I think it's a good idea Sue. Wikipedians are different than Wikimedians, etc.. There are many people on boards of chapters and involved in the community that might not "edit" on wiki spaces, making them perhaps unable to vote. And there are a lot of people involved in the community that aren't editors or active on wiki, but, are strong voices involved in helping to shape the movement into what it is.
I also think, culturally, it's critical that we consider moving away from assuming people with high edit counts are more "important" than those without. (bytes versus edit counts)
Regarding staff members who vote - I have a feeling most staff members who do not contribute to the projects outside of their work obligations probably won't vote. Just a guess (based on what I gather around the office - just because you work for Wikimedia doesn't mean you contribute to our projects outside of work hours).
-Sarah
On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
Interesting thread, Itzik --- to be honest, I had forgotten that staff had been granted the right to vote regardless of edit count. I wouldn't be surprised if the only staff members who do vote are those who would qualify under the edit count requirement anyway.
Seems to me that rather than creating new exemptions from the edit count requirement, we might be better off to lower the number of edits required so that anybody who's demonstrated interest in the projects would qualify. If edits on meta, mediawiki, outreach, etc., qualify, and we were to lower the edit count requirement, then I think that would be inclusive of most/all contributors. Would something like that make sense?
Thanks, Sue On Apr 28, 2013 1:26 PM, "Andrew Gray" andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk wrote:
On 28 April 2013 06:15, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
also agree to simplify the rules. what i'd really love would be to better standardize and with it simplify "volunteer community", for all elections and votes. and at least my wish would be that people who donate their time by sending code patches to software considered essential to run the site are included.
The first elections (in 2004) had a simple "three months in the community" rule. After that, we added edit count restrictions. The first election with any "complicated" rules - allowing people in without passing the edit count limits - was 2008, when WMF staff, ex-Board members, *and* "Wikimedia server administrators with shell access" were added. In 2011, this got extended to people who "have commit access and have made at least one commit between 15 May 2010 and 15 May 2011."
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/en http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2011/en
So we've already got those in :-)
I'm ambivalent about whether it's appropriate to have staff members (those who don't independently qualify as "community members") voting or not, but I think in principle Itzik has a very good point - either *both* WMF and Chapter staff should be able to vote, or *neither* should. I can't see any reason that it's right for a staffer in San Francisco to participate in the election, but it isn't right for one in Berlin!
(It may be too late to change anything for this time around, of course, but it would be great if we could ensure consistency in future elections)
- Andrew.
On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 11:49 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Also agree with Nathan. Those chapter board members who are not
active
on
the projects already have a far greater relative weight in selecting
the
chapter-selected board seats.
A.
On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
nemowiki@gmail.com>wrote:
Nathan, 27/04/2013 21:34:
I would go the other way, and limit the participants in the election
for the community seat to people who are members of the volunteer community. Presumably that would include most members of most organizational boards, but only include those staff and other paid workers who also participate as volunteers.
I agree with Nathan, simplifying the rules is useful while
complicating
them for a few dozens voters is not.
Nemo
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