Greetings,
Thank you for bringing up this important topic. I wanted to share some info
on where things stand right now with this year's elections.
1. The committee did discuss the issue of affiliate staff having a vote. It
appears that a number of affiliates (not all) allow their staff to
participate in affiliate elections, including the process for selecting
their affiliates vote in the WMF board vote. I recognize that the future of
the affiliate elections for the board is a topic for discussion right now,
but we were asked to operate under the current structure, and not a
possible future one. With that in mind, we felt the best approach was to
respect the two elections as being separate. The WMF staff is not a
component in affiliate elections, and so it seemed appropriate to keep the
elections where staff have input separate for now.
2. It would appear that a majority of staff already qualify to vote either
as editors or developers - so to some extent - this is an issue impacting a
small group of voters. Please do not get me wrong, I am NOT saying that
makes the group less important, but I am more pointing out that affiliate
staff actively engaged in WMF projects will not be stopped from voting
simply because they are affiliate staff.
3. I do not, personally, see any of the eligible groups as "exceptions" -
as that implies to me they are not considered fundamental parts of the
community - which just isn't true for developers, staff, or former WMF
leaders. Removing staff eligibility did not get support. Speaking just for
myself, I absolutely believe that allowing WMF staff to have input on who
their bosses will be is both fair and within the Wikimedia spirit. Which is
why I would absolutely encourage affiliate staff to have say in affiliate
boards, but that is not our decision to make.
4. There are, beyond just staff, others (again - a small group - but they
exist) working with affiliates who are not eligible to vote. We discussed
that if we open the window for affiliate staff, we should do the same for
other affiliate leaders. We already allow for this for WMF connected folks
by providing a vote to advisory board members, past board members, etc.
However, identifying that group for affiliates is tricky as, for example,
not all Wikimedia User Groups have identified leaders. Given the narrow
window of time we had to address this issue, the complexities, and a sense
that affiliate related qualifications are best left for the affiliate based
elections at this point - we decided not to expand the eligibility this
year.
5. All of this said, the committee only had a few days to officially
consider and discuss this topic - along with many others. Even with all the
input from this thread, that was a very fast window to address what turned
into an increasingly complicated question. The 2013 elections committee put
forward the idea of a standing elections committee to address these issues
more in-depth. I am increasingly of the opinion that a standing committee
is the best way to do so - as the 1-2 week setup elections schedule does
not allow for too many complex conversations.
I hope that helps give some insight into how things were decided for next
year, and what my personal recommendation for best next steps would be (ask
a standing committee to do a more in-depth assessment of the question).
-greg (User:Varnent)
Coordinator, 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 10:06 AM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think this is definitely worthy of discussion and I
agree that either all
employees of WMF affiliates should be permitted to vote or employee status
should be removed as an element of eligibility. Hopefully the board and its
electioneers will weigh in with their opinions.
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