Hoi,
When you look at the people who put themselves forward and stood in the
elections for the board of the Wikimedia Foundation in the past, those that
were chosen had a great resume of activities and known points of view before
they stood. Many of these people are known, well known,
As our total community is so big, you may find that some of the people are
not known to you. When this is the case, there will be others who know them
quite well. Voting for a board member is not like voting for a politician in
the United States; they do not belong to one or the other party. They are
all part of the same community, the one you belong to.
This makes voting quite a different thing. Possibly even pleasant.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 20 March 2011 17:16, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:
I don't think I voted, I seldom vote in any
election. The reason is that
I seldom know much about the candidates, and have no reliable way of
finding out much. I could, together with others, seriously investigate
who the candidates are and what they stand for, but I don't think
publishing such information and talking about it would be welcome;
spending that much time and effort just to determine one vote, mine, is
not worthwhile.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Frankly, I think the combination of secret ballots and lack of
communication among disinterested voters will in short order put control
of both the Foundation and the English Wikipedia in the hands of people
with agendas who do communicate with one another, privately. That has
certainly been my experience in any organization I was in.
Fred
I agree with Harel, there are huge numbers of
editors who are entitled
to vote and don't do so. I think we put some effort into welcoming
newbies and forget that becoming part of the community is a process
and state of mind rather than a single event.
I think that a bot message from Jimbo or the foundation thanking
people for their 500th edit and saying that they are now entitled to
vote in trustee elections could be a very good way to build the
community.
You'd need to phrase it carefully though:)
WereSpielChequers
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:32:35 +0200
From: Harel Cain <harel.cain(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 2011 Board Elections: Input needed
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<AANLkTinno=BDmAcWEQSQwfDUWSPEGNOq0Yvwh7adPm8C(a)mail.gmail.com>
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Before we start extending the right to vote to ever wider groups of
people,
we should ask ourselves how much this right is exercised by those
already
entitled to it, and how many of those proposed to be granted the right
to
vote are expected to really make use of it.
The last elections saw a participation of a few thousand of voters,
just a
small proportion of all the people eligible to vote, and I guess these
could
be split roughly into those who really are into foundation-level and
meta-level issues and those who were (legitimately) recruited from
among the
home projects of the candidates without too much real interest in the
elections. Whoever didn't fall into these two categories rarely voted,
and I
anticipate the same will hold true for the new groups you proposed in
your
mail.
The real question we should ask ourselves is how to make these
elections
more relevant and important for those groups of people already entitled
to
take part in them.
Harel Cain
Hebrew Wikipedia / Wikimedia Israel
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