Hello all,


I would like to join this thread of congratulations! Tomorrow, at the final Wikimedia Foundation Board meeting of the year, the Trustees are prepared to welcome two new colleagues to the Board. 


On behalf of the Board’s Executive Committee, we would like to share some thoughts on the topics and subtopics in this thread.


There have been long-standing and unresolved questions about the geographic representation of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. It has been debated whether this need should be met by the selections to the Foundation’s Board or solved with another body in the Wikimedia movement. Board selections for community-and-affiliate seats have varied in form and process over the years. This has been done to better identify new perspectives and also advertise areas of specific expertise required for the Board at a particular time – this took the form of a more detailed call for needed skills and experiences in 2022 [1] as well as a required profile in 2023 [2]. Yet, based on comments here and elsewhere, edit count and previous interactions with candidates remained decisive factors for many voters. 


Quotas for regions, as a way to increase geographic diversity of the elected seats, is a concept we are still learning about in our movement. For example, the decision to replace a single grants-making body with regional committees has perhaps solved some problems, but certainly not all, and has led to some calls for testing a global body once again. [3] (This is aside from the non-trivial implementation challenges of regional elections when there is no established system for “registering” voters by country, project, or region). One purpose of the pilots established by the Foundation this year [4] is to experiment with other forms of governance bodies – and to do it in line with the movement strategy recommendation of evaluating, iterating, and adapting [5]. We should take this opportunity to learn more about the pragmatic practicalities of regional representation models before applying them as the solution for the Board of Trustees. 


This year’s process resulted in other forms of representation: the selection of two (self-identified) males and two females maintains the current gender balance on the board. The average age of the board will lower considerably with the seating of the youngest Trustee ever selected. All four successful candidates currently reside in Western Europe –  a fact that should not lead to an oversimplification of the life experiences and perspectives they bring, especially given the diversity of Wikimedia projects, languages, and communities they represent. 


While less prominent in community discussions, board-selected seats provide us with another tool for assembling a broad and diverse leadership group. Currently, the board-selected Trustees are 50% female and represent people from Bahrain (MENA), Ukraine (CEE), Brazil (LATAM), the United States and India (South Asia). The selection of these Trustees tries to balance various organizational needs – areas of specific expertise (like audit), governance experience with organizations of similar size and complexity to the Foundation, as well as other attributes and forms of identity and representation.  


It is not possible to get this balance right for everyone. But the year ahead presents opportunities to think collectively about how to continue improving the diversity, expertise and governance capabilities of the Board. 


Two questions that the Board has on its agenda this week for discussion are: 



These are questions we should focus on answering together – they are not only for the Board to decide. We hope our sharing some of these thoughts, and the decisions to be made in the year ahead, will be useful for people following the thread. 


We welcome your comments at this talk page [6] where the Governance Committee has been inviting input on the Foundation’s work for next year.  


Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight

On behalf of the Executive Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, which also includes: 


Nat Tymkiv

Lorenzo Losa

Kathy Collins 

Victoria Doronina

Shani Evenstein Sigalov

Dariusz Jemielniak

Esra'a Al Shafei


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Apply_to_be_a_Candidate#Desired_Skills_and_Experiences 

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Governance_Committee/Board_recruitment 

[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Resource_Distribution_Committee/Proposal 

[4] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Draft_Movement_Charter_and_next_steps/Appendix 

[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Recommendations/Evaluate,_Iterate,_and_Adapt 

[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/mapping 




On Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 9:32 AM Philip Kopetzky <philip.kopetzky@gmail.com> wrote:
It would be nice at some point in the not too distant future to receive a statement from the Board of Trustees itself - is the current situation fine? Are there issues that definitely need to be addressed? Should we expect more Europeans to get elected next year? Should anyone outside of Europe even care about the next vote? 

At this point I'd be happy about any kind of leadership, vision, strategy, speech... anything that would get us started on improving who we are and where we're going, instead of being stuck in a place that reinforces the privileges of a few and leaves everyone else spending way too much time on things that shouldn't matter as much as they do :-)

Philip

On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 at 14:59, Florence Devouard <fdevouard@gmail.com> wrote:

Very big thank you Maciej for this additional analysis of the votes and for the absolute clarity of its presentation. Very well done.
It is fascinating.


In any cases, it also indicates that the "un-education" with regards to how this voting system works actually extend to all voters, whoever the candidate they primarily voted upon. It does not seem to matter whether they are from an under-represented community or not.
In completion to your ""1 candidate only" votes",  I simply draw a percentage of 1 candidate only compared to all #1 votes per candidate
It ranks from 7% (for  Mohammed, Erik, Bobby, Rosie) to 23% (for Lorenzo). With most percentages being between 7% to 15%
The highest percentages are for Maciej, Lorenzo and Farah.

So really... it is a very general issue. I do not think my comment here is biaised. Voters just do not get it. That's it.

To be honest... I can not say that the "explanation" page provided ahead of the elections is bringing much light : https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/Single_Transferable_Vote
My biased comment is : it does not speak to me. I think the Sankey diagram of this election only would speak more to most voters to increase their skills.

After battle thought... do the most popular candidates have a sort of special responsibility to call their fans to vote beyond their "hero" ? As is... what if a candidate was asked in the "standard questions" pre-election to provide a recommandation as to who they would love to work with as board members (=suggest their voters to also vote for X and Y).

Otherwise, two general trends, geography and gender (eg, one who voted for a woman, is more likely to vote for another woman next), but we already knew that from the previous graphic.  

Flo


Le 19/10/2024 à 13:52, Wikipedysta Nadzik a écrit :
Thank you everyone for all your congratulations, both here and in private!

Thanks to some unexpected free time, I created a summary of some voting stats based on the publicly available vote dump (please don't worry, it is impossible to see how any single person voted!).

The stats are available here: User:Nadzik/BoT elections 2024 stats on Meta.

Given my position in this process, I choose to refrain from commenting on the data; I publish it and its visualisation without biased commentary. I invite you to take a look at it and interpret it yourself.

I can only highlight that some of the points mentioned above have a basis in the available data.

We also await for more data (i.e. voter turnout) to be published on the official page by the WMF, which will give some more insights.

Cheers,

sob., 12 paź 2024 o 12:47 kayode yussuf via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> napisał(a):
Congratulations to the newly elected board members, and huge thanks to those who chaperoned the process.

I must also second Florence's point on voters' education.

The board is an important instrument for the community and the foundation, we must seek to get the best hands-on board, even if we want minorities represented.


Kayode Yussuf



On Friday, October 11, 2024 at 07:46:58 PM EDT, Levi Kambai Timothy <camylevsky@gmail.com> wrote:


Congrats to all elected board members. Hoping those who lost (both the voters and the voted) will take note of the concerns including low edit counts and improper voting to do better next time. It will be good to have a movement with representatives from across the globe, but then what they have to offer matters, too. Change is a process, not a destination.

Warm regards,
Kambai

On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 at 22:01, Florence Devouard <fdevouard@gmail.com> wrote:

I am not 100% sure I understand the graphic well. So please correct me if I am wrong in my interpretation.

But the way I understand it, it seems to me that the issue #1 is that voters are un-educated about how to vote wisely in such a voting system.

For example, let's consider the votes from those who voted for Tesleemah. When she was dropped, 80 of the votes went down the drain. That means 80 people voted either for her ONLY, or for her and maybe Mohammed and Erik. That is IT.
Their vote was lost. I in fact suspect that she had a lot of voters for her who actually put only her name and none others. 
Maybe those voters did not understand how valuable it would have been to put more names on their list.

I know that I realized that situation during the voting process when some people told me that they had voted for "their favorite choice". And when I said "you probably should not vote for only one person but for several", they went "Really ????"

The fact that 413 votes were lost all together as non-transferable is certainly pointing out to a lack of understanding of the process and how to make the best of the vote.

And maybe some communities understand this voting system better than other communities.

My point #2 is that if under represented communities really want to have a person on the board, they really need to adopt a collective strategy where there will be only one candidate for it to avoid spreading thin.
OR, if they have two (or more), they need to push the idea that the people voting for them should also put a vote for the other, for the rank immediately below, rather than only for their favorite choice amongst the two (obviously, they should vote for the two only if both options are acceptable in their book). This would ensure the vote to be transferred to the second when their fav choice is eliminated.


Looks to me that the issue might be rethinking on how to teach voters how to vote strategically.

And maybe... maybe... though it is a "decrease of liberty", it should be made mandatory to rank at least half of the candidates ?


Flo




Le 11/10/2024 à 11:49, Philip Kopetzky a écrit :

Well, congratulations to 4 people living in Western Europe. If this result doesn't get the Wikimedia Foundation to rethink their approach to how they select their board members, I don't know what will.

I guess it's up to communities, affiliates and regional structures to create the change we want to see, noe more than ever.


On Fri, 11 Oct 2024, 11:38 Katie Chan, <ktc@ktchan.info> wrote:

You can find translations of this message or help translate this message on Meta.

Hello all,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. 6000 community members from more than 180 wiki projects have voted.

The following four candidates were the most voted:

  • Christel Steigenberger
  • Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz
  • Victoria Doronina
  • Lorenzo Losa

While these candidates have been ranked through the vote, they still need to be appointed to the Board of Trustees. They need to pass a successful background check and meet the qualifications outlined in the Bylaws. New trustees will be appointed at the next Board meeting in December 2024.

Read the full announcement on Meta-Wiki

Best regards,

The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group

-- 
Katie Chan
Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is associated with or employed by.


Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
    - Heinrich Heine
_______________________________________________
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/message/4HJ2INEFLQD233H3BQBWZ2BP65NN7FRY/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________
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/message/HXWD2ZSMZF46OVVBBZY45OSNJSHX5AYM/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/KDL5ZML4UEHYSZGYFCA2A72PSFBHLSWN/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/RRMSNEB4S5IYCA6KDR6HOM6FOCSI5JFM/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/SAV5B45NEE22KLSFAFXRNK4W4HBLFW4G/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org


-- 

_______________________________________________
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/message/XXSPXYPCLFAJWEYYQIAAZXUUBT5FNETF/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/UOIBJ3DFPLUHF2PG6OMA35JZQIDYT6VJ/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
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/message/W6ZKUKFYHWUTVO2SRU5YZCPMJF27Y2EA/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org