On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: "telling me I am eligible" and "untargetted mass e-mails" don't really make sense together, do they? Also, although you're only getting one e-mail once per year (will be every two years), you're free to opt-out (there are instructions in the e-mail you received). /me wonders why you wouldn't just hit reply to the e-mail and send this message to people who actually can do something about it, rather than foundation-l. On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Meno 25<meno25wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, that's a good point. It seems this was an error this time around and they'll probably remember to leave those ones out next time. (Hopefully we'll have people writing up a "how-to" page for future years.) -- Casey Brown (who is not an election committee member, hence the third person) Cbrown1023

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Gerard Meijssen<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: Although it's not an improvement in that its very close to the election and the rate of response to the mail appeared to lag several days in a prior election. A lot of people are going to notice the mail next week and be annoyed that they were left out. Someone should make a note of that for the future. My rule of thumb for any notification procedure on Wikipedia, based on meetup and other events, is that one week is required to even reach a majority of the eventual targets and that two is much better. Sufficient notice is important— Especially when responding to the notice is something that may require reading a half meg of text or so.

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 2:52 PM, Meno 25<meno25wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: I found that email quite helpful. I had forgotten that my bot gave me a second vote. -- John Vandenberg

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Robert Rohde<rarohde(a)gmail.com> wrote: My bot, which has a bot flag on two projects, was sent an email asking it to vote. Is that a joke? -- John Vandenberg

No silly - it's a mistake! (don't be so grumpy..... - or be aware that this could come across as grumpy at least) I recall the grumbles when Greg sent something out last year or the year before, and feel the same about this as that - the folk sending the email are using an imperfect system, but overall it's worth it - I'm hope that those feeling personally affronted by such an approach can take solace in something or other, and just generally relax a notch or two.... :-) cheers, Peter, PM. On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:58 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:09 PM, private musings<thepmaccount(a)gmail.com> wrote: Oh, I am not affronted. I am thrilled that the election committee decided that computer engineers should be rewarded for their ingenuity by allowing their fine opinion to be counted twice. This motivates me to write more bots for next year. p.s. can the election committee ensure that votes from bot accounts are not counted?? p.p.s. if I can have another free vote, I will gladly write a bot to help the election committee to discount bot votes... -- John Vandenberg

Philippe Beaudette wrote: I'm going to add some notes for "future generation" that send this in 2 years time based on my experience sending this last year (and also thinking about it this year) before I forget. I'm sure this year's committee & Werdna will have their own note to add. (Note: this is not a list of what haven't been done, but what should be considered for someone starting anew.) * Make sure the committee argues on how & who the emails will be sent early on, and not still wondering about it 4 days before the end of voting.... * Send those emails somewhere near the start of voting, not 3 days before the end... ;) * Given a list of all the eligible voters from the start of the election, remove all belonging to the same user (think SUL), remove and leave only primary account for non-unified account with the same email address. Remove in advance, or check and remove in real time all accounts marked as bot & blocked. Remove all those on the [[meta:Wikimedia nomail list]]. * Take snapshot of all those that have voted at start of email run, and remove from email list. In terms of the actual message: * Translate the email subject as well as the main body text. * Translate the the string "{Year} Board Election Committee" or similar and use it as the From header, and at the end of the the body text. * Have a table of all active projects in their local name instead of just using the English version. Hope that helps anyone reading this in 2 years time. :D KTC /me wait 2 years to see if it makes any difference -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

Hello, As far as I know the email users function doesn't show the emailadres to people so you could email me with that function and you still doesn't have my emailadres :) Best regards, Huib

Yes. And are doing so. Philippe On Aug 8, 2009, at 2:42 AM, John Vandenberg wrote:

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 6:42 PM, John Vandenberg<jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: All of my Christmas' have come at once. I just received notification that "Jayvdb" is also asked to vote. -- John Vandenbeg

Although I had already voted, I was not bothered by one tiny email reminding me that I was eligible to vote. Thanks guys, hopefully this will get people to the polls. ________________________________ From: Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Friday, August 7, 2009 9:57:40 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board election spamming On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Thomas Dalton<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: "telling me I am eligible" and "untargetted mass e-mails" don't really make sense together, do they? Also, although you're only getting one e-mail once per year (will be every two years), you're free to opt-out (there are instructions in the e-mail you received). /me wonders why you wouldn't just hit reply to the e-mail and send this message to people who actually can do something about it, rather than foundation-l. On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:52 AM, Meno 25<meno25wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, that's a good point. It seems this was an error this time around and they'll probably remember to leave those ones out next time. (Hopefully we'll have people writing up a "how-to" page for future years.) -- Casey Brown (who is not an election committee member, hence the third person) Cbrown1023 _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Some names/nicks there appeared crossed (by horizontal line). Would somebody please explain what does it mean? 2009/8/8 Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby(a)gmail.com>om>:

Pavlo Shevelo wrote: Those that are grey out (or at least slightly lighter colour that one can barely see the difference of) are votes that have been superseded by a later vote from the same account. The last vote cast is the one that's counted. The crossed off votes are votes that have been manually struck off by the election committee. For example when the same person have voted from multiple accounts. KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

Keep in mind that this election didn't go off as well as it could have, we all know that, the important thing was getting the e-mails out before the vote ended. It was already too late, so it's better to get more people notified than less. It wasn't perfect, last year was better because there was more time to tweak everything. :-) On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Milos Rancic&lt;millosh(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Bot accounts will probably be excluded in the future, since they are explicitly not allowed to vote. Yes, there was an issue this year I think. Remembering back to last year, this wasn't an issue, so it probably won't be for future years. This has existed and is linked in all the e-mails (and translations): <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_nomail_list> -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023

I have just received an email that I am elligable to vote in the board elections. While I am inelligeble as I am blocked on the nl.wikipedia since 3 months already. This ads insult to injury. As I was blocked on request of a sockpupeteer whom is now blocked himself together with multiple other accounts. As 3 months ago the arbcom said it accepted the case regarding my block. The blocking mod did it without community consensus and is a part of the arbcom himself (which explains why it is taking them 3 months already) In every case the Dutch arbcom emails the person and asks them for their side of the story. In 3 months NO member of the Dutch arbcom has even bothered to mail me. They have only asked their blocking fellow arbcom member for a statement!! How do you mean this is rigging things? My block was doubled because when checking another account it was claimed it was me while it wasn't .... obviously 500.000 Thai internetters behind the same IP range will give problems and any Thai IP seems to be me in the logic of the mods. According to the wikimedia foundations rules someone whom is blocked is not allowed to vote. So why I was send this mail .... it bothers me. It is insulting me on top of this block about nothing as I never performed vandalism or endangered the encyclopedia. I merely pointed out that one of the anonymous moderators in reality is not whom he claims he is and is writing articles about himself and familymembers. This while he is blocking other people who do the same and have the honesty to admit it. And is also aggressively pursuing this stance on the deletion lists. Thus this mod is a hypocrite, doing what he haunts others for. But me telling this to the community was a blockable offence it seems. Waerth

Chen Minqi wrote: Nope because I wouldn't qualify according to other subrules .... W

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 11:47 AM, Kwan Ting Chan&lt;ktc(a)ktchan.info&gt; wrote: * One email to myself (millosh(a)gmail.com). I voted first day and a couple of days ago once more [with the same account, of course :] ]. * One email to my main bot account Millbot to another/old email address (millosh(a)users.sourceforge.net). This bot has global account and bot flag on at least a couple of Wikinews editions (it maintains [[Template:Statistics]] there). * One email to my Wikinews bot Millbot-Beta, which email is millosh(a)gmail.com, too. It doesn't have bot flag.

Geoffrey Plourde wrote: It didn't bother me either even though it came after I voted. As far as spam goes this was softball, and it's impossible to screen out to the extent that some people want. I only received the message once, but considerably more messages complaining about it. Ec

Maybe this is related? http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#Unable_to_vote_in_trustees_e… I don't want to seem rude, as I'm sure it's difficult and I understand the election committee are volunteers, but why is it that things seem to be going wrong this year? -- Alex (User:Majorly)

Thomas, On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 9:40 PM, Thomas Dalton&lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: You think nothing of routinely filling up all of the list subscribers' inboxes with your opinions, as the top poster on Foundation-l.* But you are complaining here about one email, sent specifically to active and thus presumably interested members of Wikimedia projects reminding them about a single, important election? I find complaints about this being "spam" -- as if you can't handle one extra email about Wikimedia, when you clearly manage to get through hundreds of much less important missives on the mailing lists on a regular basis -- pretty mindblowingly hypocritical. On a general note, I for one greatly appreciate the Election Committee's efforts to get wide community participation in the Board elections**, even if the mailing could have gone more smoothly. On an even more general note, the constructive part of this conversation -- i.e. planning for the next election, and pointing out things to do next time -- is great. Where's the best place for posting "next-time" suggestions from this thread? Elections talk?*** -- phoebe * http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-February/050149.html ** Despite the election's importance, turnout is so far pretty pathetic, esp. from smaller wikis. *** http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *

On Aug 9, 2009, at 4:25 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: I agree. I also suggest that the committee may be too small. There are simply a huge number of details involved, and a larger committee may be a better system. Philippe

on 8/9/09 5:15 PM, phoebe ayers at phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com wrote: Yes!! Thank you Phoebe. This comment was long overdue! Marc

phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki@...> writes: Which begs the question: why was the central notice taken down when there is still a day left?

On Aug 10, 2009, at 12:15 AM, Tisza Gergő wrote: It went down earlier than we expected. It's back up, after a brief outage. Philippe