Hi everyone, just to follow up on this - thank you to everyone who
expressed interest in this role.
The Board Governance Committee has agreed to (re)appoint the following
members of the elections committee:
- User:AbhiSuryawanshi
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AbhiSuryawanshi>
- User:Carlojoseph14 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Carlojoseph14>
- User:HakanIST <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:HakanIST>
- User:KTC <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KTC>
- User:Mardetanha <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mardetanha>
- User:Masssly <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Masssly>
- User:Matanya <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Matanya>
- User:ProtoplasmaKid
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:ProtoplasmaKid>
- User:Ruslik0 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ruslik0>
Members and advisors serve terms of two years and are appointed by the
Board Governance Committee, in consultation with sitting members of the
Committee and their advisors.
The committee will also be supported by Board liaison, Esra'a Al Shafei,
and a number of Wikimedia Foundation staff advisors, namely:
- Stephen LaPorte, Wikimedia Foundation Legal
- Charles Roslof, Wikimedia Foundation Legal
- Joe Sutherland, Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety
- Greg Varnum, Wikimedia Foundation Communications
I look forward to working with the new and reappointed committee members,
and again thank all applicants for their interest.
best regards,
Joe
--
*Joe Sutherland* (he/him or they/them)
Trust and Safety Specialist
Wikimedia Foundation
On Mon, 13 Jan 2020 at 14:36, Joe Sutherland <jsutherland(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hello everyone,
First of all, many thanks to everyone who has expressed interest in
joining the Elections Committee. I really appreciate your willingness to
contribute to a successful election and addressing some of the broader
questions that have been identified. I'll get in touch with those who have
emailed me shortly.
As a reminder, please let me know by January 19 if you are interested in
participating in the Elections Committee.
And thank you for your questions and feedback. I’ll respond inline to the
questions I believe are still pending an answer.
On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 22:31, Peter Southwood <
peter.southwood(a)telkomsa.net> wrote:
Joe, What would "experience with advanced
wikitext markup" mean in this
context?
Also "responsiveness to email outreach"?
In this context, we are ideally looking for someone who is comfortable
with things like translation tags, nested templates, and other "advanced"
markup provided by MediaWiki. One of the tasks the committee has
historically been involved with has been to set up and organise the pages
for the election on Meta-Wiki, and this can get pretty complicated (as
evidenced by the source code
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2017/Board_of_Trustees&action=edit>!).
This is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have, since it's only one of the
ways the committee supports these elections - but it's still very useful.
As for responsiveness, the timelines for these elections have historically
been tight, and so we really would like committee members who are able to
respond to emails in a timely way so we can make committee decisions
quickly.
On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 10:14, Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
- I can't find any evidence of the Elections
Committee having met since
the
conclusion of the 2017 elections - am I missing something? (The 'Minutes'
page seems to only refer to 2015 meetings, which is almost 5 years ago, so
hopefully this is a case of the meeting minutes being somewhere else on
Meta)
You are justifiably not finding minutes, as the Elections Committee has
only met intermittently since the last election and maintained some of
their discussions over email outside of meetings (to the best of my
knowledge!). I am not able to offer extensive insights on the historical
practice around the Elections Committee, but I can revisit the process for
publishing minutes with the new committee. Supporting the committee was not
in my purview until this cycle. I will however echo the disappointment
about not having had the opportunity of meeting more frequently and share
more updates with the community. I look forward to working more closely
with the new committee once they are appointed.
- Also, part of the mandate of the Elections
Committee was meant to have
been to do a review of the method of election to the Board of Trustees. I
haven't heard anything about this happening. Has either the Board or the
Elections Committee done anything about this?
The Elections Committee has had some initial conversation, and I expect
this topic will be at the top of the Election Committee's agenda once they
begin.
- Your email says we're looking for 2-3 new
members. Does that imply that
all the existing members are all continuing? (Who in fact are the existing
members? Is the April 2017 list still valid?)
All but four of the existing committee members have indicated they are
interested in continuing their membership. I and the rest of the Foundation
staff supporting this work are more than happy to continue working with
them once the Election Committee is renewed by the Board Governance
Committee. The list is currently valid and will be updated once we'd had
the Board Governance Committee approve these new members.
- Has the Board, or the Board Governance
Committee, done any assessment of
whether the Elections Committee is the right tool for the job? (Does the
Board actually review the performance of the committees it creates?)
That'd be a question for the Board Governance Committee, but my personal
understanding is that there hasn't been a need to change things for the
moment.
On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 23:16, Henry Wood <henry.wood.1869(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Secondly, the first meeting is to be held in
January, so you've given yourself less than another two weeks to have staff
vet the candidates, get the approval of the Board
Governance Committee,
and
then hold the first meeting. Why give yourself and your propsective
candidates so little time for a process which you have known will be
coming
since this time last year?
I understand that the timeline looks tight, and it is, I should however
mention that it is already an improvement compared to election cycles past.
Of course, there is room for improvement, and the Elections Committee will
be collecting this kind of feedback at the end of the cycle to improve
future elections.
Thirdly, there is some important information
missing (and very little time to disseminate it effectively). For
example,
what are these meetings? Is personal attendance necessary? If so, and
any
committee members need to get a US visa, it's already far too late, they
will have needed to apply back in November or early December. Again, and
especially if travel is required, will the Foundation reimburse the
out-of-pocket expenses of committee members? Failure to think through
these points may explain why certain groups continue to be
under-represented.
The meetings will be held remotely, likely over Google Hangouts. We've
done them through Webex before, so we will consider which platform will
best serve the purpose of the meeting before deciding. I apologise for any
confusion caused on this; these meetings have historically always been held
remotely and will likely continue to be so. I hope this clarification is
useful for those considering joining the Elections Committee.
Joe