Pine,

As far as I know, government employees in most of the countries can vote only if they are citizens. So yes, of course we are not taking there democratic voice. As I didn't said a staff member can't vote because he is a staff member. Just saying that it is not enough to be a staff member in order to get the vote privilege.

Itzik

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Itzik,

If I understand you correctly, you are asking about whether WMF and thematic organization bylaws should allow employees to vote in trustee elections for their own orgs.

I can see how this could create interesting conflict-of-interest problems.

However, in all non-autocratic republics that I know about, government employees can vote as any other citizens can. I'm also of the view that WMF operates like a university, and a modest amount of staff involvement in selecting their supervisors in that environment is ok.

Pine On Oct 5, 2014 12:41 AM, "Itzik - Wikimedia Israel" < itzik@wikimedia.org.il> wrote:

...

Hey,

Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided

that

...

we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to raise the discussion enough time before.

According to the current rules [1], in order to influence and vote in

the

...

elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF

staff/contractor.

...

Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people participating in the elections every year is not high.

For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison,

the

...

number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12%

of

...

the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have around 650 votes in order to be elected...)

Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general -

the

...

board of the whole movement.

Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our movement? Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement?

I'll be happy to hear yours input.

[1]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Que...

...

[2]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results

...

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment! _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

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On 05.10.2014 14:24, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:

...

Pine,

IMO the minimum thresholds should be set at levels such that any staff member who has employed for a reasonable period of time is likely to be eligible, if they are engaging with the community on public projects, which is how a person becomes part of 'the community', and would be a suitable voter for community seats on the board.

e.g. Danny Horn joined in April 2014, and now has 284 edits globally, albeit spread across seven projects.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/DannyH_(WMF)

I think most of the staff (not sure specifically about Danny) have "normal" (not WMF) accounts which are eligible to vote, and they should not be voting from two accounts anyway.

Cheers Yaroslav

On 05.10.2014 19:44, Risker wrote:

On 5 October 2014 13:35, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:

...

On 05.10.2014 14:24, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

...

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel itzik@wikimedia.org.il wrote:

...

Pine,

...

I think most of the staff (not sure specifically about Danny) have "normal" (not WMF) accounts which are eligible to vote, and they should not be voting from two accounts anyway.

Cheers Yaroslav

Speaking as one of the election monitors for the last election, we specifically checked for those types of duplicate votes, and would have de-activated the earliest vote(s) keeping only the last one. As it happens, nobody did that; the only votes we needed to strike were test votes.[1]

Risker/Anne

Thanks Anne. By no means was my intention to suggest that anybody has done it in the past or wants to do it in the future. My point was that many staffers are community members in their free time, and they may be eligible to vote as volunteers - meaning we are probably talking about even smaller numbers of people who may need special treatment to meet eligibility rules.

Cheers Yaroslav

On 5 October 2014 20:51, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:

On 10/05/2014 08:24 AM, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

...

I checked a few of the WMF admin staff who have been employed more than a year, and many dont look likely to reach the 300 threshold, even with wikitech and foundation wikis included.

An interesting question, I think, is /whether/ anyone from the Foundation ever voted that would not otherwise have had sufferage from the edits requirement?

Pretty sure they have, Marc. It's difficult to tell for certain, because some of the applicable wikis where people might be posting are not included in the SUL grouping (for example, FDC wiki or other non-public wikis, Foundation wiki, etc).

Risker/Anne

John, please explain what your point is here. I mean really, picking on individual people who voted in the election? That's crossing the line, especially as they met the voting eligibility criteria for the election involved, which happened 16 months ago. I expect better from you.

If you would like to propose different voting eligibility criteria for future elections, including the one that will take place some time around June 2015, please do so - perhaps consider offering to chair the election committee for next year. But insinuating that some people didn't deserve to vote, or shouldn't have been allowed to vote using a staff account, when that was in the eligibility criteria for many previous elections (not just the 2013 one) is just rude. As best I can tell, there were no concerns expressed in the lead-up the 2013 election about WMF staff having franchise.

Risker/Anne

On 6 October 2014 22:26, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 8:11 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 5 October 2014 20:51, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:

...

On 10/05/2014 08:24 AM, John Mark Vandenberg wrote:

...

I checked a few of the WMF admin staff who have been employed more than a year, and many dont look likely to reach the 300 threshold, even with wikitech and foundation wikis included.

An interesting question, I think, is /whether/ anyone from the Foundation ever voted that would not otherwise have had sufferage from the edits requirement?

Pretty sure they have, Marc. It's difficult to tell for certain, because some of the applicable wikis where people might be posting are not

included

...

in the SUL grouping (for example, FDC wiki or other non-public wikis, Foundation wiki, etc).

It should be 'quite easy' to confirm wrt staff by looking for '(WMF)' and 'office.wikimedia.org' in the raw data, and filtering out any developers with merged changesets.

https://vote.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SecurePoll/list/290?limit=2000

This is not easy for volunteers because some of the staff usernames are not SUL accounts, dont have links to personal accounts, and userpages dont include names, so sorry for any mistakes made in the following.

MRay (WMF) - no SUL account, or account by that name on meta or wmfwiki - 'ray' doesnt appear on wmf:Staff

GGrossmeier_(WMF) - no SUL account, but an account by that name does exist on wmfiwki, and belongs to dev Greg Grossmeier, but didnt have merged gerrit patches for that period AFAICS.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/owner:%22Greg+Grossmeier+%253Cgreg%2540wi...

Ldavis (WMF) - SUL account, easily meets community voting criteria

LVilla (WMF) - SUL account with a link to personal account 'user:LuisVilla', which from a quick count (I didnt use the eligibility checker tool) to have met either criteria of the 200 total edits or 20 recent edits.

Jorm (WMF) - didnt check; quite certain they were eligible one way or another.

Sbouterse (WMF), now Siko (WMF), and Seeeko - SUL accounts, achieved the community voting criteria with both staff and personal account. woot!

JMathewson (WMF) - SUL account, easily meets community voting criteria

KLove (WMF) - SUL account, may have amassed 200 edits across all projects with a few months of employment (I didnt use the eligibility checker tool to confirm this). borderline case; but had she known that she needed a few more edits to be eligible, my guess is she would have done the necessary edits with ease in order to qualify.

Gyoung - not a SUL account, but does have SUL accounts GYoung_(WMF) and GayleKaren, but between them doesnt appear to have met the criteria for the 2013 election, but will easily meet the criteria for the 2015 election.

Lcarr - not a SUL account, but lots of merged patches.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/q/owner:%22Lcarr+%253Cgeekgirl%2540gmail.co...

The other exception is for WMF board members; the easiest way to check those is by username.

While scanning the list I saw a few chapter people who voted from [country].wikimedia.org , so it would also be worth checking those to see if they were also eligible on content wikis. If chapterwikis are included in the eligibility counts, then foundationwiki and wikitech (and other WMF public wikis) should also be counted.

-- John Vandenberg

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On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:29 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

John, please explain what your point is here. I mean really, picking on individual people who voted in the election? That's crossing the line, especially as they met the voting eligibility criteria for the election involved, which happened 16 months ago. I expect better from you.

My data is exhaustive, picking on _all_ voters (that I could find) who were eligible via the WMF staff criteria or used their WMF staff account to vote, so we can see the utility that criteria had last time.

It was in response to Marc asking a question, which I roughly answered. Itzik's initial email said that WMF now has a voting power of 12%, if the 2015 WMF election has the same turnout as last time. IIRC, the WMF voting power for the 2013 election was around 9%. That is enough voting power to control who is on the board. Even only counting the WMF staff who actually voted in 2013, IIRC they had a realised voting power which was able to determine which of three candidates was in slot #2 and #3. I am not suggesting that they voted as a bloc, and do I believe they are the largest potential bloc of voters.

As Marc suggests many of those people are also community members who would be eligible due to the community edit count based criteria. I have quantified it to ~5 votes in the 2013 election which used the WMF staff eligibility criteria, which is 0.27% of the 1809 total votes.

If you would like to propose different voting eligibility criteria for future elections, including the one that will take place some time around June 2015, please do so

I already did that: 50 edits for each year of employment, and be inclusive of all public wikis.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-October/074835.html

• perhaps consider offering to chair the election

committee for next year.

IMO the election must be run by a third party, as happened prior to 2013, by SPI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_in_the_Public_Interest Adequate staff support from WMF is also needed.

But insinuating that some people didn't deserve to vote, or shouldn't have been allowed to vote using a staff account, when that was in the eligibility criteria for many previous elections (not just the 2013 one) is just rude. As best I can tell, there were no concerns expressed in the lead-up the 2013 election about WMF staff having franchise.

If I am insinuating anything by providing data with a bit of commentary, it is the opposite. Any concerns about a WMF 'staff eligible' criteria voting bloc in 2013 are not well founded, but the list of who voted from a staff account last time strongly suggests very few people would be affected by removing that criteria. Removing the WMF staff criteria does adjust the *potential* voting bloc (213 votes) down to a more palatable number, being only those that are active within the community, which I think is a good thing to do.

However as I have said in earlier emails, I would prefer that we refine the criteria such that more of the WMF and affiliate staff & boards who are active within the community can vote in 2015.

Hey,

After reading all the emails so far, I more and more thinking that the correct way will be to remove the specific WMF criteria - allowing every community member to participate in the election by voting using his *personal* (not staff/dev account), what give the same equal power to staff from the WMF and chapters, such as every personal volunteer in the Wikimedia community have.

I hope next year election committee will take it in consideration.

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 8:08 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

On 7 October 2014 00:57, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:29 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

IMO the election must be run by a third party, as happened prior to 2013, by SPI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_in_the_Public_Interest Adequate staff support from WMF is also needed.

The elections have never, even once, been run by a third party. For two board elections, the voting was hosted off-site, although vote verification was still carrried out by internal volunteers (the election committee); on the last board election, to avoid the problems that arose with off-site hosting, the election key (which acts as a kill-switch for the election) was held by a third party. All the rest of the activities were done on-site by volunteers with some help from staff. All of the organization except for the hosting of votes has always been done internally.

In my own post-mortem after the last election, I too suggested that the elections be hosted off-site; however, my reasoning was that it would be difficult to justify the expense of redeveloping SecurePoll sufficiently to make it straightforward enough to use given that it's only used once or twice a year. However, work has been happening on SecurePoll pretty much since the last election, so there's no benefit to hosting elsewhere, especially given the difficulties that were encountered in the past.

External election hosting is a fairly big ticket item if it is being done well (and it would probably involve non-free software and as much if not more work on the part of WMF staff), although I do understand that there are certain advantages to going outside or more precisely not hosting on our own servers.

Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

Yes, that would be desirable. However, I don't mind if WMF employees use their staff account to vote, provided that it meets eligibility criteria because of edits or patches.

Il 07/10/2014 09:50, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel ha scritto:

Hey,

After reading all the emails so far, I more and more thinking that the correct way will be to remove the specific WMF criteria - allowing every community member to participate in the election by voting using his *personal* (not staff/dev account), what give the same equal power to staff from the WMF and chapters, such as every personal volunteer in the Wikimedia community have.

I hope next year election committee will take it in consideration.

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 |http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 5:09 AM, Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net wrote:

I think the issue is that the employee vote is now a significant proportion of the electorate. When this was originally set up, nobody complained too loudly about giving WMF staff the vote simply because their numbers were small and they were too small a constituency to sway the result on their own. The number of voters choosing to exercise their suffrage is decreasing, while the number of staff are increasing. While this illustrates a problem all on its own, it also means that WMF staff who may not be participants on the projects may now have enough pull to decide a closely fought election.

I know it's too late to change the rules for this year, but I'd really recommend getting rid of the complex criteria for the next election, and dialing it back to a simple "X number of edits, or Y number of patches" rule. Not only would this be simpler to administer and easier to understand, but I would imagine most of the WMF staff who care enough to actually vote would probably qualify through those criteria anyway. A few "worthy" folk might miss out on the chance to lodge a ballot, but then that's going to be the case in any situation other than complete and universal suffrage.

Cheers, Craig Franklin

First off, setting aside the question about what I (personally) think should be the requirements I would say that it is in no way too late to change the rules. The election is not until mid year next year (I think we usually do it in June?) The election committee hasn't even been sat yet and they will be the ones to decide that in the end (that is not to say that we shouldn't have the discussion now too if people want, just that the decision makers aren't even decided yet).

I don't have exact numbers, but I do remember that there are already very few people who wanted to vote, were only eligible as staff, and couldn't. Most of them were developers and so would be eligible via patches anyway (and most of THEM were eligible by edit count as well), among the non developers people like myself and Philippe refrained from voting because we were working with the election committee and felt that most appropriate. I don't believe there was an overwhelming vote of staff members in proportion to the total.

Voter turn out is something I really want to see better though, it's something that I know we've discussed in the office and I'm sure that the election committee will have as a top priority. The biggest things I see right now is finishing SUL unification which will allow us to have '1 click' voting (and not sending people to meta first to learn about the election/candidates then to their undefined 'home wiki' to see if they can vote) completely anecdotally that seems to have consistently scared a lot of voters off and confused even some of our more experienced users (it also seems to be a bigger complaint each year) SUL will allow us to just have everyone click a start voting button on Meta and not have to go back to their home wiki. I also seriously wonder about the joint FDC/Board ballot giving people too much to look at, we know for example that over 500 people 'saw' the ballot but never submitted their vote.

I also really think notifications could be incredibly helpful to get the word out, but so far that does not seem very likely to be available by then.

James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

On 5 October 2014 10:00, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

How are we doing on SUL finalization anyway? If I remember correctly the lead on this is Dan so I'm pinging him.

Hey Pine,

Progress is pretty good. As noted in Erik's presentation at Monthly Metrics last Thursday, we're wrapping up the necessary engineering work and starting to figure out a date that makes sense to perform the finalisation. The engineering work is mostly feature complete (with the notable exception of one half of one of the initiatives, which is half finished). The work still needs rigorous testing, which I can arrange by getting everything deployed to testwiki once we're finished developing it all.

We're not quite at where I had hoped we would be (I'd hoped the engineering work would be totally featured complete), which was noted by Erik colouring the SUL box yellow rather than green during Metrics. That said, the progress we've made towards the SUL finalisation this quarter has been more than the progress in all previous quarters combined... at least, while I've been at the WMF. So I'm pretty pleased.

Dan

On 5 October 2014 22:08, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks Dan. Can you share an approximate completion date?

Not at this stage, I'm afraid. I will only give a date when I can say with some confidence that we can meet it, and there are too many free variables for me to be able to say that right now.

What I can say with confidence is that the SUL finalisation will not happen in 2014. :-)

(What is with half of the WMF staff responding to routine emails on weekends? All you workaholics and overachievers...) :)

The weekend is when we're free from all the meetings and we actually get to focus on our work. ;-)

Dan

Yes.. But which wikis are about to be eligible? For example: Wikimedia Polska wiki is on WMF servers within SUL framework so it is possible to start voting from our wiki. So our secretary, who is not active ony other WMF projects can vote because she made enough "secretarial" edits on our wiki, as she maintains regularly severa pages... But if our wiki would be on separate servers she could not vote... So.. what about outreach wiki, some internal wikis etc?

If taking the idea of wiki "citzenship" seriously, there is question of definition of this "citzenship"... Maybe in order to became "wiki-citizen" one need enough edits in "content" WMF wikis? So no meta, no outrech and other "internal" wikis but only Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikicites, Wikimedia Commons, Wikisources and Wikivoayage?

2014-10-05 14:09 GMT+02:00 Craig Franklin cfranklin@halonetwork.net:

I think the issue is that the employee vote is now a significant proportion of the electorate. When this was originally set up, nobody complained too loudly about giving WMF staff the vote simply because their numbers were small and they were too small a constituency to sway the result on their own. The number of voters choosing to exercise their suffrage is decreasing, while the number of staff are increasing. While this illustrates a problem all on its own, it also means that WMF staff who may not be participants on the projects may now have enough pull to decide a closely fought election.

I know it's too late to change the rules for this year, but I'd really recommend getting rid of the complex criteria for the next election, and dialing it back to a simple "X number of edits, or Y number of patches" rule. Not only would this be simpler to administer and easier to understand, but I would imagine most of the WMF staff who care enough to actually vote would probably qualify through those criteria anyway. A few "worthy" folk might miss out on the chance to lodge a ballot, but then that's going to be the case in any situation other than complete and universal suffrage.

Cheers, Craig Franklin

On 5 October 2014 18:04, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi Itzik,

If I understand you correctly, you are asking about whether WMF and thematic organization bylaws should allow employees to vote in trustee elections for their own orgs.

I can see how this could create interesting conflict-of-interest problems.

However, in all non-autocratic republics that I know about, government employees can vote as any other citizens can. I'm also of the view that WMF operates like a university, and a modest amount of staff involvement in selecting their supervisors in that environment is ok.

Pine On Oct 5, 2014 12:41 AM, "Itzik - Wikimedia Israel" < itzik@wikimedia.org.il> wrote:

...

Hey,

Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided

that

...

we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to raise the discussion enough time before.

According to the current rules [1], in order to influence and vote in

the

...

elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF

staff/contractor.

...

Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people participating in the elections every year is not high.

For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison,

the

...

number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12%

of

...

the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have around 650 votes in order to be elected...)

Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general -

the

...

board of the whole movement.

Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our movement? Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement?

I'll be happy to hear yours input.

[1]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Que...

...

[2]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results

...

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment! _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

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Is there a way in which people who volunteer, but not through editing or coding, can vote? For example, Wikimania volunteers from this year, or those who volunteer time with financial or administrative matters rather than through adding content? On 5 Oct 2014 11:44, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:

The title should be "WMF Board of Trustee elections".

Itzik - Wikimedia Israel, 05/10/2014 09:40:

...

For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes.

And this is the issue we should be talking about: the ~99.5 % abstention rate.*

By comparison, the

...

number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12% of the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have around 650 votes in order to be elected...)

Did you check how many actually voted?

...

Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general - the board of the whole movement.

This unequality must indeed be rectified. It's not hard to do so.

1. Just remove the WMF staffers exception: after it was introduced,

requirements have been greatly reduced and most staffers have at least one merged patch or 300 edits. There could be some minor "discrimination" for some administrative staff. 2) Extend it to any Wikimedia affiliates. This could cause some minor inequality in what different affiliates consider "staff". Mostly, there would be some administrative overhead; but it's trivial to fix with standard electoral methods: publish the electors list beforehand and let interested voters report errors. I wouldn't spend too much time discussing this topic, flipping a coin to pick either option is fine. :-)

Nemo

(*) No official numbers exist... but I already opened one thread on transparency this week.

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A completely un deduped (and so is double+ counting anyone who is eligible on multiple wikis because of activity there) number is 207911 for 2013.

Caveats:

This number is quick and dirty and 'reasonable' as a starting point but far from perfect, among other things:

- It doesn't include 100% of the staff or developers, only the staff who had staff rights or asked and developers who asked because they couldn't vote in other ways). This is a relatively small amount of missing people. - It still includes bots and blocked users, because that was checked later in the process. I, again, think this is a relatively small amount given number of bots + blocked users with more then 300 edits relative to the total. It is possible some of the bots are very active across the board though which will be helped by the de dupping. - It is not de dupped meaning it double+ counts people who were active on many wikis or accounts, sometimes a lot (for example there are 7 entries for my personal account, 7 for my work account, and 69 for the steward DerHexer given global work). Sorting through the crap that the script spat out is more then I'm willing to do at 5am but I will try to do this later today and get this number down. My guess is this is in the 10k range.

James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 4:36 AM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 3:44 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:

...

(*) No official numbers exist... but I already opened one thread on transparency this week.

Just to clarify so that I know what you're looking and can try and prioritize it. You are looking for the total number of eligible voters so that we can determine the actual turn out percentage? It could be a bit of a pain because of the lack of SUL and the fact that people can be eligible on multiple wikis but if I assume that 'same name = duplicate' then it shouldn't take too much manual jiggering after the scripts run. I will try to do that this afternoon (Sunday).

I always intended to release more stats after the last election (and I know you've asked before), sadly issues came up in the pipeline and other work over came it priority wise so at the moment it would have to be in my personal time I do still want too or to find someone else who is able too :(.

James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

If there was an option to indicate that the user was willing to vote but did not know any of the candidates well enough to have an opinion on their suitability for the positions you might find that this is often the case. Cheers, Peter

-----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of James Alexander Sent: 06 October 2014 08:46 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board of Trustee elections

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 5:12 AM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:

A completely un deduped (and so is double+ counting anyone who is eligible on multiple wikis because of activity there) number is 207911 for 2013.

Caveats:

This number is quick and dirty and 'reasonable' as a starting point but far from perfect, among other things:

• It doesn't include 100% of the staff or developers, only the staff

who had staff rights or asked and developers who asked because they couldn't vote in other ways). This is a relatively small amount of missing people.

• It still includes bots and blocked users, because that was checked

later in the process. I, again, think this is a relatively small amount given number of bots + blocked users with more then 300 edits relative to the total. It is possible some of the bots are very active across the board though which will be helped by the de dupping.

• It is not de dupped meaning it double+ counts people who were active

on many wikis or accounts, sometimes a lot (for example there are 7 entries for my personal account, 7 for my work account, and 69 for the steward DerHexer given global work). Sorting through the crap that the script spat out is more then I'm willing to do at 5am but I will try to do this later today and get this number down. My guess is this is in the 10k range.

So I was wrong about the extent of the de duplication. In the end there were about *50124* unique people marked off on the voter list (again, like above, that does still include some bots/blocked on multiple wiki users but they are only counted once each) so call it 50k.

Using that number:

- With a total of 1809 valid votes that is about a 3.6% turnout. - We know that another 534 people authenticated to vote but did not actually cast a valid vote (and so most likely left after seeing the ballot)[1]. That would account for an additional 1%

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mor... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

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I d really love to have a simple voting right without exceptions, simple to explain. This than could be adopted as well by chapters and thematic orgs to distinguish between active and other members. I.e. have a number of billable contributions to Wikipedia or commons or be a registered developer. To make it an incentive more to contribute.

Rupert On Oct 6, 2014 1:55 PM, "Lodewijk" lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:

Do you know which users were among these 534? Would it be possible to randomly approach 20-30 of them and ask why they didn't vote? It would be helpful to learn, I guess. This is, assuming such a mini-survey was not attempted yet.

Best, Lodewijk

2014-10-06 8:46 GMT+02:00 James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org:

...

On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 5:12 AM, James Alexander <

jalexander@wikimedia.org>

...

wrote:

...

A completely un deduped (and so is double+ counting anyone who is

eligible

...

on multiple wikis because of activity there) number is 207911 for 2013.

Caveats:

This number is quick and dirty and 'reasonable' as a starting point but far from perfect, among other things:

• It doesn't include 100% of the staff or developers, only the staff

who had staff rights or asked and developers who asked because they couldn't vote in other ways). This is a relatively small amount of

missing

...

people.

• It still includes bots and blocked users, because that was checked

later in the process. I, again, think this is a relatively small

amount

...

given number of bots + blocked users with more then 300 edits

relative to

...

the total. It is possible some of the bots are very active across

the

...

board

...

though which will be helped by the de dupping.

• It is not de dupped meaning it double+ counts people who were

active

...

...

on many wikis or accounts, sometimes a lot (for example there are 7

entries

...

for my personal account, 7 for my work account, and 69 for the

steward

...

...

DerHexer given global work). Sorting through the crap that the

script

...

spat

...

out is more then I'm willing to do at 5am but I will try to do this

later

...

today and get this number down. My guess is this is in the 10k

range.

...

...

So I was wrong about the extent of the de duplication. In the end there were about *50124* unique people marked off on the voter list (again,

like

...

above, that does still include some bots/blocked on multiple wiki users

but

...

they are only counted once each) so call it 50k.

Using that number:

• With a total of 1809 valid votes that is about a 3.6% turnout.
• We know that another 534 people authenticated to vote but did not

actually cast a valid vote (and so most likely left after seeing the ballot)[1]. That would account for an additional 1%

[1]

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mor...

...

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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.

My two cents: no, no, no, absolutely not, by all means no, never.

I am strongly, strongly, strongly opposed to such a move. The chapters already elect two members of the Board, and that's quite enough. When it comes to matters concerning strategic direction chapters are the movement equivalent of a political interest group. The Board is the entity ultimately responsible for the funding reigns, and I strongly suspect that such a move, *especially given the weakness of community response in elections*, would immediately result in an influx of "chapter junkies" who will vote as a nearly-united political bloc for whatever candidate promises a freer flow of money.

The ramifications would be immediate. This is absolutely the wrongest possible direction to go in.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 10:06 AM, Nathan nawrich@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. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

I don't see why employees (no diff whether it's about WMF or affiliates) who are not also volunteers should have the vote right. It's up to Wikimedia movement to chose it's lead. The non-volunteering employees are outsiders who are just hired to do some stuff for us since we tend to be lazy. If they want to influence community's way they must become part of the community. They have a choice of who's their boss - if they don't like boss in WMF they could go look for another job. --Base

22.04.2015, 18:10, "Leigh Thelmadatter" osamadre@hotmail.com:

+1

...

Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 10:51:25 -0400  From: aleksey.bilogur@gmail.com  To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org  Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Board of Trustee elections

My two cents: no, no, no, absolutely not, by all means no, never.

I am strongly, strongly, strongly opposed to such a move. The chapters  already elect two members of the Board, and that's quite enough. When it  comes to matters concerning strategic direction chapters are the movement  equivalent of a political interest group. The Board is the entity  ultimately responsible for the funding reigns, and I strongly suspect that  such a move, *especially given the weakness of community response in  elections*, would immediately result in an influx of "chapter junkies" who  will vote as a nearly-united political bloc for whatever candidate promises  a freer flow of money.

The ramifications would be immediate. This is absolutely the wrongest  possible direction to go in.

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On 15-04-22 11:54 AM, Sydney Poore wrote:

I fully support allowing our talented and dedicated WMF staff to have the opportunity to choose the people who guide the direction of the WMF.

I'd like to add to this that the (pretty small) set of staffers that would not otherwise have had eligibility to vote are generally in administrative, finance and legal positions - all of which bring other perspectives to evaluation of the candidates that may be valuable.

But, more importantly, they share our values and commitment to the ideals behind the movement. They wouldn't be working at the Foundation if they didn't because our internal culture is - literally - all about the mission.

Disclaimer: I'm staff myself, but eligible to vote as a volunteer.

-- Marc

Two quick notes:

1. People with a block on more than one wiki are not eligible to vote.

2. Wikimedia User Groups generally are not incorporated - that is just one of the ways they vary from other affiliate models. They are recognized by the AffCom, but are not required to legally incorporate as Chapters and ThOrgs are. If folks are interested though, there is an active RFC on the topic of the requirements for that recognition: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/RFCs/Wikimedia_user_gr...

3. At this exact moment in time, Wikimedia User Groups do not have a vote in the affiliate elections.

-greg

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Aleksey Bilogur aleksey.bilogur@gmail.com wrote:

Frankly, I think such views are naive idealism. There is a political reality that would come about as a result of such a change, one at the highest level, that need to be understood and addressed. I do not even believe that this is a discussion that should occur at the community level. This is a discussion that should occur at the board level.

A former Wikimedian in Residence was recently blocked for constant copyright violations on the English Wikipedia. I do not want such people voting on a body which will determine their level of monetary and non-monetary support---especially now that the requirements for incorporation as a user-group are dipping still lower.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:

...

On 15-04-22 11:54 AM, Sydney Poore wrote:

...

I fully support allowing our talented and dedicated WMF staff to have

the

...

...

opportunity to choose the people who guide the direction of the WMF.

I'd like to add to this that the (pretty small) set of staffers that would not otherwise have had eligibility to vote are generally in administrative, finance and legal positions - all of which bring other perspectives to evaluation of the candidates that may be valuable.

But, more importantly, they share our values and commitment to the ideals behind the movement. They wouldn't be working at the Foundation if they didn't because our internal culture is - literally - all about the mission.

Disclaimer: I'm staff myself, but eligible to vote as a volunteer.

-- Marc

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I was speaking in support of keeping the current policy which allows WMF staff to vote even if they do not meet the eligibility guidelines with a volunteer account.

The issue of allowing staff in affiliated organizations who are not volunteers vote is more complex because they could have minimal involvement with the larger movement, and in some cases already have the ability to select WMF BoT.

But, I would be inclined to encourage more voices to be heard by inviting everyone who is part of the wikimedia movement to vote in the WMF BoT elections.

This could happen by the affiliate organizations encouraging all staff to become volunteers by giving them time to edit in a volunteer capacity several hours a month,

or by allowing affiliated organizations to identify a list of staff who are not on site volunteers but who are part of the wikimedia movement.

Additionally, a strong effort to get more volunteer community members running for positions as well as voting.

Sydney

Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedian in Residence at Cochrane Collaboration

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Aleksey Bilogur aleksey.bilogur@gmail.com wrote:

Frankly, I think such views are naive idealism. There is a political reality that would come about as a result of such a change, one at the highest level, that need to be understood and addressed. I do not even believe that this is a discussion that should occur at the community level. This is a discussion that should occur at the board level.

A former Wikimedian in Residence was recently blocked for constant copyright violations on the English Wikipedia. I do not want such people voting on a body which will determine their level of monetary and non-monetary support---especially now that the requirements for incorporation as a user-group are dipping still lower.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:

...

On 15-04-22 11:54 AM, Sydney Poore wrote:

...

I fully support allowing our talented and dedicated WMF staff to have

the

...

...

opportunity to choose the people who guide the direction of the WMF.

I'd like to add to this that the (pretty small) set of staffers that would not otherwise have had eligibility to vote are generally in administrative, finance and legal positions - all of which bring other perspectives to evaluation of the candidates that may be valuable.

But, more importantly, they share our values and commitment to the ideals behind the movement. They wouldn't be working at the Foundation if they didn't because our internal culture is - literally - all about the mission.

Disclaimer: I'm staff myself, but eligible to vote as a volunteer.

-- Marc

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On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:

I find the WMF staff who I interact with to be an inspiration to me with their dedication to the mission to the global wikimedia movement.

So do I. :)

Perhaps the reason that many of them are not volunteering as on site contributors is because they are too busy with a day job that is solely focused on the mission of the movement.

Eh, no, that's not a valid argument. Everybody is busy, most Wikimedians have day jobs or demanding schoolwork of some sort. People manage to contribute to the projects if they want to. It's a matter of prioritization, as always in life. So we mustn't accept "maybe they're just too busy" as an excuse for why staffers purportedly "can't" edit. Many staffers do. Some don't. In both cases, it's by choice and preference.

I fully support allowing our talented and dedicated WMF staff to have the opportunity to choose the people who guide the direction of the WMF.

Meeting the suffrage bar as a community member is not difficult. Those (few) staffers who aren't already eligible to vote as either developers or content contributors, further filtered by the criterion "cares sufficiently to read about candidates and figure out voting" -- which I guesstimate to be under 20, and probably under 10 -- could have, and therefore should have, simply edited a bit, on any of the projects, to get suffrage. I don't think there's any disenfranchisement if they don't get an automatic vote.

A.

The idea of community elected seats is just that; the electors are members of the community. So if we decide that employees of community organizations, like the WMF, are part of the Wikimedia community... then they should have the right to vote on community seats of the Board of Trustees. Whether any individual member of the community has a second opportunity to influence the composition of the board is irrelevant to determining whether they should have suffrage as a member of the global community.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are many people eligible to vote in the election that also have chapter affiliations which give them a voice in the chapter-appointed seats. Since we don't disenfranchise them for their "double vote" power, we should not disenfranchise other people that meet our working definition of who counts as a member of the community. Either staff employed on behalf of the movement count everywhere, or they don't count at all; there is no reason I can see that employees of the WMF are more entitled to vote than, say, employees of WMDE.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Aleksey Bilogur aleksey.bilogur@gmail.com wrote:

Employees of WMDE, a large chunk of whose funding is dependent on the decisions of the body they have just been enfranchised to vote for.

Yeah, no COI there *at all*.

Er, no more than any staff member of the WMF. And for both organizations, any of them who edit can already vote.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:

...

I find the WMF staff who I interact with to be an inspiration to me with their dedication to the mission to the global wikimedia movement.

So do I. :)

...

Perhaps the reason that many of them are not volunteering as on site contributors is because they are too busy with a day job that is solely focused on the mission of the movement.

Eh, no, that's not a valid argument. Everybody is busy, most Wikimedians have day jobs or demanding schoolwork of some sort. People manage to contribute to the projects if they want to. It's a matter of prioritization, as always in life. So we mustn't accept "maybe they're just too busy" as an excuse for why staffers purportedly "can't" edit. Many staffers do. Some don't. In both cases, it's by choice and preference.

I respect the decision of WMF staff to go home and take care of their personal business, or be involved in other outside activities, and then come back to work refreshed and ready to work on issues related to WMF and wikimedia movement.

...

I fully support allowing our talented and dedicated WMF staff to have the opportunity to choose the people who guide the direction of the WMF.

Meeting the suffrage bar as a community member is not difficult. Those (few) staffers who aren't already eligible to vote as either developers or content contributors, further filtered by the criterion "cares sufficiently to read about candidates and figure out voting" -- which I guesstimate to be under 20, and probably under 10 -- could have, and therefore should have, simply edited a bit, on any of the projects, to get suffrage. I don't think there's any disenfranchisement if they don't get an automatic vote.

A.

At a time in our movement when we are reaching out to partner organization (GLAM, universities, etc) to engage them in activities that are outside of making on wiki edits, I think we need to expand our ideas about who is a member of our movement with the standing to select the BoT.

A good start to recognizing a broadening of the movement roles is to include WMF staff and affiliate staff who do not make onsite edits.

Additionally, I'm not keen on having people go through the motion of making just enough edits to get the right to vote as a volunteer when their true value to the wikimedia movement is through their staff work.

Sydney

-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation http://www.wikimediafoundation.org

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 8:54 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:

...

I find the WMF staff who I interact with to be an inspiration to me

with

...

...

their dedication to the mission to the global wikimedia movement.

So do I. :)

...

Perhaps the reason that many of them are not volunteering as on site contributors is because they are too busy with a day job that is solely focused on the mission of the movement.

...

Eh, no, that's not a valid argument. Everybody is busy, most Wikimedians have day jobs or demanding schoolwork of some sort. People manage to contribute to the projects if they want to. It's a matter of prioritization, as always in life. So we mustn't accept "maybe they're just too busy" as an excuse for why staffers purportedly "can't" edit. Many staffers do. Some don't. In both cases, it's by choice and preference.

I respect the decision of WMF staff to go home and take care of their personal business, or be involved in other outside activities, and then come back to work refreshed and ready to work on issues related to WMF and wikimedia movement.

So do I. :) (Indeed, I have had occasion to remind, uh, a colleague, that editing Wikipedia or its sister projects is a bit of an unusual hobby, and that it's Perfectly Fine to not choose to volunteer to do that on your personal time.)

But it that's their choice, they probably don't need to vote for the WMF Board of Trustees. Indeed, they probably won't be very informed voters if they could.

(to be clear, I have been responding specifically to the "staff may not have time to edit" argument, which I found unconvincing. I agree WMF staff (who do get a vote, in the status quo), should not be privileged over affiliate staff (who don't), i.e. that status quo is broken.)

A.

Any response or input from the Election Committee?

*Regards,Itzik Edri* Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment!

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:

On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 2:10 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

So do I. :) (Indeed, I have had occasion to remind, uh, a colleague,

that

...

editing Wikipedia or its sister projects is a bit of an unusual hobby,

and

...

that it's Perfectly Fine to not choose to volunteer to do that on your personal time.)

if, as Asaf points out, it is an issue of roughly 10 people then it is probably not really worth a lengthy discussion - it is easier to get voting rights anyway. All in all, I think it is good that we try to be inclusive, and WMF people (just as many others professionals employed within our movement) definitely have an important perspective to add. Yet, it really is not that difficult to edit a little bit. Voting rights are also a certain privilege. Even if the only reason staff of WMF and/or chapters are not automatically eligible to vote is the fact, that there are hypothetical concerns about some possible political influence, it still may be enough just because the threshold to get voting rights is really low. So, I think that as long as the rules are known well ahead in time, it is totally fine to have universal requirements irrespective of where one is employed.

(btw, I think it is also idealistic to assume that a determined political group would not make a coordinated effort to gain voting rights to have influence - just look what happened to Hugo awards and the Sad Puppies fraction ;)

best,

dariusz "pundit" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 2:43 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel < itzik@wikimedia.org.il> wrote:

...

Any response or input from the Election Committee?

I think Greg said it relatively well earlier as the coordinator for the committee (I am it's staff advisor). At this point the committee has decided on the voting requirements and it is highly unlikely to change for the current election cycle. They did have serious discussions about everything mentioned in this thread both on their list and during the first committee meeting but in the end decided that they did not believe there was a strong need for change right now. When this conversation came back up it was broached whether we wanted to revisit and no one said expressed a desire to.

Also as Greg said I think this is a good topic for a permanent election committee which I very much think should exist.

James Alexander Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

This is a weakness in the process. Itzik raised an issue and was told it was too early to discuss. He raised it again when the elections approached, and is being told its too late. Obviously the "committee" conducted its deliberations on this question in secret, which is a strange approach considering there have been requests and a desire for open discussion from the community.

It's also worth pointing out that many of the people in this discussion agreed that the community requirements are so low that there should be no reason any interested employee (of the WMF or elsewhere) can't qualify under other criteria, eliminating the need for a special franchise for WMF employees.

Unfortunately it appears that anyone interested in adjusting the criteria will need perfecting timing while broaching this subject next year.

tldr: At this point, the requirements will not be changed for this election cycle. I recognize on one level this change seems as simple as changing the election Meta page, but as we realized in discussion, in execution, it requires a bit more than that. See my last thread for more information on why that decision was made. I believe, given our time constraints, that the right decision was made.

A few thoughts speaking for myself and not the committee. :)

As a supporter of our affiliates, I empathize with wanting them to be included in all aspects of WMF governance. I agree that this discussion points out a flaw in our current setup, and that is why I support the notion of a standing elections committee. This year's committee has not yet discussed that topic, but it is on the agenda to discuss when we are able to do so.

Ultimately, we had about 72 hours to decide on the many nuances of this issue, and even with this thread having taken place, it turned out that was not enough to do the topic justice. Practically speaking, the committee had to prioritize a lot of tasks and topics very quickly. Figuring out how to handle nominations, which was a part of our mandate and we felt had much broader implications (and so far I think has worked well) consumed much of that valuable time, and I think fairly so. I agree this is a flaw in our current process, but at this point, that was not an issue the committee is able to address.

Having reviewed this discussion again, and based on some committee conversations, I think there are a few questions and tasks which would need to be addressed before the next election - and were not possible in the timeline this year's committee had to work with.

- Affiliates, and many affiliate staff, are already able to engage in a board election. That was in part why including them in the community board election was not as urgent. However, that is not true for the FDC elections. Should the requirements be split for that reason? How much additional work would that require for the technical support staff? - There is existing precedent on what qualifies as WMF involved individuals - the staff, current and former board, as well as current and former advisors. That is not as easily applied to all affiliates. It is easier with chapters, but much harder with user groups. Should user groups therefore just be left out? That seems unfair. There are user groups with staff, and there are some currently more active than some chapters. So the arguments in segregating them for the purposes of this conversation, in my opinion, do not hold up. Which brings us to... - If affiliate staff are included, then following the WMF example, that implies other key leaders should be allowed to vote as well. That then raises the question of who is in and who is out. That is easy to define with WMF, we have clear lists available based on clear processes. However, when considering nearly 75 different affiliates, there are commonalities, but not universal terms and groups that can be easily applied to a requirement. Some have advisory bodies, some do not. Some have staffs, some do not. Some have governing boards, some do not. Some have designated leaders, some do not. - Many of the volunteer leaders are active editors, but as this election has shown, that is not always the case. There was a chapter board member that was ineligible, but may have qualified by all other practical measurements, but that would not really have been addressed even if affiliate staff were allowed to vote. If we had let in board members as well, what about affiliates without elected or structured boards? Are they just out of luck? So should affiliates then decide individually who qualifies and submit those lists to WMF before the elections? That was not possible this time, but is a possibility next time. And again, should some of this just apply to the FDC elections and not board elections? - How is WMF going to be able to verify "staff" and what does that include for affiliates? The term is clearly defined for WMF, but not as much for all 70 some affiliates spread across many countries with different legal definitions of staff. Is someone doing pro-bono work staff? Some would say yes, others no. So how will WMF go about verifying employment status of each affiliate staff member that requests a vote? Is there one easy method that is legal in every country an affiliate is based in? How up to date are the existing public lists? - Do we attempt to come up with a broad qualifying definition that then allows for case by case determinations of the Elections Committee? How would that work? Would there be an appeals process? How would that work? - Ideally, these issues would be discussed more in-depth by the committee, and a public RFC based on their initial findings would give the community a chance to weigh in. That simply was not possible this time. I recognize that is annoying given the issue came up months ago, but the group charged with addressing it was not created until days before the election process had to formally begin. That is not a problem we can address right now, and I think the solution rests with a standing elections committee.

I personally feel that there are answers to each of these questions - I pose them not as a "this cannot be overcome" statement, but more to suggest that 72 hours was not enough time to hash out each of these details. I also offer them because I do not know who will be working on answering them - so figure I might as well "brain dump" while it is present in my mind. ;)

-greg (User:Varnent) Volunteer Coordinator, 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee (not speaking in that capacity, except in "tldr" - but obviously influenced by it) Vice Chair, Wikimedia Affiliations Committee (not speaking in that capacity on this thread - but partly why I give affiliate topics so much thought)

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 3:08 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 2:43 PM, James Alexander <

jalexander@wikimedia.org

...

...

wrote:

...

On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Itzik - Wikimedia Israel < itzik@wikimedia.org.il> wrote:

...

Any response or input from the Election Committee?

I think Greg said it relatively well earlier as the coordinator for the committee (I am it's staff advisor). At this point the committee has decided on the voting requirements and it is highly unlikely to change

for

...

the current election cycle. They did have serious discussions about everything mentioned in this thread both on their list and during the

first

...

committee meeting but in the end decided that they did not believe

there

...

...

was a strong need for change right now. When this conversation came

back

...

up

...

it was broached whether we wanted to revisit and no one said expressed

a

...

...

desire to.

Also as Greg said I think this is a good topic for a permanent election committee which I very much think should exist.

James Alexander Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

This is a weakness in the process. Itzik raised an issue and was told it was too early to discuss. He raised it again when the elections

approached,

...

and is being told its too late. Obviously the "committee" conducted its deliberations on this question in secret, which is a strange approach considering there have been requests and a desire for open discussion

from

...

the community.

I agree, I also wish that the committee had more time to make the decision. I had hoped to seat them in January and they would have had a lot of time to discuss this both here and elsewhere. Sadly we were waiting for the board on a couple things and were unable to seat them until recently and at that point there was a time crunch and things needed to be decided quickly. As both Greg and I said however, these arguments were in no way ignored, when I introduced the topic (in one of the very first emails to the committee) I listed all of the questions here about staff voting, chapter staff/board, edit requirements etc and then backed off. The committee discussed all of those and decided, in the end, that this was the right decision.

...

It's also worth pointing out that many of the people in this discussion agreed that the community requirements are so low that there should be no reason any interested employee (of the WMF or elsewhere) can't qualify under other criteria, eliminating the need for a special franchise for

WMF

...

employees.

On a completely personal level I actually think the requirements could be lowered. We already had at least 1 individual who I think was a perfect fit for the FDC for example but was unable to run and had to move himself to ineligible because of the edit requirements (he may have had over 150 edits this year and be very active in the movement as a whole but he did not have the 20 edits in the past 6 months required). However the committee decided not to do so and that is their prerogative.

Unfortunately it appears that anyone interested in adjusting the criteria

...

will need perfecting timing while broaching this subject next year.

This is why Greg (and myself. and the election committee from last year who made a proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Standing_Election_Committee, and from what I've seen the election committee from this year) want to have the board create a standing committee. That standing committee would be empowered to have this discussion at any point and to discuss the positives and negatives both themselves and with the community and make a decision. They are much less likely to run into the problem that a one off committee has where decisions need to be discussed and made and quickly so that they can get other logistics in place.

James Alexander Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 1:03 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:

Hi James, is there any good reason to keep the exception? Imo it is a wrong signal we send out. At the end of the day all good governance rules suggest to minimize administrative tasks. And by definition everything which a "client " does not see, I.e Content or software, is administrative.

Rupert

[ended up being long, sorry :( ]

Are you speaking about the staff rule only or all of them? I had one of the committee members call me out for calling it an 'exception' before and their argument made sense to me, so I'm currently trying to think of them all as they recommended as different ways to be enfranchised. That may sound a bit like word play but... the more I've thought about it the more I agreed the exception word sounded wrong.

Speaking just for myself I would say yes to generally all of the different rules (though I would, personally, lower the edit requirements). This because I do not think the "community" is one group and until and unless we parcel out seats to different groups (which I'm not actually sure we should do, I'd prefer them all to be more general 'community' seats). As part of that I don't think we should be strict with what we consider the community because I think, in a very real sense, each of the "how to vote" options represent a way to ensure the community and the stakeholders can be involved. I think that having the other options actually sends a better message then not having them.

*Editing: *Obviously editors are the biggest group here, and the vast majority of staff who would be so inclined to vote will fall here too (I qualify on both my volunteer account and my staff account for example, though given my election role I don't vote at all). That's how it should be, and I honestly don't see that changing. It's also why I probably wouldn't "fight" too hard if the other options were remove simply

*Staff: *I have always thought that the Staff need to be considered part of the community. While they have different roles at times (and at times share roles with volunteers) the Us v Them mentality that can become part of the thinking for both groups is poisonous to the projects as a whole. In order for it to succeed everyone needs to be seen as on the same side. There are never going to be many people who would qualify as Staff but don't qualify as Editors (at least with their staff account and we've never drawn a distinction for voting historically) and still want to vote but I think encouraging them to think of themselves as part of the community (and to send the message that they are) is important. [I also think it's good to involve staff in governance wherever possible, though not exclusively obviously, they need to feel part of it. Similar reasons why a corporation often gives out stock to their employees which allows them to own part of the company and to, indeed, vote for the Board of Directors.]

*Developers*: Again we've historically had very few people who met this requirement, wanted to vote, and didn't qualify through some other means (usually editing) but MediaWiki is not just the software we run it's also, essentially, a full fledged project that an enormous amount of 3rd parties use. I would love to find good ways to encourage the community of 3rd party developers to take part in this governance.

*Current/Old Board/FDC/Advisory Board: *I see this mostly as not booting those who have been in the trenches and know what the work actually entails.

I could certainly see other groups, including affiliates, who might make sense to be in this list (though with the current structure I have some concerns of double enfranchisement even if I personally wouldn't choose the current structure) but I don't currently see great reasons to get rid of the options we have other then just 'simplicity'. That isn't a horrible reason of course, I'm just not sure it's necessary.

(obviously not speaking for the committee or with my staff hat on though obviously, as Greg said, those roles influence me.. though most of it hasn't changed since long before I was staff)

James Alexander Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur

On 29/04/2015 10:57, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote:

In fact, one could experiment with adding WMF as an organization equal to chapters to elections of "chapter seats", and banning WMF/chapters employees from "community seats" elections altogether ;) But seriously, I think the practical thing to do would be to start working on the rules of next elections right after the current ones are over, and introduce eligibility based on actual activity only (with possible lower requirements). best, dj "pundit"

The problem with that is the assumption that just because an organisation (whether it be WMF, WMDE, WMFR, WMUK, WMAT, ...) has a voice in the affiliate seats, that their employees/members have a say in how their organisation vote for those seats. Different organisation will come to their conclusion differently, whether that be an open discussion within their community, internal board discussion, vote amongst its members, or even possibly delegation to a sub-committee/person to decide.

KTC

Hi Greg,

Yes these are questions.

I suggest that if you expect the community to address them, that a meaningful open process of consultation is run. As discussion of this proposal has already taken a year, and may take months rather than weeks going forward, it would be great if someone who has taken a leadership role by becoming a Elections Committee member were to take responsibility for leading the process.

This email discussion is already TLDR level, and so it is more frustrating than edifying, it would be neat to move over to a managed set of wiki pages for clear proposals for change, feedback and votes. This to be implemented well in advance of the 2016 election.

PS my viewpoint of "people without interest in contributing to any Wikimedia projects even at a newbie level, should not have an automatic vote in an election for a board to govern Wikimedia" is unlikely to change much, but I have not read a solid proposal yet.

Fae

On 29 April 2015 at 12:30, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:

Some questions though - if WMUK staff are included, should WUG staff also be included? If they are included, why not include the people doing staff-level volunteer work for non-staffed affiliates? If those volunteers are included, what about user group leaders who are not active editors? User groups are not currently a part of the affiliation seat elections, so what should be done about their leaders? Are we punishing affiliates that are being more creative in finding ways to accomplish tasks without staff support? I see a lot of flaws with leaving this conversation at "staff" and not extending it beyond that, and as I said previously, doing so is rather complex.

To keep the election "fair" - these questions would need to be answered first. It is not as simple as saying "okay - affiliate staff are now in" - as even the term "affiliate staff" is not universally agreed upon yet. Does staff mean they are on a payroll of some sort? This conversation is easy if we are talking about 5-6 of the larger chapters, it is more complex if we are talking about nearly 75 affiliates.

The assumption that WMF impacts the affiliates so much they are paying as close attention as WMF staff does not hold up in my opinion. People ask why treat them differently, and I think there are relatively clear reasons. WMF staff are arguably just as impacted by WMUK business, but are not eligible to vote in their board elections, and I think with good reason. I recognize that WMF is very different as it is the "hub" - but most of the arguments I have seen are about "impact" and based on unproven assumptions based on experience with 1-2 affiliates rather than thinking about all 70 of them. I recognize allowing someone to vote does not require them to, but in some cultures and work environments, that might play out differently.

As KTC pointed out - each affiliate handles their voting in the affiliate seats differently. So even some of our assumptions about involvement in affiliate election are broad and not fully researched yet. Which is the "norm" - is there a norm? In short, we need to do more research on this topic, and that will take time we do not have (as a committee anyway) right now.

-greg

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 5:57 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:

...

hi James,

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:06 AM, James Alexander < jalexander@wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

*Staff: *I have always thought that the Staff need to be considered part

of

...

the community.

I think the main thing is why should WMF staff be treated any differently than WMDE, WMFR, or WMUK staff. All are engaged (although through employment) in the community. I understand that the argument is that the chapters have their seats secured from a separate poll, while WMF does not.

I'm inclined to agree with your previous view: since most of the staffers satisfy other requirements anyway, and since there are many chapters/affiliate groups of different levels of involvement, and also since these groups have their seats secured from a separate poll (unlike WMF), the easiest way would probably be to introduce low, uniform editing/involvement requirements, well ahead of time, and stop distinguishing employment status.

In fact, one could experiment with adding WMF as an organization equal to chapters to elections of "chapter seats", and banning WMF/chapters employees from "community seats" elections altogether ;) But seriously, I think the practical thing to do would be to start working on the rules of next elections right after the current ones are over, and introduce eligibility based on actual activity only (with possible lower requirements).

best,

dj "pundit"

--

---

prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl

członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk członek Komitetu Polityki Naukowej MNiSW

Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego autorstwa http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010

Recenzje Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Pacific Standard: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/ Motherboard: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia The Wikipedian: http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

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Thanks for the summary. I look forward to an open consultation process when the elections committee sorts itself out.

Until that time discussion here, and that over the past year, is not a good use of volunteer time, as it cannot change anything. This could have been a useful reply up front.

Fae On 29 Apr 2015 14:36, "Gregory Varnum" gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:

Fae,

I should be clearer - I do not expect the community to address these issues before the topic of a standing elections committee is addressed first. I think that is my main point here. These issues are not as simple as some are presenting, and that does not mean the ultimate answers are not easy, but there should be more time allotted to discussion by a group tasked with reviewing these things than is available to the temporary committees. I would not support the idea of a public RFC with no clear plan on how to implement any of the proposed changes. Much of this discussion feels like we are putting the cart before the horse - so to speak.

-greg

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 8:56 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi Greg,

Yes these are questions.

I suggest that if you expect the community to address them, that a meaningful open process of consultation is run. As discussion of this proposal has already taken a year, and may take months rather than weeks going forward, it would be great if someone who has taken a leadership role by becoming a Elections Committee member were to take responsibility for leading the process.

This email discussion is already TLDR level, and so it is more frustrating than edifying, it would be neat to move over to a managed set of wiki pages for clear proposals for change, feedback and votes. This to be implemented well in advance of the 2016 election.

PS my viewpoint of "people without interest in contributing to any Wikimedia projects even at a newbie level, should not have an automatic vote in an election for a board to govern Wikimedia" is unlikely to change much, but I have not read a solid proposal yet.

Fae

On 29 April 2015 at 12:30, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:

...

Some questions though - if WMUK staff are included, should WUG staff

also

...

...

be included? If they are included, why not include the people doing staff-level volunteer work for non-staffed affiliates? If those

volunteers

...

are included, what about user group leaders who are not active editors? User groups are not currently a part of the affiliation seat elections,

so

...

what should be done about their leaders? Are we punishing affiliates

that

...

...

are being more creative in finding ways to accomplish tasks without

staff

...

...

support? I see a lot of flaws with leaving this conversation at "staff"

and

...

not extending it beyond that, and as I said previously, doing so is

rather

...

complex.

To keep the election "fair" - these questions would need to be answered first. It is not as simple as saying "okay - affiliate staff are now

in"

...

...

as even the term "affiliate staff" is not universally agreed upon yet.

Does

...

staff mean they are on a payroll of some sort? This conversation is

easy

...

if

...

we are talking about 5-6 of the larger chapters, it is more complex if

we

...

...

are talking about nearly 75 affiliates.

The assumption that WMF impacts the affiliates so much they are paying

as

...

...

close attention as WMF staff does not hold up in my opinion. People ask

why

...

treat them differently, and I think there are relatively clear reasons.

WMF

...

staff are arguably just as impacted by WMUK business, but are not

eligible

...

to vote in their board elections, and I think with good reason. I

recognize

...

that WMF is very different as it is the "hub" - but most of the

arguments I

...

have seen are about "impact" and based on unproven assumptions based on experience with 1-2 affiliates rather than thinking about all 70 of

them. I

...

recognize allowing someone to vote does not require them to, but in

some

...

...

cultures and work environments, that might play out differently.

As KTC pointed out - each affiliate handles their voting in the

affiliate

...

...

seats differently. So even some of our assumptions about involvement in affiliate election are broad and not fully researched yet. Which is the "norm" - is there a norm? In short, we need to do more research on this topic, and that will take time we do not have (as a committee anyway)

right

...

now.

-greg

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 5:57 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <darekj@alk.edu.pl

...

wrote:

...

hi James,

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 11:06 AM, James Alexander < jalexander@wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

*Staff: *I have always thought that the Staff need to be considered

part

...

...

of

...

the community.

I think the main thing is why should WMF staff be treated any

differently

...

...

than WMDE, WMFR, or WMUK staff. All are engaged (although through employment) in the community. I understand that the argument is that

the

...

...

...

chapters have their seats secured from a separate poll, while WMF does

not.

...

...

I'm inclined to agree with your previous view: since most of the

staffers

...

...

satisfy other requirements anyway, and since there are many chapters/affiliate groups of different levels of involvement, and also since these groups have their seats secured from a separate poll

(unlike

...

...

...

WMF), the easiest way would probably be to introduce low, uniform editing/involvement requirements, well ahead of time, and stop distinguishing employment status.

In fact, one could experiment with adding WMF as an organization equal

to

...

...

chapters to elections of "chapter seats", and banning WMF/chapters employees from "community seats" elections altogether ;) But

seriously,

...

I

...

...

think the practical thing to do would be to start working on the rules

of

...

...

next elections right after the current ones are over, and introduce eligibility based on actual activity only (with possible lower requirements).

best,

dj "pundit"

--

---

prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl

członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk członek Komitetu Polityki Naukowej MNiSW

Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego autorstwa http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010

Recenzje Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Pacific Standard:

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/

...

...

...

Motherboard:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia

...

...

The Wikipedian:

http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge

...

...

...

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

,

...

...

...

mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

---

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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines

...

Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,

mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe

-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

---

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On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 7:30 AM, Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:

Some questions though - if WMUK staff are included, should WUG staff also be included? If they are included, why not include the people doing staff-level volunteer work for non-staffed affiliates? If those volunteers are included, what about user group leaders who are not active editors? User groups are not currently a part of the affiliation seat elections, so what should be done about their leaders? Are we punishing affiliates that are being more creative in finding ways to accomplish tasks without staff support? I see a lot of flaws with leaving this conversation at "staff" and not extending it beyond that, and as I said previously, doing so is rather complex.

To keep the election "fair" - these questions would need to be answered first. It is not as simple as saying "okay - affiliate staff are now in" - as even the term "affiliate staff" is not universally agreed upon yet. Does staff mean they are on a payroll of some sort? This conversation is easy if we are talking about 5-6 of the larger chapters, it is more complex if we are talking about nearly 75 affiliates.

The assumption that WMF impacts the affiliates so much they are paying as close attention as WMF staff does not hold up in my opinion. People ask why treat them differently, and I think there are relatively clear reasons. WMF staff are arguably just as impacted by WMUK business, but are not eligible to vote in their board elections, and I think with good reason. I recognize that WMF is very different as it is the "hub" - but most of the arguments I have seen are about "impact" and based on unproven assumptions based on experience with 1-2 affiliates rather than thinking about all 70 of them. I recognize allowing someone to vote does not require them to, but in some cultures and work environments, that might play out differently.

As KTC pointed out - each affiliate handles their voting in the affiliate seats differently. So even some of our assumptions about involvement in affiliate election are broad and not fully researched yet. Which is the "norm" - is there a norm? In short, we need to do more research on this topic, and that will take time we do not have (as a committee anyway) right now.

-greg

Greg - I think the answer has been presented several times. I think Dariusz' suggestion is the ideal outcome: The simplest way to treat all of the staff the same is to remove recognition of "staff" from the election rules and proceed on (possibly lowered) edit/commit requirements. This is relatively easy to implement and means that many of the questions you have posed in the last several of your posts will not need to be specifically answered. It also reinforces that the Wikimedia movement and community is driven by and composed of volunteers, and it is perfectly reasonable to identify members by their volunteer contributions.

Again, this email is not speaking officially for the committee, see my earlier messages for more "official" thoughts. This is a long-winded personal opinion.

As James said, "exceptions" is a technical term and not really the best way to think of these groups. Which is why it is not one that we use on the election pages.

There are groups within the Wikimedia community entrusted to participate in elections. I get very uncomfortable implying that one group is "lesser than" another group in regards to that role in the community. Although for technical and realistic reasons, there are groups not able to vote (such as readers). Does that not make them members of our community? I do not think so, but there are practical reasons that is not possible (needing an account we can track as an example). Perhaps one day we just open it to the world, but that has not been the community consensus thus far as the committee sees it.

If there were a group tasked with much more time to address these bigger questions, it seems very likely to me that the voter base could be expanded. The temporary committees that in theory could do so are given such a massive existing workload that taking on these bigger picture issues is simply not practical. Until that happens, many of these conversations will remain in a loop as there is no one tasked with addressing them who has the WMF resources and mandate to do so with any authority.

The current restrictions are often practical or technical more than they are philosophical. The "how" becomes a bigger issue than the "if" and as has been said, that is a problem we should address. The groups that are able to vote now are largely the easiest for us to universally define and verify with our existing resources. People outside of our community may argue that not allowing donors to vote is unusual. I feel dangerously close to a "if you prick a reader - do they not bleed?" statement - but I hope you get my point that there are a lot of very good and reasonable questions which an empowered group should address after giving it the necessary discussion and research time. If anyone is hoping that will be the committees created for each individual election, and as someone who went in thinking that might be possible, let me assure you speaking now from some experience, that is not going to happen. I will write more later on why that is, but I think many (myself included at one time) do not realize all the work involved with the committee - and how mildly insane the timeline is. In my mind, that is the conversation that should happen before any other big picture questions can realistically move from discussion stage to actionable stage.

All of this said, I do think there are some good and necessary changes are being made this year. There are open nominations in addition to the self-nominations, and that has so far been a positive thing. We lowered the age requirement for the FDC to match the board age requirements. Given a tight timeline, we are taking many steps to make translations easier and get as many of them as possible. Several improvements to the actual voting process are being made (no more going to your home wiki to vote and no more copying and pasting of links). We both expanded the committee and delegated some specific tasks (such as mine) to help with committee process and workload management. I do not want to leave you with the impression that the individual elections committees are helpless to make any changes, that is not true. I think each committee has taken on big changes and chipped away at some big picture issues (the 2013 committee resulted in the on-wiki proposal for a standing elections committee). However, there are some limitations to how much we can each do in any given cycle. Perhaps based on this conversation, and what comes of it, the next committee could simply implement the changes to affiliate voter group as the research might be done and questions answered by then. However, it is also possible they will instead also just come to another set of questions that need to be answered and other challenges that must be addressed first. My personal opinion is that a more ongoing approach to these issues (such as a standing committee) is a more logical and "wiki like" solution to addressing very reasonable questions like these that come up from time to time.

-greg (User:Varnent)

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 5:06 AM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:

On Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 1:03 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi James, is there any good reason to keep the exception? Imo it is a

wrong

...

signal we send out. At the end of the day all good governance rules

suggest

...

to minimize administrative tasks. And by definition everything which a "client " does not see, I.e Content or software, is administrative.

Rupert

[ended up being long, sorry :( ]

Are you speaking about the staff rule only or all of them? I had one of the committee members call me out for calling it an 'exception' before and their argument made sense to me, so I'm currently trying to think of them all as they recommended as different ways to be enfranchised. That may sound a bit like word play but... the more I've thought about it the more I agreed the exception word sounded wrong.

Speaking just for myself I would say yes to generally all of the different rules (though I would, personally, lower the edit requirements). This because I do not think the "community" is one group and until and unless we parcel out seats to different groups (which I'm not actually sure we should do, I'd prefer them all to be more general 'community' seats). As part of that I don't think we should be strict with what we consider the community because I think, in a very real sense, each of the "how to vote" options represent a way to ensure the community and the stakeholders can be involved. I think that having the other options actually sends a better message then not having them.

*Editing: *Obviously editors are the biggest group here, and the vast majority of staff who would be so inclined to vote will fall here too (I qualify on both my volunteer account and my staff account for example, though given my election role I don't vote at all). That's how it should be, and I honestly don't see that changing. It's also why I probably wouldn't "fight" too hard if the other options were remove simply

*Staff: *I have always thought that the Staff need to be considered part of the community. While they have different roles at times (and at times share roles with volunteers) the Us v Them mentality that can become part of the thinking for both groups is poisonous to the projects as a whole. In order for it to succeed everyone needs to be seen as on the same side. There are never going to be many people who would qualify as Staff but don't qualify as Editors (at least with their staff account and we've never drawn a distinction for voting historically) and still want to vote but I think encouraging them to think of themselves as part of the community (and to send the message that they are) is important. [I also think it's good to involve staff in governance wherever possible, though not exclusively obviously, they need to feel part of it. Similar reasons why a corporation often gives out stock to their employees which allows them to own part of the company and to, indeed, vote for the Board of Directors.]

*Developers*: Again we've historically had very few people who met this requirement, wanted to vote, and didn't qualify through some other means (usually editing) but MediaWiki is not just the software we run it's also, essentially, a full fledged project that an enormous amount of 3rd parties use. I would love to find good ways to encourage the community of 3rd party developers to take part in this governance.

*Current/Old Board/FDC/Advisory Board: *I see this mostly as not booting those who have been in the trenches and know what the work actually entails.

I could certainly see other groups, including affiliates, who might make sense to be in this list (though with the current structure I have some concerns of double enfranchisement even if I personally wouldn't choose the current structure) but I don't currently see great reasons to get rid of the options we have other then just 'simplicity'. That isn't a horrible reason of course, I'm just not sure it's necessary.

(obviously not speaking for the committee or with my staff hat on though obviously, as Greg said, those roles influence me.. though most of it hasn't changed since long before I was staff)

James Alexander Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe