Hi Bence

I did my own non official statistics about voters and candidates by language.

Here you are:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gom%C3%A0/Elections_2011

en-wiki presented 39% of the candidates, casted 30% of the votes and obtained 66% of the members. de-wiki presented 18% of the candidates, casted 14% of the votes and obtained 33% of the members.

The next languages casting most votes where French (8,5%) Spanish (6%) and Catalan (4,9%) . None of them obtained any seat although the candidate who were native speaker of French and Catalan (Claudi Balaguer) was very close to be elected together with two very well known members of the community Milos and Lodewijk, with about 30 votes of difference among those 3 candidates.

In those elections more than 60% of Catalan editors with right to vote participated while percentage of participation in English was ridiculous.

My conclusion was that for even relatively big languages like Catalan it is impossible to get representation in community elections unless you start writing in English Wikipedia.

The Situation of countries without a chapter is a problem but situation of languages without a country is a disgrace. The problem can be solved by setting up a chapter but the disgrace has no solution they will never be able to be represented in the board.

Board cannot be widened to an unbearable number of members but if we increased the number of community elected board members to 6 by transforming chapter selected members and by picking one from board selected (or perhaps having a board of 11 members as even numbers are always more advisable for decision bodies than odd) then:

1) Communities could have the feeling that Foundation is an organization at their service because the majority of the governing body is elected by them. 2) Chapters doesn’t lose their capability to participate and influence in elections if they where able to mobilize their affiliates. 3) Candidates of languages able to mobilize around 5% of the votes could have some chances to be elected opening doors to more diversity.

Anyway it seems to me that we should find mechanisms to allow participation in governance to editors of those projects that neither have a chapter nor is likely that can have influence in community elections.

Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 01:46:12 +0100

From: Bence Damokos bdamokos@gmail.com

I think the community elections are sometimes perceived as en.wikipedia centric, even if the actual voter turnout could suggest otherwise. (I haven't been able to find voter statistics per project, so the perception might actually be correct even if the people who win are at least partially international.)