? Yeah, thanks. And what you just said is what basically every foundation staff members responds when we talk about decentralized fundraising. So I'm happy to unpack it. And I know that it is a very difficult topic. But yeah, our assumption is that the pool of money isn't just differently distributed when we allow other organizations to fundraise aside from at the moment only being the Foundation Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Switzerland, but that the pool is actually growing because when local banner fundraising is done by the local organizations, they can not only potentially raise more funds, but also build stronger connections to donors who can become editors, who can become partners, who can become members of the local organizations and so on. And that will grow the pool of resources for the whole movement from my perspective tremendously. That is our assumption. I mean, if someone can prove that assumption wrong, I'm really happy to hear it. But what I've been hearing is all the time that we, that I don't know that the assumption just is there is just this amount of money available for the movement. And we cannot grow it by just distributing the right to do banner fundraising in a decentralized way. So at least trying that, maybe doing like some pilot projects on local organizations doing local banner fundraising I mean, and maybe then my assumption has proven wrong, then I'm like happy and we'll take a step back, but it has never been done that way. So I'd love to see that. And that's what we, that's one part of what we mean by decentralized fundraising. And I see hands raised. I'm looking forward to continuing that conversation. Yeah. Thank you so much for elaborating and clarifying. Inspired by Christof Rives' point of him speaking maybe too much. I'm skipping the line handing a door to Caitlin for whom meets the first raised hand on the call. So what's your Caitlin? Thanks Carl. I am going to speak with my foundation hat on. I think I want to ask, and I'm here in the capacity of an advisor. I was invited by the MCDC to participate in these calls based on my professional knowledge and experience. So that's what I want to bring forward here. I think Nicole's question was, how much can we increase revenue by decentralized fundraising? And I think a kind of a sister question to that that we might ask is, can we increase revenue by decentralizing fundraising? I understand there's a hypothesis that that might be possible, but I would encourage, if that's an area that folks want to explore to, I don't know that it's a question of how much. I think it's a question of, can we? And to remember that increasing revenue is one side of an equation. The other side of the equation is, how much time and resources does it take to raise that revenue? And the net is what actually matters. In this specific example, that hypothetical example that Nicole brings forward, if there was a situation where banner fundraising was decentralized and run by individual entities, regional, thematic, any other designations, we would lose something that we have right now, which is an efficiency component. Having many people do the work actually of this specific function would decrease the efficiency of it. I think if folks have read the, some of the materials that the MCDC has diligently been curating, asking questions and getting answers from multiple folks, there's the technological, there's the tech infrastructure and the stack that has to be maintained. There's payment, global payment methods of how do people like to donate in each country and maintaining legal compliance with that and all fundraising laws in every region. And there's customer service for all of these. So if we were to decentralize, we would need to replicate those functions across every entity that was fundraising. And so that's one of the considerations that I think it's important to think about. The other is, I know that this is a new space for the movement because of non-banner fundraising. This movement has been driven, the revenue for the movement has historically been driven by fundraising that comes from the banners. That is Wikimedia, the entity, the movement is the only movement in the world that has been driven that way. Many other not-for-profits drive revenue in other ways. And I think it's such a ripe territory for us to explore. Of if we have an efficient fundraising in one area, great. What are all the other areas where we could be fundraising? And I think when we talk about earlier, there was mention made of perhaps taking the current revenue and redistributing it. I really think there's an opportunity to take the current revenue and grow it. And I encourage folks to, again, folks who wanna be engaged in this part of the conversation to think about it's not a zero-sum game. It's a game where we can grow the pie and we can grow the pie efficiently. Where are the ripe areas to begin exploring those opportunities? I'm complete. Thank you, Katelyn, for your long elaboration on this topic. I see also a YouTube chat point by Nicky Tsainer. My two for high-cost is cost-by-centralized model. So again, hypothesis between the direction is proof of concept of what Nicole says. So one example regarding this. And at the same time as a facility driver, I would like to highlight one point of consent or where we seem to be aligning is that we are seeking for increased revenue for a movement. So that's kind of the principle or idea regarding functionality and maybe global council or decentralization of fundraising or any of these items can support that. So that could be a point there where we are converging. I'm again, pausing for a moment, Christopher Nandersh, who I've spoken up. I see Frank has raised the hand for a first time on the call. So I'm prioritizing Frank here. Over to you. Thank you so much. I feel like we as Wikimedia... So this is a little bit about the process that we're following here. I feel like we as Wikimedians, we have a tendency of going to a dark corner and talking about why things won't work first before we even agree on what we wanna do. So what I'm suggesting here is that we turn around and talk about where do we wanna be? What is it that we were trying to achieve? And then only then after we have consensus, we talk to the lawyers, we think the fundraising through and all the other questions that we need to answer. And the second step would be really about what do we need to do in order to reach that point that we've agreed upon? And just as an example, like I think it's no secret that I'm a big proponent of the global assembly model and a group of people, I just wanna bring this up as it hasn't mentioned yet. And it feels like this is something important for the group to know. A group of people that came together during Wikimedia worked on a document that has been posted on meta, I think tonight while I was sleeping here in California. And it's the link that I posted in the meeting chat. It's a page that outlines the Wikimedia global assembly model. I just wanna raise this as so far there has been no communication about this. I know people are working on sending a message to Wikimedia L and stuff like that. I just wanted to bring this up. Again, this is mostly about process. I would like us to come to a consensus. What do we wanna achieve? And then work with the lawyers and everybody else on what do we need to do in order to get there? Thank you. Thank you so much, Frank. I would like to read out also comment from Nanur who has engaged in the chat. We can let the new governance body to experiment the new ways for fundraising. So also in the line of experimentation while Frank was speaking about having the discussions and maybe be a bit more open minded regarding the conversation. This one is about actual conversation. Thank you for sharing Nanur, your perspective. Let's go to the hands that have been raised for a long time now. So Christoph, over to you. And you just posted in writing. But yeah, I understand, but maybe key points. Do you want me to keep on writing or? No, key points on the call itself. Just on what Kaling raised those are been key points in the discussions on that matter for 15 years now. There is one thing that is a fact that we tend to ignore on that topic. I mean, there are a couple of things. This is first just in the amount of money available in the different continent. Northern America is not even the biggest one actually. Yet it's the one that drives 60, 70% of our revenue right now. Europe is just the most the same size and it's 40%. Asia is actually bigger than Northern America and it's 6 million last year, if I remember correctly. So the potential of growth when you are raising $6 million in Asia, in the whole continent, I'm pretty damn sure we can raise much, much, much more in Asia. The fact where we are not succeeding there can be analyzed, but just in potential, like I'm sorry I'm gonna use the word business because it's also my job to grow business, but just in terms of a reachable market, we could get the money there. Second thing is there are a lot of revenue streams that we never, to my taste, I'm gonna test, taste, taste. So you never explored with a full commitment with the investment we should have. I think you worked or you still work on major gifts or major giving, yeah, you do. For me, that's a topic where actually you are investing your one to have results, your five at least, which means that there is, it is something that is taking a long time to build, but if you want to be efficient, especially on a global scale, it doesn't mean hiring a couple of people that I don't know what is these days, but back then it was two people, if I remember correctly, to manage that global, you cannot expect a big result on that. And so, and that's where any piggybacks to what Maggie was talking about investment and the scaling and so on. If our aim as a movement is to build a global movement, we've shared decision making with the general assembly and the secretary and the staff and so on and it needs money and resources and we want to invest in every country in the world. If we need that and we need resources, yes, at some point it needs to, for us to say that division we have, that's the impact we want to have in the world, that requires resources, so we invest. And that is a big discussion in this movement because the discussion about, and as Maggie said, it's the honestness, but the discussion about investing and spending money is like dangerous and banned. But we are in a world where we need to invest if we want to have a global footprint. If we want to keep on having just a website that is losing readership and that is being taken over by new product, like generative AI, we are on the right path. If we want to have a global footprints and a global community and have a global impact, yes. At some point it means that we will need to scale up to do new things, to do new ways of spreading knowledge, to acquiring knowledge and so on and that costs money. And for us at some point, we just need to face that. And I'm sorry, I'm very passionate about that because I, yeah, that's to me, that's the core of the discussion. I know you're sharing. Yeah, thank you. Also, Nikit Soyner has posted on the Telegram chat who are there, the link to the Global Assembly model. So those who are not on the Zoom, you can follow the link there, the model that Frank referred to. Anders, over to you, finally. I have two reflections on Nicole's speech. First, I think an affiliate has the possibility to recruit more volunteers. Instead of fundraising, they have the possibility to recruit volunteers and they give the same result, they can make more. The other things is a bit harsh, but as a volunteer and only editor and never get any money from thing. I get afraid, we're not creating a body, the Global Council consisting only of functionaries, talking money all the time. I would believe the Global Council would be made up of volunteers, editors, not to salarate persons. That's the two points I had. Thank you so much, Anders. Also on the first point, Nicole has followed up in the chat regarding the fundraising topic and it is also about relationships. It's not only about money, but also about relationship building. If donor data would be more decentralized and local organizations could tap into these, they could build relationships, partnerships, tap into more funding opportunities, recruit new members and also new editors. This is not possible for our organizations and between the foundation, between Germany, between Switzerland right now and could also be decentralized. So it's connected to Anders' point regarding the relationship building and connections with local people through the data that people might have. I see a hand raised by Nanu. So over to you. Yes, I think what Anders said that it's not only the affidavits here for the fundraising, it's all this happening because of the fourth recommendation, which is ensuring equity in decision-making. This is the thing that we are aiming to achieve it. And I'm here for sharing this, to be part of this discussion for the equity in decision and discussion that will go to happen, the decision-making in future. And I'm asking here the MCDC, as I don't have a hat here to put it and say I'm a member in the regional committee found for Middle East and Africa and in our current deliberation for the first fiscal year's funding, we ask the affiliates if they are participating in these discussions because we have more than 15 affiliates that they applied and asked for a general support fund and where they are in this discussion for achieving this, I call it the governance body, the new governance body for our movement. And so what the MCDC doing to engage these people, this affiliate that we have more than one, I think it's 180 right now, so to be here to participate in this, if the ambassador program is the only way to engage the people in these discussions, regarding my experience, I can say that it's not working well. So how can we ensure that in the first place that they are participating in these discussions? It's this because this is all of us and particularly to us that are underrepresented communities because we are not in the equity of the decision-making. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nour, for sharing that point and connecting it back to the recommendation we are actually discussing. So ensure equity in the decision-making. That's a recommendation that proposes a movement that starts to repropose the global council and is a foundational effect. So thank you, thank you for sharing, Nour. I see also Johnny's hand, you haven't spoken up, so where to, Johnny? Yeah, I'd like to put in a couple of cents in this conversation. You know, when we do community consultations, we don't discuss matters in this kind of level. This is very high level. We discuss the content of the charter and it's completely irrelevant for communities to discuss about where the money's gonna be coming from and so on and so forth. So I wish to disagree with this point of view that conversations with the communities are not working well because that's not what we were set out to do as ambassadors. Our mission is to convey the content of the drafts. Now discussing where the money's gonna be coming from and fundraising and building relationships, it's a completely different kind of worms. So please forgive me for expressing this point of view, but I think this needs verification at my part. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing, Johnny. In a similar line we have Delfin writing from the car, so can't talk, stop to write this. I want to say the following. All of these talks of fundraising and volunteering are so Western, European, North America centric. I actually think that this might be the biggest flaw of Wikimedia's thinking altogether. So in similar lines to what Johnny was saying, otherwise I'll be frank. Before we say we can't, let's agree on what we want to do. And then also plus one to Christopher and Nicole, to so extent, there is a lot of money that we haven't tapped in and that the foundation is not to keep to tap into and never will be. I've been in Wikimedia for 20 years, we've never done it well. I'm not sure this will change, but I really want to emphasize that the money problem cannot be only looked at from a Western centric volunteer-based member-based view. I find this short-sighted and absolutely blind to the fact that our movement is trying to export models that do not work in other contexts. So that was intervention from a car, cannot talk. That's the situation I wanted to read that one out. I see a hand raised by Maggie, I will see you. Oh no, I've lost the hat. Wait, here it is. Okay, back again. So again, I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, not making any secret of the fact, but I am also a rather plain ordinary woman. I did not come from money. I doubt I will end in money. And I feel like one of the struggles that I've had with the movement, not the foundation, not the affiliates, but the whole movement, since I started as a volunteer-minority girl was that we tend towards bureaucracy and we seem to dive headlong towards making things as complicated as we possibly can. I saw this as an editor on English Wikipedia when every policy turned into 12 guidelines and then 30 essays. And at the foundation, when I first started working here, it was frustrating for me as a volunteer how difficult it was to actually move quickly because I found myself in an environment suddenly where there were all these, oh, you go talk to that person, you go talk to that person, you go talk to that person. I hope that whatever system we wind up creating reduces the bureaucratic drag, does not cost a ton of extra money because I'm an ordinary householder. And to me, you have to be aware of your resources while you are planning what you want. You can't just say, I want a new Cadillac. If you can't afford a new Cadillac, you can say, I want to get to the grocery store. If the Cadillac isn't in my budget, how do I get to the grocery store? So to me, budget is entwined with your goals and how you reach what you want. But I really hope we wind up creating a system that has the flexibility to allow us to operate and move quickly enough to react to the changing world and to continue to serve it. That's what matters the most to me. And I'm sorry, I've talked a lot. So I'll try to keep the hat off for the rest of the call. Thank you so much for sharing. I would also love to see that there are people who have not spoken up, who would like to share their perspective. So maybe some new voices. What is your take on the conversation? We heard latest interventions from Nanook, from Choney. Are you thinking similarly, or are you rather aligned with what has been discussed? What are your thoughts, people who have not spoken up yet? Can you be there? I see your hand over to you. Yeah, I just wanted to add to the conversation on the three options that we're given. I see at the end of the day, we want a body that is going to represent the movement and we want a body that represent the movement in the session making. I was leaning towards the third option, a global council, because I felt like with a global council, the session making will be faster and more efficient. I feel like there is also the issue of representation, which I think would work more with a general assembly. Of course, there have been others on the call who have expressed their thoughts on the definition of general assembly, which could be different in various jurisdictions, but I was leaning towards a global council, but a global council that would have structures that would ensure that there would be representation, which would also ensure equity in the session making. And my last point will be on the concept of volunteering. I think one of us talked about how important it is that we ensure that most of the members are volunteers and not necessarily salaried. I thought I would also just say, mention that volunteering in itself, I feel like the definition of volunteering or what volunteering does actually depends on the location. Voluntary in certain areas may not be the same as volunteering in other areas due to various other issues like socioeconomic factors and all of that, but these are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here and also for sharing, really appreciated. Are there any other voices that have not spoken up and would like to reflect on these discussions on the call? Giving it a bit of time so people can think through. Then I think it might make sense to think through the next steps. So how are we going to proceed? We have tried to map out some common denominators, some agreements that seem to be there. We will probably continue a bit with cleaning up the either pad and then share it out on the channel so people who were not in this discussion can follow up. I see some of the points being targeted as action items toward the movement charter drafting committee. So what I hear here is about the transparency of the discussions and the questions that are being asked and how the conversations are being held so people would appreciate more insight into that. That's kind of the process. One, also I see some of the questions being graced that the movement charter drafting committee can take forward and think better through among themselves and then also frame the questions to external legal advice in maybe a better way taking forward the discussions we have had. So these are the action items, concrete ones that I see for a movement charter drafting committee. Regarding the wider discussion, I think we will be picking the brains of the advisors regarding some of these topics. So this might be in line for advisory role for a movement charter drafting committee. Regarding the wider discussions, it seems that we need to continue the work on the common denominators and start building from them in line of what Frank shared and what Delphine shared is freely figuring out what you want all together as a movement. So that would be really helpful in understanding there is already work done regarding this in the second phase of movement strategy. The roles and responsibilities working group, other working groups, also the final recommendations. So I hope we have stepping stones from which we don't fall through and will not end up in re-having the same conversation. I hope we can have this conversation on a higher qualitative level. So there seems to be a space for that. And regarding the more concrete topics, I think we can dive in like one-on-one, one-to-one regarding the defined functions of the global council as they are in the recommendations as has been proposed in the charter and start working more deeply on these disagreements. I think we touched upon the fundraising issue today. I think this conversation can continue. Maybe there is even a bit of research we can do regarding some of the data points and numbers to inform the conversation. So that's another thing. And then we can also discuss the really particular models because there still seems to be energy there. There is this general assembly with a board model that has been posted, that now has been shed also on Telegram chat. So there are kind of these discussions I also see that there are, there is a process question. How can they keep the discussion more or less than two hours every month from Christoph? Because that doesn't seem to be sufficient, especially looking at the really big topics that we are putting on table to discuss between ourselves. It needs better engagement. So we can think of us in Cronus ways which essentially means writing up meta and telegram orbit channels we have been using also on the strategy forum. I'm wondering whether we can have kind of more informal, less designed chats if that is the helpful model. So maybe we can continue also this discussion maybe on the Telegram channel that we have many people engaged. How do we want to keep this continuous conversation going to make better progress? So that's also an open question. I give back to you. I also see now Nanook's hand. So maybe you'll have ideas here. Over to you. I just come with the idea that we have three models or three jump boards here and I personally don't know what is the percentage that to measure exactly the people or the members in our movement which one is more than the other. For example, 24 no global, 30% general assembly. It will be help, I think help us to know how the members in our movement are thinking. Where is the direction regarding these three examples? So it would be good to put it like a way that we can measure it for the next discussions. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Nanook. So essentially what I'm hearing, we can bring small concrete questions to the communities and actually measure to strobe polling, see what is a general atmosphere where the people are leaning towards things like that. So that might be helpful. I see already some of the thank yous happening in the chat and I'm really appreciative towards that. I think this is the only way how we can have these difficult conversations by having positive reinforcement, by looking out for each other. Widely disagreeing, but at the same time showing care towards each other. So I'm also opening the floor here. If there are people who want to share some of their thanks live here on the call, appreciate the hours for the time. I give it a bit of space if people want to speak up, otherwise after some time I will read out maybe some of the thank you comments that have been made on the chat. So opening the floor for thank yous, showing care and support for each other as you're going through this interesting, complex, maybe sometimes difficult discussions. So opening the floor for appreciation. Nicole, I see your hand. Yes, I love that part of meetings, compliments and appreciation. And yeah, I'm not even sure if it can be expressed how grateful and thankful I am for this space so that we can have all these conversations, all these difficult conversations and I'm also maybe very appreciative for those who might have been asking themselves for the last two hours, what are they freaking talking about here? And thanks for staying on. We still have 27 participants here. Thank you. And I think also let us by us, I mean probably those who have been speaking a lot know what can we do to like onboard you better into these conversations. And I'm asking this question also for the Wikimedia Summit because we have some of these combinations there as well. But I'm drifting off coming back to the appreciation. So thanks for creating this space. Thanks of course, especially to the MCDC members to come into this space and to listening to all of our like runs and comments and all of that and giving us insights into how you work and what you think and what kind of questions you ask and so on. So, and thanks also of course, Karel and Foundation support staff for pulling this off and documenting everything. And thank you very much. Thank you so much for sharing, Nicole. Runa, I see your hand. Yeah. Hi everyone, I'm Runa. I'm also one of the MCDC members and I also work for the Foundation Summit representative of the Foundation to the committee. I didn't speak up much today because I was like kind of coming from another meeting. So is this listening in? And thank you so much for all the kind words and for the grounded conversation. My appreciation actually is for the folks who are in the Eastern time zone right now. I know folks like Johnny and Ramsey and others are having this participating here at very, very late hours for them. So I just wanted to like, I think even there are folks like if luck and others. So just wanted to call that out for like, participating at times that are not really super convenient. So thank you. Thank you, Runa. We are into the last minute of the call. Is there anyone else who wants to share their appreciation at this point of time? I'm also glad we can have a bit of love. So I see Maggie writing in the side. Thank you all for putting up with my silliness. And earlier I saw a comment from Jan Einley from YouTube. We need two hours discussions every two hours until we are done. Like this is how we are completing the charter. So I'm also glad that while we're having these conversations we can have a bit of laughs and movement strategy is supposed to be fun. So that's great. I also see a constructive comment from Margie regarding the next steps to get us more practical, more tangible. I'd like to suggest that rather than continue to hold conversations on the topic which are repetitive and inconclusive but instead move forward with the different positions discussed here organized in the form of a structured debate. So that's a constructive suggestion also for the next steps how to take these conversations forward. And Jorge also writes in the chat, I really like Margie's suggestion. I love that you always appreciated your design thinking. I think that's it for today. We will try to follow up soon enough that we have write up and documentation and so we can take the next steps and take up discussions forward in a more constructive way, more tangible outcomes. Thank you so much. Take care. Have a wonderful end of the week and a wonderful month of November and see you around. Thank you everyone. Thanks all.