[Foundation-l] 2011 elections - low turnout - Wikimedia-l

20 Mar 2011

I agree with Harel, there are huge numbers of editors who are entitled
to vote and don't do so. I think we put some effort into welcoming
newbies and forget that becoming part of the community is a process
and state of mind rather than a single event.

I think that a bot message from Jimbo or the foundation thanking
people for their 500th edit and saying that they are now entitled to
vote in trustee elections could be a very good way to build the
community.

You'd need to phrase it carefully though:)

WereSpielChequers
------------------------------
...

 Message: 6
 Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:32:35 +0200
 From: Harel Cain &lt;harel.cain(a)gmail.com&gt;
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 2011 Board Elections: Input needed
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
        &lt;foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Message-ID:
        &lt;AANLkTinno=BDmAcWEQSQwfDUWSPEGNOq0Yvwh7adPm8C(a)mail.gmail.com&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

 Before we start extending the right to vote to ever wider groups of people,
 we should ask ourselves how much this right is exercised by those already
 entitled to it, and how many of those proposed to be granted the right to
 vote are expected to really make use of it.

 The last elections saw a participation of a few thousand of voters, just a
 small proportion of all the people eligible to vote, and I guess these could
 be split roughly into those who really are into foundation-level and
 meta-level issues and those who were (legitimately) recruited from among the
 home projects of the candidates without  too much real interest in the
 elections. Whoever didn't fall into these two categories rarely voted, and I
 anticipate the same will hold true for the new groups you proposed in your
 mail.

 The real question we should ask ourselves is how to make these elections
 more relevant and important for those groups of people already entitled to
 take part in them.

 Harel Cain
 Hebrew Wikipedia / Wikimedia Israel