hi James,
On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:06 AM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
*Staff: *I have always thought that the Staff need to be considered part of the community.
I think the main thing is why should WMF staff be treated any differently than WMDE, WMFR, or WMUK staff. All are engaged (although through employment) in the community. I understand that the argument is that the chapters have their seats secured from a separate poll, while WMF does not.
I'm inclined to agree with your previous view: since most of the staffers satisfy other requirements anyway, and since there are many chapters/affiliate groups of different levels of involvement, and also since these groups have their seats secured from a separate poll (unlike WMF), the easiest way would probably be to introduce low, uniform editing/involvement requirements, well ahead of time, and stop distinguishing employment status.
In fact, one could experiment with adding WMF as an organization equal to chapters to elections of "chapter seats", and banning WMF/chapters employees from "community seats" elections altogether ;) But seriously, I think the practical thing to do would be to start working on the rules of next elections right after the current ones are over, and introduce eligibility based on actual activity only (with possible lower requirements).
best,
dj "pundit"