Wikimedia Foundation is not a membership-based organization, you don’t pay a membership dues like those of many professional organizations. Henceforth, it is theoretically cannot be an election which would not be legally enforceable without registered voting members, that’s paying members with verified identity. The community wide voting is structured to function like an election, and I have no doubt the board of trustee will follow established convention on this matter.

Hope this clear some of your confusion.

Best,
Leo
On Sep 11, 2021, 11:25 PM +0800, Andy Mabbett <andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk>, wrote:
On Tue, 7 Sept 2021 at 19:16, Tito Dutta <trulytito@gmail.com> wrote:

My good wishes to all the newly selected board members of Wikimedia Foundation.

AIUI, they are not yet board members, nor are they guaranteed to be.
The Trust's bylaws[1] state, at Article IV, Section 3(C) (my
**emphasis**):

(iii) The Board will appoint candidates who are **nominated**
through this process, subject to Article IV, Section 3(A), and other
provisions of these Bylaws. In the event that a candidate is selected
who does not meet the requirements of Article IV, Section 3(A) or
other requirements of these Bylaws, or of applicable state or federal
law, the Board will (a) **not appoint the candidate**, (b) declare a
vacancy on the Board, and (c) fill the resulting vacancy, subject to
this Section 3 and to Article IV, Section 6 below.

while Article IV, Section 3(A) says:

(i) The Board shall be composed of Trustees with a diverse set of
talents, experience, backgrounds, and competencies that will best
fulfill the mission and needs of the Foundation, **as determined by
the Board**. The Board is committed to promoting diversity and
inclusion both in terms of trustee composition and in other aspects of
its work.

Together, these seem to give the Board the option to "determine" that
the "nominated" individuals would not create a board with "a diverse
set of talents, experience, backgrounds, and competencies" and to
reject one or more of them.

Furthermore, it seems to make a lie of the claim [2] that "Members of
the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to elect four candidates
to a three-year term.", if, in fact, we merely "nominate" people for
the Board to consider.

I'd like to think I'm wrong. Can anyone show me how I am?


[1] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bylaws

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021

--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
_______________________________________________
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/GLOFABTMEAK2PJCBKPC4AAZZKFZ344L2/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org