Hi Risker. let's go by question. *Why is the discussion happening on chapterswiki, instead of in an open Everthing that is in Chapters wiki is replicated in meta. All the links in the Call for Candidates (CfC) are from meta. Everyone can read the discussion. So far the only discussion in chapters wiki was the election for moderators, and the review of the CfC wording. We are not trying to exclude the community - by the contrary - we would be glad to have the community involved in the process, not only with questions, but also as candidates.

* * The real names, obviously not. The usernames may be published - IF the candidate has no problem with that.

With questions and suggestions, of course will. But with votes, No. There are a vote for elect the community members of the Board, that happened last year and will occur again next year. This vote is decided only by the chapters according with WMF bylaws itself. Quoting: "Be*ginning in July 2008, two Trustees will be selected by chapters in even-numbered years*"[1].

Heh, indeed. Whether the candidates are public outside the chapters or not, if you are not ok with your real name being plastered all over the place (fame! infamy! occasional random emails!) then being on the board is probably not for you. -- phoebe

The real names, obviously not. The usernames may be published - IF the candidate has no problem with that.

*The board members are to be selected by completely unstructured discussion, with consensus judged by the moderators. The process even seems to allow for the discussion to reach its conclusion in person, with no permanent records, at the Chapters Meeting. If the discussion reaches no consensus, or the consensus determination of the moderators is challenged, a "vote" will be held - in public, on a wiki page. *

to select their preferred candidate - nor on which chapter representatives can participate in the discussion on the chapters-wiki. If any chapter member can participate, doesn't that unduly advantage native English speakers and their chapters? If only some, how are they to be selected?*

might refuse to certify the results? *

*Are we really sure that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to merit two seats on the Board selected in such an opaque manner?*

I'm interested in answers to the procedural questions, too. It's seems like a quixotic process, as laid out on the meta page. The board members are to be selected by completely unstructured discussion, with consensus judged by the moderators. The process even seems to allow for the discussion to reach its conclusion in person, with no permanent records, at the Chapters Meeting. If the discussion reaches no consensus, or the consensus determination of the moderators is challenged, a "vote" will be held - in public, on a wiki page. Other than confidentiality, no guidance is provided to the chapters on how to select their preferred candidate - nor on which chapter representatives can participate in the discussion on the chapters-wiki. If any chapter member can participate, doesn't that unduly advantage native English speakers and their chapters? If only some, how are they to be selected? Additionally, Beria Lima says that chapters-wiki is mirrored on meta - but the process page[1] refers to chapters-wiki as confidential, and says that discussion of candidates' real names should be restricted to that wiki so that only members can see it. This whole thing seems pretty ad hoc and amateurish for an organization that is trying to be more robust and modern about its practices. Is there a background check? Is there some threshold for participation beneath which the current Board might refuse to certify the results? Are we really sure that the chapters represent enough Wikimedians to merit two seats on the Board selected in such an opaque manner? [1]: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the selection forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters, is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances? *

Foundation and the whole "community" or movement. My question is - if the 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia... *

filling Board seats? This isn't really a process question, per se, so I understand if you (Beria) decline to weigh in directly. *

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Béria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com> wrote: Board http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Bylaws_amendments_and_board_… I appreciate your always helpful tone. In this case, I didn't ask what would happen if someone not legally qualified to be a Board member was selected by the chapters. I asked a different question, linked a prior one - if not all chapters participate, or if the "discussion" is dominated by a few chapters, or if by some measure the Board determines that the selection forwarded by the moderators does not sufficiently represent the Chapters, is there any thought to refusing to certify under these circumstances? Board members, however they are selected, represent the Wikimedia Foundation and the whole "community" or movement. My question is - if the 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia, and their selections are being made in such a way (and concerns ridiculed, by the way, as the product of "process-lovers"), is it really appropriate for Chapters to continue to have a role in filling Board seats? This isn't really a process question, per se, so I understand if you (Beria) decline to weigh in directly. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

My question is - if the 38 chapters represent only a small portion of the whole of Wikimedia...is it really appropriate for Chapters to continue to have a role in filling Board seats?

RfC: Geography and Wikimedia Posted on January 4, 2012 Ahead of our scheduled WMF Board meeting in early February, I’ve been thinking through a really hard and thorny movement-wide issue. Last time I was dealing with a similarly hard issue, I put some rough notes/questions up here and asked for your thoughts and help thinking through the issue. I’d like to try another Request for Comments with a related but bigger issue. Let me set this up as a thought experiment. Imagine that we can all go back to the beginning of our movement. Imagine that we have a clean slate and can start fresh. But also imagine that we have the benefit of the past 10 years of experience, and with it all the lessons we’ve learned about ourselves and our strengths and weaknesses as a community. Let’s say our objective is to define the basic structure of a movement that will most effectively help our community pursue our vision over the next 100, 200 or even 500 years. Long-term impact is the primary objective. If we could start over, how would we organize our movement? In particular I’d love input on three questions: • Are current political/legal boundaries the best primary organization model for our movement? Or instead would we choose to build things a different way, say around each of our projects, or languages, or some of the passions among our community (e.g. a GLAM Chapter), or other special interests and topics (e.g. arbcom, comcom, translate-l)? • Should we give special rights to certain kinds of movement entities (e.g. special rights to pick board seats outside of elections, exclusive access to things like the trademarks, preferred access to donor funds)? • Are legal entities worth the effort on a large scale? Our current chapters model is leading us to having a hundred or more legal entities globally. Is this worth all the overhead involved? Or would informal associations and affiliations be fine in many cases? Below are some notes that I’ve kept as I try to think through the issue. They aren’t intended to be comprehensive. Feel free to review or ignore as you think through and respond to the above questions. Thanks. -s Background notes The different kinds of affiliation in our movement: – Many editors/contributors have no organizational association. They work on their own, editing articles and making contributions without a great deal of interaction with others in the community. – We have many loose, informal affiliations. Talk pages provide a place for editors with a shared interest in a particular article. WikiProjects bring together editors into cross-article collaboration. Village pumps provide another project-based way to build community. Other affiliations include interest groups such as GLAM, projects like Wiki Loves Monuments, and the many groups of volunteers brought together by mailing lists like comcom and translate-l. – We have a global Wikimedia Foundation entrusted with the trademarks and with the responsibility to operate the websites and technical/legal infrastructure behind the projects. – Finally, we have country-based chapters which receive significant special rights. We started with geographic chapters in 2003. The model has developed so that these geographic organizations now receive rights unique in our movement including a) exclusive geographic right to use the trademark, b) preferred access to donor funds from the annual fundraiser, and c) the right to appoint two of the ten Trustees on the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation. We’ve had one chapter grow into a large organization (Wikimedia Deutschland), and few others hire small numbers of professional staff, and others in varying degrees of development. A number of chapters appear to be defunct, with minimal or no programmatic activity. There has never been a clear definition of success for a geographic chapter. I ask most chapter members and chapter leaders I meet what their organizational objectives are and I get widely varying answers. Few say they have a role representing or serving the editing community. So it’s not a surprise that when I ask editors about the role of the chapter where they live, I often get a shrug and a disinterested look. As a result, we do not have a way to assess the performance of geographic chapters. How do you measure impact in a specific country when our projects are all cross border? Is it odd that a global movement is trying to organize itself around existing nation states? Exclusive trademark use, preferred access to donor funds, and the right to appoint trustees are a really big deal. Should other groups receive these rights? ArbCom is critical, but receives no such special treatment. GLAM effort have been an extraordinary success. It has brought together a global community sharing a strong passion. It has spawned projects like Wiki Loves Monuments which are amazing in helping pursue our vision. Yet it has no special access to donor funds. It has no exclusive right to the trademarks. It has no right to appoint Board members. Is that appropriate? Is this conflict a core driver of the failure of our movement roles effort, despite 18-24 months of effort, to drive any resolution? As someone not that involved in the movement roles effort, it seems the team has assumed that geographic chapters will be the core of our organizational design. Maybe that foundational assumption is just not the right one. Legal entities, and fundraising activities under the Wikimedia name, create a huge amount of overhead. As the Board’s Treasurer and Chair of its Audit Committee, I have very high expectations for any legal entity granted use of the trademarks or access to donor funds. Do we get enough value out of having legal entities to justify the extra effort and overhead? Let’s assume that fundraising or access to funds isn’t much of a priority for our movement now. Over the past 10 years our community has cracked the code on how to approach our global readership for donations. We are essentially now in a position where we collectively are able to raise all the money we can practically spend in pursuit of our mission. Note: The WMF Exec Director Sue Gardner has started to post some of her preliminary thinking on related issues on meta. She goes into a lot of detail and it might be worth a read.

Finding people not well known to editors: great. Finding people shy of 'grueling' public election process: ok... How does either lead to hiding candidate names? not doing background checks? Not publishing what kinds of questions are asked? As others said, this feels very strange. On 2/1/12, Stuart West <stuwest(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Feb 1, 2012, at 4:12 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote: FWIW, as I think back to Board conversations in 2008 (it was my first meeting), Thomas's comments are quite close to Board's rationale in creating the chapter seats in 2008. The hope was to attract/identify Board candidates who could add a lot of value to the movement but who, for one reason or another, would NOT typically be candidates in election. That might be because they aren't well-known in the editing community that decides elections. Or as Thomas mentions that they wouldn't be interested in going through the sometimes grueling election process. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:23 AM, Stuart West <stuwest(a)gmail.com> wrote: How is this different from the rationale for the expertise seats? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

This is well and good, but it gives the impression that the current three elected members of the board are somehow considered not representative of the movement, and that the opaque selection and appointment process for the "chapter" seats is somehow more representative of the movement.  It concerns me a lot that the 97% of active Wikimedians who are not chapter members seem to not be considered part of the movement.

In what way do chapter-selected seats improve the running of the WMF, Thomas?  The Board has no say in who is being selected, and there is no basis in fact to say that those appointed by the chapters are any more effective or helpful in meeting the Board's goals or running the WMF than would community-elected Wikimedians.

I would think that direct appointment of those with specific skill sets would be how the board ensure it is "capable of running the WMF as well as possible."

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on every new appointment? The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members. Regards Theo _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Oliver Keyes <okeyes(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: open What? Chapters by definition have to have a board, and be open to membership. The decision taken by the board and representatives, is usually vetted internally, it is representative of the entire chapter; as much as the community elected members are representative of the entire community, beyond just the individuals that voted. The community elected members aren't called, the community-who-voted board members. Regards Theo no more seemingly surprised _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Wikimedia Portugal held votes between their members to 2008 and 2010 elections. I know WMFR, WMUK and WMAR do the same, and the list can go on... _____ *Béria Lima* <http://wikimedia.pt/>(351) 925 171 484 *Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho. <http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos>* On 1 February 2012 21:42, Oliver Keyes &lt;okeyes(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: do it's wager, wrote: board https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

No; it's open to several chapters. If you're planning on holding the process in private, it's in no way open to thousands of members - it's open to representatives of thousands of members who were not, I would wager, selected because of their opinions on wider movement governance.

Oh, agreed. But what I'm interested in is not "should be", but whether the rhetoric in internal chapter elections is usually dominated by, or even includes, mention of the wider governance issues. I think chapters have a crucial role to play in movement governance, and that trustees of each chapter should be at the forefront of that. But are they selected with that role in mind?

Anyway, from the results of the least chapter and community seats election my opinion is that the former are *waaaayyy* more en.wiki-centered than the first.

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:06 AM, Risker &lt;risker.wp(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Risker, you know the point applies to appointed members of the board as well. They are selected through even a more private process for seemingly unlimited terms, they make up the other half of the board. I am surprised why questions about their interest and representation aren't raised on every new appointment? The chapter selected member, at least go through a vetting and a voting process that is open to several chapters and thousand of members.

Risker, there are SEVERAL documents in meta with the guidelines used to elect the Chapter seats. Say that "nobody knows" is a bit offensive.

On 1 February 2012 21:56, MZMcBride &lt;z(a)mzmcbride.com&gt; wrote: See 1st message in this thread MZ.

The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise and skill-set. The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they require.

The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used, what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected for. The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is "the same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well known and widely active in the community".

On 1 February 2012 18:17, Theo10011&lt;de10011(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise and skill-set. The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they require. The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used, what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected for. The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is "the same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well known and widely active in the community". Risker/Anne

Domas? I do not think we respect him less because of that. Cheers Yaroslav _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I think it makes sense to get board members selected by the community and board members selected by chapters because the focus is different. I'd love to see members selected by the community being active editors, involved on a regular basis on the project with editorial and soft development activities. And I also love seeing board members selected by

the chapters being more involved with the organizational side of things (finances, legal, partnership and so on). Both sides are necessary. Chapters are not so good to identify good representants of the editorial

community. And the community is not so good at selecting board members with specific expertise and knowledge on the organizational side of things. Both selections complement each other greatly.

The appointed members of the Board are chosen for their specific expertise and skill-set.  The Board does publicly identify the slots it is trying to fill when looking for appointees, and the qualifications that they require. The chapter-selected seats...nobody knows what criteria are being used, what specific expertise is being sought, what skill-set is being selected for.  The end result, as best I can see from the first two rounds, is "the same people who could easily have run for election, because they're well known and widely active in the community". Risker/Anne

Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters offers a chance to involve of another subset of our community: those who are interested enough in governance issues to get involved in the leadership / decision-making of movement organizations. That's also an important subset of our community. The existing chapter presence is a barrier to entry. It is difficult to

that is a bit OT but...

*It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and help. And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) ) I rather expected you to say that. Currently the number of people on Meta

I know isn't easy in Africa, but isn't easy either in Latin America, and we are doing it.

On 1 February 2012 20:59, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov < alexandrdmitriromanov(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: offers leadership _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

*It is difficult to get involved in chapters when, like me, you live in Create one in your country! :D That is basicaly what we are doing in IberoCoop - help groups from all over Latin World with guidance and

And IF they want to became a chapter, we help them (talk with ChapCom members, each month we have a new request from a Latin Chapter ;) ) I know isn't easy in Africa, but isn't easy either in Latin America, and

are doing it.

We're getting very off topic, but you are right that there is a problem with dormant chapters. I know nothing about the Russian chapter, but I do know how difficult it was to to get the first Wikimedia UK out of the way. Perhaps the WMF board should ask ChapCom to advise them on what chapters are inactive or insufficiently open. The board can then give them a year to improve or hold new, open elections and remove their chapter status if they don't.

On Feb 1, 2012, at 2:17 PM, Risker wrote: Anne, my personal view is that elections capture the input of a certain subset of our community: those editors who are fairly active and who are interested in governance issues. That subset of our editors is an important part of our community. Having seats appointed by movement organizations like the chapters offers a chance to involve of another subset of our community: those who are interested enough in governance issues to get involved in the leadership / decision-making of movement organizations. That's also an important subset of our community. But, to your point, neither of these two subsets alone nor the combination of the two fully represents our movement. Many groups are excluded. For example, the "silent majority" of 75,000+ active editors who haven't historically voted in elections. Or our 475 million readers. etc., etc., etc. Governance and suffrage in an online community is really, really hard. I don't think we have the perfect system. Our current board structure was put in place less than 4 years ago. The one thing I know is that it will change as we try new things to make it better. I want us to continue improving it. And I for one am open to absolutely any suggestion for how we can do that.

In the 2011 community board election, less than 3400 "users" voted.[1] In the 2012 chapter board election, 39 chapters consisting of more than 4000 identified people will be voting.[2]

*

*

Excuse my ignorance, I haven't read the 50 mails yet, but how should the candidate be chosen? By community vote? By chapter's members ? (do you need registering ?). Will the WMF chose among them? Sorry if I missed the relevant docs, I'm new to this. Also, can I present myself as a candidate? Can I vote? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

*Was it a conscious decision by the chapters to change that approach? I was under the impression that you had decided to stick with the same process we used last time.*

On 1 February 2012 03:43, Béria Lima &lt;berialima(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Last time, the chapters decided to keep the process very confidential in order to allow free and frank discussion of the candidates. It was felt that it would be good to have confidential discussions, in contrast to the public ones that are associated with the community elected seats, because that might attract different candidates than would stand for the community elected seats (ie. candidates that don't want lots of discussion about every good and bad quality they have happening in public - the selection process can involve a much greater intrusion on privacy than actually serving on the board does). Was it a conscious decision by the chapters to change that approach? I was under the impression that you had decided to stick with the same process we used last time. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Thanks for letting us all know about this, Beria. So...a few questions. Why is the discussion happening on chapterswiki, instead of in an open place where all Wikimedians can at least read the discussion? Will the names of the candidates be published for the entire Wikimedia community to see?  Will opinions from non-chapter members (who make up 97% of Wikimedians) be considered?