Hello Erik - I completely agree with you. It is too restrictive, and the functions within a Wikipedia community are not automatically preparing a person for the board. Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 24. Juli 2026 um 17:13 Uhr schrieb Erik Moeller via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>:
On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:40 PM Margo Lee via Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
The Board is now looking for specific feedback on the proposed
eligibility criteria.
I concur with others that these criteria are too restrictive when it comes to the demonstrated experience as a functionary. This turns the process even more into a committee-style selection procedure that is fairly closed off to folks who bring fundamentally different perspectives (and, yes, disagreements) to the Board than the ones already selected for through the functionary roles deemed sufficient for eligibility.
Wikimedia Foundation needs folks with relevant governance experience for an organization of this scale, but it also needs voices that challenge it and push it in new directions on the Board. The trick is to find the right balance between those goals. Requiring that people advance along an internal functionary ladder towards the possibility of standing for trusteeship is not that balance; it is the kind of requirement structure you find in institutions that drift towards stagnancy and self-reinforcement, often out of institutionalized fear.
A compromise proposal:
- Change the word "must" to "should" when it comes to the governance
experience criteria
- Require that candidates indicate comparable or equivalent experience
in their candidate profile if they do not meet these criteria.
Will there be another iteration of these criteria that is responsive to the feedback so far?
Warmly,
Erik _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org