To Chris Wood - Great to know that you're keen to get involved and I agree with others that we should try to be as inclusive as possible.
With only two days to go until close of nominations, I think it's too late to change this rule - that has already been agreed by consensus - that only 18+s can be candidates for the initial board.
However, one of the first things the new Board will do is draft the rules of the chapter - its Memorandum and Article of Association - which i guess will include details of the voting system for members of the subsequent Boards - so please do input there. I personally hope we can come up with a situation which allows 16-18s to be members of the Board but also satisfies the Charities Commission. As you already mentioned, the legal restriction is that Limited Company Directors have to be 16+ but the Charities Commission also has the power to intervene if they fear "mismanagement" of the charity. I've put more details up at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Candidate_FAQs#Why_do_Board...
There is nothing to prevent you from putting your name up on the list, but the election committee will probably decide to invalidate your candidacy.
While we're on that subject I presume that everyone is happy for - geni, Andrew Whitworth and Jo Seddon - to be the election committee. In that case, I'll put details up on the wiki. Also, is it the consensus that we drop the 50% rule?
As to guarantor members, I am not aware of any legal restriction on the age of members. I can't think of any reason we would want to restrict it to over 18s, but I guess this is a decision for the inital Board in consultation with the community.
Alison made an interesting point about it being a good idea if all intial Board members had lived in the same place for three years, weren't private renters, had bills in their own name, were in full time employement, had no CCJs and were UK passport holders. I wouldn't want any of these to be a requirement for someone to be a Board member and I don't think it would be fair to introduce this at this stage, but I've added it as a "voluntary question" here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Candidate_questions as it might be useful for voters.
Finally, someone mentioned it wouldnt' be a problem if a person who was a potential risk to children got hold of a U16's address because it would be their parent's address. My though was, they may also be able to get their phone number, email address, IRC contact, facebook/myspace page etc etc - you'd be surprised how much information is readily available. That's the issue I think we should be careful of.
Andrew Turvey
Alison made an interesting point about it being a good idea if all intial Board members had lived in the same place for three years, weren't private renters, had bills in their own name, were in full time employement, had no CCJs and were UK passport holders. I wouldn't want any of these to be a requirement for someone to be a Board member and I don't think it would be fair to introduce this at this stage, but I've added it as a "voluntary question" here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Candidate_questions as it might be useful for voters.
I want to clarify and support alison's point, this is the correct advice to follow so that we can get a bank account. Alison is very right in that the banks will expect most of this of signatories opening a bank account. Prehaps not all, but certainly most of what she has said. _________________________________________________________________ Discover Bird's Eye View now with Multimap from Live Search http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/111354026/direct/01/
On 11 Sep 2008, at 22:27, joseph seddon wrote:
Alison made an interesting point about it being a good idea if
all intial Board members
had lived in the same place for three years, weren't private
renters, had bills in their
own name, were in full time employement, had no CCJs and were UK
passport holders.
I wouldn't want any of these to be a requirement for someone to
be a Board member
and I don't think it would be fair to introduce this at this
stage, but I've added it as a
"voluntary question" here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Candidate_questions
as it might be useful for voters.
I want to clarify and support alison's point, this is the correct advice to follow so that we can get a bank account. Alison is very right in that the banks will expect most of this of signatories opening a bank account. Prehaps not all, but certainly most of what she has said.
Do you have a feel for which of these banks will expect, and to what degree? As someone that lives in two places (parent's home and rented accommodation) and has bills at the latter, and is a postgraduate student (i.e. on the fuzzy line between student and employee), but meets the other two points, I'm wondering if I fall between too many lines to be useful on the initial board.
Mike Peel
Do you have a feel for which of these banks will expect, and to what degree? As someone that lives in two places (parent's home and rented accommodation) and has bills at the latter, and is a postgraduate student (i.e. on the fuzzy line between student and employee), but meets the other two points, I'm wondering if I fall between too many lines to be useful on the initial board.
I'm going to drop in on a few banks tomorrow (as a couple of people have already done, but the more we know the better) and will either talk to someone that knows about charity accounts or make an appointment for another time with each. One of the key things I'll be asking is about their requirements for trustees/signatories, so hopefully I'll be able to post a report with more info tomorrow evening. I'm in a similar position to you (although I'm actually back at my parents now and living in uni accommodation during term time). It sounds like WER only got as far as applying to one bank (Co-op), so others may have less stringent requirements, we'll see. If it turns out the elected board are unable to open a bank account, they do as much of the other stuff as they can and call an AGM and a new board with better credit histories can take over. It will delay things by a few months, but it's not the end of the world.
While we're on that subject I presume that everyone is happy for - geni, Andrew Whitworth and Jo Seddon - to be the election committee. In that case, I'll put details up on the wiki. Also, is it the consensus that we drop the 50% rule?
I agree to both points. I'm not sure if we have a consensus on them yet, but ask here and the talk page and if no-one objects by the deadline, we're go for the election.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
While we're on that subject I presume that everyone is happy for - geni, Andrew Whitworth and Jo Seddon - to be the election committee. In that case, I'll put details up on the wiki. Also, is it the consensus that we drop the 50% rule?
I agree to both points. I'm not sure if we have a consensus on them yet, but ask here and the talk page and if no-one objects by the deadline, we're go for the election.
I'm in agreement with the committee.
I'm concerned (not objecting) about the 50% rule being dropped, but perhaps not for the reason people would expect.
The board are going to be empowered to do anything they like. The community are going to be asked to put their trust in these people.
Suppose someone gets onto the board with less than the majority of the communty approving of them.
Now suppose something goes wrong for an unavoidable reason.
The natural reaction of people is to look for someone/something to blame. In an online community where it is possible to hide behind the screen the worst in people comes out and things get said that perhaps would not be said in a face to face situation. Any candidate with less than a 50% approval will almost certainly become a pivot point for the community. Issue like "why was the board elected without a majority of community membmers supporting the members?". The community will split at a time when it most needs to pull together.
Now if the majority of people here think I'm being over careful I'll drop it. My intention is to raise this concern, if you decide to drop the 50% rule and something like the above scenario pans out at least you can watch for the early signs of that split.
The likelyhood is that it will not pan out that way, but forewarned is forearmed.
Ross
I'm concerned (not objecting) about the 50% rule being dropped, but perhaps not for the reason people would expect.
The board are going to be empowered to do anything they like. The community are going to be asked to put their trust in these people.
Suppose someone gets onto the board with less than the majority of the communty approving of them.
Now suppose something goes wrong for an unavoidable reason.
The natural reaction of people is to look for someone/something to blame. In an online community where it is possible to hide behind the screen the worst in people comes out and things get said that perhaps would not be said in a face to face situation. Any candidate with less than a 50% approval will almost certainly become a pivot point for the community. Issue like "why was the board elected without a majority of community membmers supporting the members?". The community will split at a time when it most needs to pull together.
Now if the majority of people here think I'm being over careful I'll drop it. My intention is to raise this concern, if you decide to drop the 50% rule and something like the above scenario pans out at least you can watch for the early signs of that split.
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative? If we don't get at least 3 people with 50+% what do we do? Holding another election isn't likely to help, it will just get the same result. If we get 3 people with 50+% but not 5, then it's not really a problem since the 3 that have wide support will have a controlling majority anyway (assuming everyone turns up to meetings, at least). Remember, we're not really trusting this board with much since we don't have anything to trust them with yet. The worst they can do is waste a few months. (At some point, they'll be receiving membership fees, but if they get that far then they've probably earned everyone's trust.)
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I'm concerned (not objecting) about the 50% rule being dropped, but perhaps not for the reason people would expect.
The board are going to be empowered to do anything they like. The community are going to be asked to put their trust in these people.
Suppose someone gets onto the board with less than the majority of the communty approving of them.
Now suppose something goes wrong for an unavoidable reason.
The natural reaction of people is to look for someone/something to blame. In an online community where it is possible to hide behind the screen the worst in people comes out and things get said that perhaps would not be said in a face to face situation. Any candidate with less than a 50% approval will almost certainly become a pivot point for the community. Issue like "why was the board elected without a majority of community membmers supporting the members?". The community will split at a time when it most needs to pull together.
Now if the majority of people here think I'm being over careful I'll drop it. My intention is to raise this concern, if you decide to drop the 50% rule and something like the above scenario pans out at least you can watch for the early signs of that split.
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
I don't have one which is why I explicitly didn't object.
Ross
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting or a ranking system.
That seems unnecessary to me, however.
2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting or a ranking system.
That seems unnecessary to me, however.
What is "support voting"? Any kind of preferential voting is far too complicated to be worth it in our case - you generally end up needing a computer program to calculate the results (or a hell of a lot of post it notes!).
On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting or a ranking system.
That seems unnecessary to me, however.
What is "support voting"? Any kind of preferential voting is far too complicated to be worth it in our case - you generally end up needing a computer program to calculate the results (or a hell of a lot of post it notes!).
I was meaning a simple lack of opposition. Maybe I am misunderstanding what is currently the proposal?
On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:> > 2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:> >> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:> >>> I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?> >>> >> Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting> >> or a ranking system.> >>> >> That seems unnecessary to me, however.> >> > What is "support voting"? Any kind of preferential voting is far too> > complicated to be worth it in our case - you generally end up needing> > a computer program to calculate the results (or a hell of a lot of> > post it notes!).> > I was meaning a simple lack of opposition. Maybe I am> misunderstanding what is currently the proposal?>
Me, Geni and andrew will discuss what options we have. We will then draw up the final election methods. Clear them with the community, then run the election. Unless we can get access to the software used for the foundation board elections, it will most likely be run via email. _________________________________________________________________ Discover Bird's Eye View now with Multimap from Live Search http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/111354026/direct/01/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
joseph seddon wrote:
On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Thomas Dalton
thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton
thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting or a ranking system.
That seems unnecessary to me, however.
What is "support voting"? Any kind of preferential voting is far too complicated to be worth it in our case - you generally end up needing a computer program to calculate the results (or a hell of a lot of post it notes!).
I was meaning a simple lack of opposition. Maybe I am misunderstanding what is currently the proposal?
Me, Geni and andrew will discuss what options we have. We will then draw up the final election methods. Clear them with the community, then run the election. Unless we can get access to the software used for the foundation board elections, it will most likely be run via email.
I don't know if it matters, but KTC was on the foundation board elections committee.
- -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator
Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation today: http://donate.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Phone: 415.839.6885 x 601 Fax: 415.882.0495
E-Mail: cary@wikimedia.org
On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 23:22 +0000, joseph seddon wrote:
Me, Geni and andrew will discuss what options we have. We will then draw up the final election methods. Clear them with the community, then run the election. Unless we can get access to the software used for the foundation board elections, it will most likely be run via email.
Getting BoardVote isn't hard. It's just on Mediawiki's SVN. The first thing is upgrading it from using BotQuery (query.php) which has been disabled on Wikimedia's wiki to the current api.php (a task which is relatively simple).
You can choose to merge back some of the old code using SVN to use the old voting method (A maximum of X endorsement out of all possible candidates, first many past the post) if you don't want to use Schulze method.
The problem you will have is hosting it on a MediaWiki installation somewhere, and ensuring those and only those you want to be able to vote is able to vote, either each with local accounts on said MediaWiki installation, or get WMF's dev to redirect anyone going to *.wiki*edia.org/wiki/BoardVote to this wiki so the software can query WMF's wiki for account information.
KTC
The problem you will have is hosting it on a MediaWiki installation somewhere, and ensuring those and only those you want to be able to vote is able to vote, either each with local accounts on said MediaWiki installation, or get WMF's dev to redirect anyone going to *.wiki*edia.org/wiki/BoardVote to this wiki so the software can query WMF's wiki for account information.
We could ask the devs to create a wiki for us (uk.wikimedia.org) and run it on that. We're not too picky about who gets to vote (if you're interested enough to vote, you're welcome to), so that's not a problem.
On Fri, 2008-09-12 at 01:05 +0100, Thomas Dalton wrote:
The problem you will have is hosting it on a MediaWiki installation somewhere, and ensuring those and only those you want to be able to vote is able to vote, either each with local accounts on said MediaWiki installation, or get WMF's dev to redirect anyone going to *.wiki*edia.org/wiki/BoardVote to this wiki so the software can query WMF's wiki for account information.
We could ask the devs to create a wiki for us (uk.wikimedia.org) and run it on that. We're not too picky about who gets to vote (if you're interested enough to vote, you're welcome to), so that's not a problem.
Just a general note (for anyone who think IP address is private information *rolleyes*) if one is using BoardVote that the election official will get to see the browser user agent string and the IP address of those who's voted.
KTC
2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/12 Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com:
On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I understand your concerns, but what's the alternative?
Something other than approval voting -- either simply "support" voting or a ranking system.
That seems unnecessary to me, however.
What is "support voting"? Any kind of preferential voting is far too complicated to be worth it in our case - you generally end up needing a computer program to calculate the results (or a hell of a lot of post it notes!).
I was meaning a simple lack of opposition. Maybe I am misunderstanding what is currently the proposal?
That sounds like approval voting to me. Approval voting is where you have a list of candidates and you tick the ones you approve of, those with the most votes win.
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