I'd have been more impressed if the answer was that we are a global and multilingual organisation, and there is a potentially huge overhead in translating multiple questions and answers into assorted languages of the movement.

Limiting the amount of translation by only translating for languages where Wikimedians have requested it, and limiting the number of questions seems to me a very practical response. But it puts enormous power into the hands of the people who composite and choose the questions. 

As for the candidates, if they baulk at a few hours of answering relevant questions, do they have the time available to take on the role?

WSC
 


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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2021 00:17:24 -0400
From: Benjamin Lees <emufarmers@gmail.com>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Concerns about BoT Election Q&A
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
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On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 11:18 AM Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> You have to appreciate that fulfilling the role of a board member of the
> Wikimedia Foundations is very time consuming. The candidates that may be
> chosen from are all volunteers, they have a day job. The argument for
> having only eleven questions as given to us candidates was: there is a
> limit to the number of questions because otherwise it will require too much
> of your time.
>
> Is this the right approach?  If this is a time-consuming role, it doesn't
seem entirely unreasonable that the selection process would also be a
little bit time-consuming.  I'm not saying the election needs to be an
endurance marathon, but the election should reflect the job.

Being able to decide which questions are worth answering and which are best
ignored is an important skill.  For that matter, so is being able to
reframe questions to address the points that you think are important, as
you have done here.

It's important also for board candidates to be able to answer questions
that aren't the ones that are curated for them.  The Foundation is the
board's main contact with the outside world, but it shouldn't be the only
one, as the Community Affairs Committee is a proper acknowledgment of.
Only listening to the people in the room with you leads to iceberg warnings
that go unheeded, as we've seen enough of lately.  Even the very wise
cannot see all ends, and all that.

Benjamin
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