Minutes:2025-12-10

Location: Virtual

Board of Trustees present: Nataliia Tymkiv (Chair), Kathy Collins (Vice Chair), Lorenzo Losa (Vice Chair, Chair-Elect), Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Luis Bitencourt-Emilio, Mayree Clark, Victoria Doronina, Mike Peel, Maciej Nadzikiewicz, Raju Narisetti, Christel Steigenberger, Jimmy Wales, Bobby Shabangu, Michał Buczyński

Non-Board members present: Maryana Iskander (Chief Executive Officer), Stephen LaPorte (General Counsel, Secretary), Anusha Alikhan (Chief Communications Officer), Courtney Bass Sherizen (Chief People Officer), Jaime Villagomez (Chief Financial Officer), Selena Deckelmann (Chief Product and Technology Officer), Nadee Gunasena (Chief of Staff & Director of Executive Communications), Chuck Roslof (Principal Legal Counsel), Margo Lee (Deputy Chief of Staff), Amanda Bittaker (Chief of Staff to the CPTO), Kaarel Vaidla (Lead Movement Process Architect), Birgit Müller (Director of Product), Lane Becker (Senior Director, Earned Revenue), Mayur मयूर (Senior Director, Movement Communications), Leila Zia (Director, Head of Research), Natalia Szafran (Senior Global Movement Communications Specialist (Europe)), Chris Petrillo (Principal Product Manager), Chris Albon (Machine Learning and Data Engineering, Director), Jacob Rogers (Associate General Counsel)

Invited guests: Jon Huggett, Risker (Anne Clin), Alberto Leoncio

Welcome and Consent Agenda

Lorenzo Losa, incoming Chair, welcomed Bobby Shabangu and Michał Buczyński to their first meeting of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Lorenzo also welcomed other guests and Foundation staff. He shared his appreciation and thanks to Shani Evenstein Sigalov and Mike Peel for their years of service as they completed their terms on the Board. Lorenzo also acknowledged Maryana Iskander for her distinguished leadership as Chief Executive Officer as she transitioned her responsibilities to the incoming CEO. He also recognized Nataliia Tymkiv for her leadership as Chair and for her nine years of dedicated service as a Trustee.

Lorenzo continued with an overview of the meeting agenda. After a motion made by Kathy Collins and seconded by Jimmy Wales, the consent agenda was unanimously approved.

Neutral Point of View Working Group

The Neutral Point of View Working Group provided an update to the Board which is organized in four workstreams: (1) a global NPOV standard which included an analysis of Neutral Point of View Policies across Wikipedias, (2) a focus on Users with Extended Rights with the goal of understanding how they can be supported in interpreting NPOV policies and practices, (3) an NPOV research workstream which included sharing guidance for NPOV research on Wikipedia, and (4) reflections from the Founder, Jimmy Wales, offering perspectives on what the world needs from Wikipedia’s principles of neutrality now and for the next 25 years. The Board supported publishing a draft NPOV global standard policy for community feedback during a consultation period in early 2026. The Board will convene again in March 2026 and hear about next steps.

The Board then heard an update on the content reuse objectives in the annual plan to build a scalable system for reuse. The content reuse strategy includes maintaining preferential access for human and mission-oriented traffic, investing in bot detection and protection mechanisms to reduce the load on infrastructure and direct high volume commercial users to Enterprise,

investing in API infrastructure and product offering to enable central management, increasing the value of preferred access channels and ensuring the Wikimedia projects stay a discoverable and trusted source.

Board Business

The Sister Projects Task Force made a recommendation, which was approved by the Community Affairs Committee, to:

Keep the current Wikispore's technical setup, as it is functioning and supports ongoing experimentation; and explore options for closer alignment with the Incubator.
Plan for the archival of all editions of Wikinews, and support the exploration of new paradigms for Wikimedia news content by community members.
And instruct the Language Committee not to consider or approve new language versions of Wikinews.

After a motion made by Shani Evenstein Sigalov and seconded by Victoria Doronina, the motion to approve the Sister Project Task Force recommendations on Wikispore and Wikinews was unanimously approved.

As part of its regular practice of reviewing governance structures and in alignment with planned leadership transitions within the Wikimedia Foundation, the Executive Committee began a review process of its committee structures. The review process included evaluating the governance structures of other Boards similar in size and mission to the Wikimedia Foundation, reviewing the trends in the nonprofit sector regarding governing bodies, and reviewing how the current structure of committees is serving their purpose. The Executive Committee made a recommendation to dissolve the Community Affairs Committee (CAC), while acknowledging and appreciating the work the committee has done. The Board thanked members of the CAC for the work done during the committee’s existence. The CAC was created at a critical time when the Foundation did not have structures and mechanisms in place related to holistically addressing community-related efforts.

The Board is committed to continue to foster the work of the CAC, which will be from now on continued by the establishment of the Community and Affiliate Liaison positions, reporting directly to the Executive Committee. The community facing work is a crucial Board duty therefore it is important going forward for the entire board to engage with critical community issues that influence the work of the Foundation, and need the support of the whole board. Specific issues can be better dealt with by Community and Affiliate Liaisons, selected agile working groups with specific, time-limited assignments, or by the Board as a whole. Many of the issues that the CAC had been managing in the past are now better supported by the infrastructure and staff in specific teams like Movement Communications. The Executive Committee’s proposal is that responsibilities of the CAC be distributed to the Product and Technology Committee and the Executive Committee with other responsibilities given to the Community and Affiliate Liaisons. Some Trustees expressed their reservations about moving forward with the recommendation and felt the CAC should continue its work. The outgoing chair and one of the members of the CAC, Shani Evenstein Sigalov and Mike Peel voiced their concerns about the dissolution of the Committee. After a motion made by Kathy Collins and seconded by Christel Steigenberger, the resolution to dissolve the Community Affairs Committee passed.

After a motion made by Kathy and seconded by Jimmy Wales, the resolution to update committee charters unanimously passed.

Bobby Shabangu and Michał Buczyński, who received the most support in the 2025 nomination process for Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees, left the meeting while their candidacies were discussed. Lorenzo reminded the Board that both candidates were vetted through a background check, media check, and interview process and signed the appropriate paperwork. After a motion made by Maciej Nadzikiewicz and seconded by Christel, the motion to appoint Michał Buczyński to the Board of Trustees was unanimously approved. After a motion made by Victoria Doronina and seconded by Luis Bitencourt-Emilio, the motion to appoint Bobby Shabangu to the Board of Trustees was unanimously approved. The next Board selection process will be held in 2027 for seats currently occupied by Lorenzo Losa, Maciej Nadzikiewicz, Victoria Doronina, and Christel Steigenberger. Bobby and Michał rejoined the meeting. As is a typical practice, before being assigned to a committee, the Board Officers discuss assignments with each Trustee though one Trustee raised concerns about the Community and Affiliate Liaison assignments. After a motion made by Maciej and seconded by Christel, the Board unanimously approved Board Officers and Committee Members, December 2025.

The Board then met in Executive Session.