We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
On 6/6/2015 3:15 PM, Pine W wrote:
We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
Does the job description mention whether there's pay or at least free travel and hotel expenses for meetings?
$ is often a big factor for women.
CM
Expenses, including travel, lodging, conference fees (if applicable) and the same per diem as staff receive (if food is not supplied) are paid for Board-related activities. Other reasonable expenses are also covered, although everyone is encouraged to take advantage of cost efficiencies where possible (e.g., group taxis to the airport, using public transit where possible). [As a side note, these same rules apply to the FDC, for which there was only one woman candidate this year.]
The bigger factor may be time, for both of these roles. The FDC is mostly not that busy most of the year, but is hyperactive during the two 10-12 week periods a year when they are considering proposals (From my experience, a thorough review of the average proposal takes 10-15 hours total. Multiply that by 6-8 in April/May and 12-18 in October/November, and that is a LOT of volunteer time). Members of the Board of Trustees have stepped down in the past because of the time commitment expectations (including several full weekends a year, a retreat, attendance at Wikimania, and participation in online/teleconference meetings).
Risker/Anne
On 6 June 2015 at 15:48, Carol Moore dc carolmooredc@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/6/2015 3:15 PM, Pine W wrote:
We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
Does the job description mention whether there's pay or at least free
travel and hotel expenses for meetings?
$ is often a big factor for women.
CM
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Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
2015-06-06 22:35 GMT+02:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
Expenses, including travel, lodging, conference fees (if applicable) and the same per diem as staff receive (if food is not supplied) are paid for Board-related activities. Other reasonable expenses are also covered, although everyone is encouraged to take advantage of cost efficiencies where possible (e.g., group taxis to the airport, using public transit where possible). [As a side note, these same rules apply to the FDC, for which there was only one woman candidate this year.]
The bigger factor may be time, for both of these roles. The FDC is mostly not that busy most of the year, but is hyperactive during the two 10-12 week periods a year when they are considering proposals (From my experience, a thorough review of the average proposal takes 10-15 hours total. Multiply that by 6-8 in April/May and 12-18 in October/November, and that is a LOT of volunteer time). Members of the Board of Trustees have stepped down in the past because of the time commitment expectations (including several full weekends a year, a retreat, attendance at Wikimania, and participation in online/teleconference meetings).
Risker/Anne
On 6 June 2015 at 15:48, Carol Moore dc carolmooredc@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/6/2015 3:15 PM, Pine W wrote:
We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
Does the job description mention whether there's pay or at least free
travel and hotel expenses for meetings?
$ is often a big factor for women.
CM
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On 6 June 2015 at 18:32, Zana Strkovska 777.zana@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
Zana - I would really like to encourage you to post that at the election post-mortem page, perhaps in the section about voting methodology (which is titled "Electoral system").[1] Your perspective, as a candidate, is really important on this issue. I have said for a while now that I am unlikely to ever participate in another WMF-related election, but it was only on reading what you wrote here that I realized how demoralizing the opposes are in any of these elections for me as well.
Risker/Anne
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Post_mor...
Pardon me, Zana, but why? Oppose is just as good as Support, I believe. It means that people have feelings about you. And you can change that. Indifference is the problem, imho
<small>And I still cannot understand why the voting is not open and public... We are supposed to get used to express our opinions without fear being (mostly) Wikipedians, aren't we?
If I vote against someone and it means anything to him/her, (s)he can just ask me why and we can talk (we can do it beforehand, of course :)) The same thing is about voting for smb. Is it not interesting to know who supports you and why? And the other way around. I would love to know what motivates people to vote against me. It helps to see if one is going in the right direction, whatever they may think about it</small>
Best regards, antanana ED of Wikimedia Ukraine
2015-06-08 20:37 GMT+03:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
On 6 June 2015 at 18:32, Zana Strkovska 777.zana@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
Zana - I would really like to encourage you to post that at the election post-mortem page, perhaps in the section about voting methodology (which is titled "Electoral system").[1] Your perspective, as a candidate, is really important on this issue. I have said for a while now that I am unlikely to ever participate in another WMF-related election, but it was only on reading what you wrote here that I realized how demoralizing the opposes are in any of these elections for me as well.
Risker/Anne
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Post_mor...
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Hi,
* Anne, thank you for suggestion, I will do that this days.
* Antanana, I am not sure that is possible to talk with all 252 suport voters, but I am sure that 220 oppose voters will not try to find me and say why they voted NO about me. :)
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
2015-06-08 19:57 GMT+02:00 attolippip attolippip@gmail.com:
Pardon me, Zana, but why? Oppose is just as good as Support, I believe. It means that people have feelings about you. And you can change that. Indifference is the problem, imho
<small>And I still cannot understand why the voting is not open and public... We are supposed to get used to express our opinions without fear being (mostly) Wikipedians, aren't we?
If I vote against someone and it means anything to him/her, (s)he can just ask me why and we can talk (we can do it beforehand, of course :)) The same thing is about voting for smb. Is it not interesting to know who supports you and why? And the other way around. I would love to know what motivates people to vote against me. It helps to see if one is going in the right direction, whatever they may think about it</small>
Best regards, antanana ED of Wikimedia Ukraine
2015-06-08 20:37 GMT+03:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
On 6 June 2015 at 18:32, Zana Strkovska 777.zana@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
Zana - I would really like to encourage you to post that at the election post-mortem page, perhaps in the section about voting methodology (which is titled "Electoral system").[1] Your perspective, as a candidate, is really important on this issue. I have said for a while now that I am unlikely to ever participate in another WMF-related election, but it was only on reading what you wrote here that I realized how demoralizing the opposes are in any of these elections for me as well.
Risker/Anne
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Post_mor...
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One problem with Oppose in that electoral system is that unlike say RFA you don't know why individual people are opposing, though you can make deductions from patterns. For example, as one might have expected the tension between the WMF and the community over the last two years resulted in a lot of oppose votes for incumbents.
I would like to hope we don't have anyone who simply opposes or indeed supports based on gender, but one of the drawbacks of that system is that people can anonymously do that.
But the biggest drawback of having oppose in that system is that you can't differentiate between people who are voting oppose because they have something against a particular candidate, and people who know one candidate and vote in the logical way to give most effective support for that candidate. ie support the one candidate you know and oppose all the others. I prefer more proportional systems such as the STV system used in Ireland, aside from encouraging people to vote "positively" such systems also tend to elect a more diverse set of candidates.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
On 8 Jun 2015, at 18:57, attolippip attolippip@gmail.com wrote:
Pardon me, Zana, but why? Oppose is just as good as Support, I believe. It means that people have feelings about you. And you can change that. Indifference is the problem, imho
<small>And I still cannot understand why the voting is not open and public... We are supposed to get used to express our opinions without fear being (mostly) Wikipedians, aren't we?
If I vote against someone and it means anything to him/her, (s)he can just ask me why and we can talk (we can do it beforehand, of course :)) The same thing is about voting for smb. Is it not interesting to know who supports you and why? And the other way around. I would love to know what motivates people to vote against me. It helps to see if one is going in the right direction, whatever they may think about it</small>
Best regards, antanana ED of Wikimedia Ukraine
2015-06-08 20:37 GMT+03:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
On 6 June 2015 at 18:32, Zana Strkovska 777.zana@gmail.com wrote: Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
Zana - I would really like to encourage you to post that at the election post-mortem page, perhaps in the section about voting methodology (which is titled "Electoral system").[1] Your perspective, as a candidate, is really important on this issue. I have said for a while now that I am unlikely to ever participate in another WMF-related election, but it was only on reading what you wrote here that I realized how demoralizing the opposes are in any of these elections for me as well.
Risker/Anne
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Post_mor...
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Point taken You are encouraged to vote against everybody else if you support somebody really really strongly
Best regards, antanana ED of Wikimedia Ukraine
2015-06-09 12:58 GMT+03:00 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
One problem with Oppose in that electoral system is that unlike say RFA you don't know why individual people are opposing, though you can make deductions from patterns. For example, as one might have expected the tension between the WMF and the community over the last two years resulted in a lot of oppose votes for incumbents.
I would like to hope we don't have anyone who simply opposes or indeed supports based on gender, but one of the drawbacks of that system is that people can anonymously do that.
But the biggest drawback of having oppose in that system is that you can't differentiate between people who are voting oppose because they have something against a particular candidate, and people who know one candidate and vote in the logical way to give most effective support for that candidate. ie support the one candidate you know and oppose all the others. I prefer more proportional systems such as the STV system used in Ireland, aside from encouraging people to vote "positively" such systems also tend to elect a more diverse set of candidates.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
On 8 Jun 2015, at 18:57, attolippip attolippip@gmail.com wrote:
Pardon me, Zana, but why? Oppose is just as good as Support, I believe. It means that people have feelings about you. And you can change that. Indifference is the problem, imho
<small>And I still cannot understand why the voting is not open and public... We are supposed to get used to express our opinions without fear being (mostly) Wikipedians, aren't we?
If I vote against someone and it means anything to him/her, (s)he can just ask me why and we can talk (we can do it beforehand, of course :)) The same thing is about voting for smb. Is it not interesting to know who supports you and why? And the other way around. I would love to know what motivates people to vote against me. It helps to see if one is going in the right direction, whatever they may think about it</small>
Best regards, antanana ED of Wikimedia Ukraine
2015-06-08 20:37 GMT+03:00 Risker risker.wp@gmail.com:
On 6 June 2015 at 18:32, Zana Strkovska 777.zana@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Thank you Anne for mention "only one woman candidate for FDC this year", it was me. I would like to say something: not time, not money is issue for me (I am free lancer, meaning I can manage my time). My theory is that I didn't pass because I didn't answer questions in the way the community wanted.
I am not sure how many woman we have who are free to help, serve and travel. But, what I found discourage after mine failure is the oppose votes. One thing is to see how many Wikipedians voted for you, but it's not so pleasant to count oppose votes.
I hope my words could help on why women aren't generally volunteering to run.
Regards, Zana (user:Violetova)
Zana - I would really like to encourage you to post that at the election post-mortem page, perhaps in the section about voting methodology (which is titled "Electoral system").[1] Your perspective, as a candidate, is really important on this issue. I have said for a while now that I am unlikely to ever participate in another WMF-related election, but it was only on reading what you wrote here that I realized how demoralizing the opposes are in any of these elections for me as well.
Risker/Anne
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Post_mor...
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I rather suspect that the reason for "oppose" votes comes from the voting formula:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Vote_Ques tions#How_are_the_winners_determined.2C_and_what_is_the_process_once_voting_ is_completed.3F
which declares the winners to be those with the highest
Support/(Support+Oppose)
As they say, "do the maths" (or if you are American, "do the math").
If you are just voting to support anyone who you feel would do a reasonable job, you have no real motivation to cast "oppose" votes. But if you are particularly seeking the election of a particular candidate, then you increase their chances by casting oppose votes for the others.
Just as a simple example. If there are 2 candidates, Andy and Betty. Let's suppose 10 people think Andy would be a good choice and give support votes for Andy. Let's suppose 10 other people think Betty is a good choice and give support votes for Betty.
Andy's score = 10 * (10+0) = 1
Betty's score = 10 * (10+0) = 1
Both are equal.
If just one of Andy's supporters gives an oppose vote to Betty, what's the situation?
Andy's score = 10*(10+0)= 1
Betty's score = 10*(10+1)= 0.909090
Winner: Andy.
It's strategic to "oppose" other candidates. It's not necessarily saying anything against the opposed candidate personally.
Kerry
And if you live outside the USA, you are presumably expected to do multiple long haul flights to the USA for quite short visits meaning being jetlagged the entire time and on your return. I note also that the long haul flights appear to be cattle class with no allowance for extra nights to deal with jetlag. As someone who used to fly a lot in my work, that kind of international air travel gets pretty gruelling (and I gave up that work eventually because of it). Also the notion that after a long haul flight in economy class jetlagged and sleep-deprived that you would use public transport to get to your accommodation sounds like an invitation to be mugged; that seems a pretty callous disregard for personal safety.
It sounds very unappealing ...
Sent from my iPad
On 7 Jun 2015, at 6:35 am, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Expenses, including travel, lodging, conference fees (if applicable) and the same per diem as staff receive (if food is not supplied) are paid for Board-related activities. Other reasonable expenses are also covered, although everyone is encouraged to take advantage of cost efficiencies where possible (e.g., group taxis to the airport, using public transit where possible). [As a side note, these same rules apply to the FDC, for which there was only one woman candidate this year.]
The bigger factor may be time, for both of these roles. The FDC is mostly not that busy most of the year, but is hyperactive during the two 10-12 week periods a year when they are considering proposals (From my experience, a thorough review of the average proposal takes 10-15 hours total. Multiply that by 6-8 in April/May and 12-18 in October/November, and that is a LOT of volunteer time). Members of the Board of Trustees have stepped down in the past because of the time commitment expectations (including several full weekends a year, a retreat, attendance at Wikimania, and participation in online/teleconference meetings).
Risker/Anne
On 6 June 2015 at 15:48, Carol Moore dc carolmooredc@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/6/2015 3:15 PM, Pine W wrote:
We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
Does the job description mention whether there's pay or at least free travel and hotel expenses for meetings?
$ is often a big factor for women.
CM
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Actually we encourage extra nights for jetlag; sometimes people don't have the time in their schedules though. Also we are trying to reduce the time commitment for board service and especially trips to SF -- down to maybe 2/year max. Still though it's a fair bit of work/travel.
Phoebe
On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Kerry Raymond kerry.raymond@gmail.com wrote:
And if you live outside the USA, you are presumably expected to do multiple long haul flights to the USA for quite short visits meaning being jetlagged the entire time and on your return. I note also that the long haul flights appear to be cattle class with no allowance for extra nights to deal with jetlag. As someone who used to fly a lot in my work, that kind of international air travel gets pretty gruelling (and I gave up that work eventually because of it). Also the notion that after a long haul flight in economy class jetlagged and sleep-deprived that you would use public transport to get to your accommodation sounds like an invitation to be mugged; that seems a pretty callous disregard for personal safety.
It sounds very unappealing ...
Sent from my iPad
On 7 Jun 2015, at 6:35 am, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Expenses, including travel, lodging, conference fees (if applicable) and the same per diem as staff receive (if food is not supplied) are paid for Board-related activities. Other reasonable expenses are also covered, although everyone is encouraged to take advantage of cost efficiencies where possible (e.g., group taxis to the airport, using public transit where possible). [As a side note, these same rules apply to the FDC, for which there was only one woman candidate this year.]
The bigger factor may be time, for both of these roles. The FDC is mostly not that busy most of the year, but is hyperactive during the two 10-12 week periods a year when they are considering proposals (From my experience, a thorough review of the average proposal takes 10-15 hours total. Multiply that by 6-8 in April/May and 12-18 in October/November, and that is a LOT of volunteer time). Members of the Board of Trustees have stepped down in the past because of the time commitment expectations (including several full weekends a year, a retreat, attendance at Wikimania, and participation in online/teleconference meetings).
Risker/Anne
On 6 June 2015 at 15:48, Carol Moore dc carolmooredc@verizon.net wrote:
On 6/6/2015 3:15 PM, Pine W wrote:
We had no new female candidates for board seats in the WMF election. For affiliates, I know of at least two affiliates that also have male board members saying that they/we would like to have more gender diversity on our boards but women aren't generally volunteering to run. What could be done to encourage more women to run for affiliate and WMF board seats?
Thanks, Pine
Does the job description mention whether there's pay or at least free travel and hotel expenses for meetings?
$ is often a big factor for women.
CM
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