Surprised to not see this here yet. Not exactly reassuring and the reference that the community process "may" feature voting is a dark shadow on the rest of this, but it is what it is.
=== In response to comments from community members, the Board Governance Committee has agreed to incorporate the following suggestions immediately:[1][2] 1. *Replace the definition and repeated use in the Bylaws of “Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and User Groups” with “Affiliates”.* This is meant to make the language simpler, as well as not require a modification to the Bylaws if movement affiliate models change. 2. *Clarify when the CEO is and can be excluded from executive sessions.* This further explains the current standard practice. 3. *Change the name “rubric” to “evaluation form”.* This addresses issues of confusion and difficulty of translation related to the term “rubric”. In the next committee meeting on November 17, we plan to continue discussing the following proposals: - *Address concerns about the possibility of having a minority of community-sourced seats compared to Board-selected seats.* Our intention has always been to maintain the current structure of having a governing majority of community-sourced trustees, and the Bylaws should reflect that. Commenters have pointed out that the current draft of the revisions would allow, in an extreme case, for there to be a 9-member Board with 7 Board-selected trustees, 1 Founder, and only 1 community-sourced trustee. We will edit the draft to ensure that is not a possibility. - *Clarify what it means to have a “community nomination process”.* Many commenters have expressed concern that the proposed Bylaws language would allow the Board to select community members to appoint to the community-sourced seats without a community voting process. Specifically, concerns have been raised about whether there will be a community vote on nominated trustees. The Board’s priority for the revised community nomination process is for a process that enables diverse and equitable representation from communities across the Wikimedia movement, in keeping with the goals and values of our movement and strategic direction. The final process may feature voting; it may integrate other means of community representative selection -- we are looking at various models from communities and cultures around the world.At the end of the day, we are committed to having a trustee selection process that gives meaningful voice to the Wikimedia communities. For the purpose of this effort, we will consider how to ensure that 1) the Bylaws confirms the principle of community governance; 2) the selection process delivers the diverse and strategic movement leadership required for the future of our movement; 3) the selection mechanisms ensure appropriate community input and agency in keeping with our culture and values. - *Increase the amount of time it takes for the trustee term limits to reset.* This addresses the concern that the current period of time, 18 months, is fairly short compared to the term limit of 9 years. - *Remove or change the structure of the Founder seat.* This seat is unique in that it is reserved for one person (Jimmy Wales), and it is not subject to term limits. Commenters have suggested eliminating this seat, converting it into a different type of seat, or converting it into a different, non-trustee role. - *Adjust the approach to community discussion for these governance changes.* In addition to further refining these Bylaws changes, we are hoping to launch the discussion of community-sourced trustee selection pathways in early 2021. We have heard the requests to have longer discussion periods and to have multiple rounds of discussions. We will take these requests into consideration as we plan our timeline of next steps. The Board expansion is meant, in part, to provide additional Trustee capacity to engage directly with Communities in such discussions, and we look forward to creating the conditions where this exchange can take place more frequently. We will post another update following our November 17 meeting. In the meantime, we will update the documentation to reflect the current status and to explain the process through which we expect to discuss and make decisions on the topics above. This will include the conversation about selection pathways. We are also thinking how to organize these conversations in ways that make them enjoyable, open to nuance and collaboration, and accessible across the diversity of our movement.
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