[Foundation-l] Election rules modification regarding suffrage issues raised on this list

[Philippe Beaudette]

Hi Phoebe;

We don't quite have a check-in from everyone on the committee yet, but it 
appears very likely that candidate requirements are changing as well.

Philippe

--------------------------------------------------
From: "phoebe ayers" <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:55 AM
To: "Philippe Beaudette" <philippebeaudette at gmail.com>
Cc: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: Election rules modification regarding suffrage issues raised on 
this list

> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Philippe Beaudette
> <philippebeaudette at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Based on concerns raised on this list, the elections committee is 
>> changing
>> the requirement from "at least 50 edits between April 1, 2008 and June 1,
>> 2008" to "at least 50 edits between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2008". We
>> hope this will avoid disenfranchising active community members, while
>> ensuring that longtime-inactive users cannot vote on this important 
>> current
>> issue.
>
> Thanks Philippe & Elections committee for taking our concerns into
> consideration and making this change! The new requirement sounds much
> more reasonable.
>
> I also agree with Michael's last post that mail to voters + a
> sitenotice to try and increase turnout would be a good thing. :) Be
> sure to tell your friends who may be off-wiki this year as well.
>
> I note btw that the *candidate* requirements didn't change -- so any
> potential candidates need to have been editing this spring. I don't
> have a problem with this requirement (community representatives should
> probably be active editors), but it does notably exclude "inactive"
> members from running, regardless of their former status in the
> community or current off-wiki participation (it'd be nice to see a
> developer exemption!).
>
> As our community grows and changes, and we try to formalize community
> participation in governance in various ways, I think this question
> will come up more and more. Once a community member, always a
> community member? Is there something special about actively
> participating now vs. having actively participated in the past? Does
> editing one of the projects make you a member of the Foundation
> community? (it's certainly not just posters to foundation-l!) What
> *does* make for a community member? I tend to define "the community"
> very broadly, but realize others may not...
>
> best,
> -- phoebe