[Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - A shot for a resolution

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

Hi Ziko,

I hear what you are saying but I am afraid you are rather an exceptional
voter. I have heard much more often the motivations of the type "This guy
has an excellent contribution, but we have never come across, so I am not
going to vote for him". I myself got several abstination votes on my admin
elections with this motivation.

Cheers
Yaroslav


> Yaroslav, I think that I understand your concern: to give people a chance
> even if they work in a small project / language. I agree. But it should
> only
> be a *chance*, not a *reservation* for beiing Maltese.
>
> Let us think about two Maltese, a bad and a good one.
>
> The bad Maltese is someone *only* occupied with the ma.WP. (Is this the
> language code? I should ask my friend in Malta! :-) ) He does not
> contribute
> to any other projects, and his ma.WP is quite bad, pretending a lot of
> articles - created by a bot. No, this bad Maltese will have hardly a
> chance
> to be elected to the Board nowadays or to the Council in future. And I
> think
> that he really should not be there.
>
> The good Maltese has helped to create a great ma.WP: small, but of high
> quality (bytes per article etc.) You can check that with the help of the
> statistics and also have a glance at ma.WP, you don't need to understand
> the
> language. The good Maltese has created the Maltese Wikisource. He has a
> lot
> of experience about fundamental things, and he talks about on Meta. I
> think
> that this good Maltese has a very good chance in the elections. Not only
> contributors to other small Wikipedias (the MANY small Wikipedias!) will
> favor him, but also me.
>
> By the way, in the Board elections of 2007 I did not choose people because
> I
> knew them from the German Wikipedia (was there a German at all?), because
> they a) seemed to have experience in more than one project/language and b)
> had a good message.
>
> Ziko
>
>
>
> 2008/3/14, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru>:
>>
>> > Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
>> >> Hoi Gerard,
>> >>
>> >> I think actually that Milos and you are advocating the two extremes.
>> >>
>> >> I do not think we can form a board having a representative of every
>> >> (reasonably defined) big project.
>> >>
>> >> I also do not think we should leave these projects without
>> >> representation.
>> >>
>> >> Let us take again the hypotetical Maltese wikipedian (for
>> definiteness,
>> >> a
>> >> male Wikipedian) who happens to mainly edit a project with 10 other
>> >> active
>> >> editors (I am not exactly sure what the actual  standing of the
>> Maltese
>> >> Wikipedia is, let us discuss this as a hypothetical example). If he
>> is
>> >> not
>> >> an admin on a larger Wikipedia (say English) and not a steward, he
>> doe
>> >> not
>> >> get a public exposure outside his own small project. This typically
>> >> means
>> >> he stands no chance to be elected by a general vote, whatever
>> brilliant
>> >> he
>> >> is. We can not help this. What we can do is to reserve say one
>> Council
>> >> seat all (reasonably defined) small projects and design the procedure
>> >> how
>> >> these projects will elect their representative. The idea of such as
>> seat
>> >> would be to ensure that (similar) problems of all small Wikipedias
>> are
>> >> being heard. If we reserve zero seats, they are just not represented.
>> If
>> >> wee select a seat for each project, there is no way the Council will
>> be
>> >> operational.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Yaroslav
>> >
>> > And ?
>> >
>> > Even if we reserve a seat... who will elect the guy ?
>> >
>> > The 5 members of the Maltese wikipedia ? Why should I trust 5 members
>> > who approve one guy to be in charge of the governance of the
>> Foundation
>> > ? For all I know, they might be his 2 brothers, 1 cousin, a friend and
>> > his lover.
>> >
>> > Or the 5 members of the Maltese Wikipedia + 2 members of the corsican
>> > wikipedia + 6 members of the volapuck and 7 members from the swahili ?
>> > 2+6+7 of those not knowing the candidate and maybe not even sharing a
>> > common language with him ? Why would the swahili guys vote for a
>> maltese
>> > guy they have never heard about ?
>> >
>> > Ant
>> >
>>
>> If you want me to elaborate, yes, in my proposal it will be 5 members of
>> Maltese wikipedia + 2 members of the Corsican Wikipedia etc. If they do
>> not share the common language with the candidate they are not going to
>> vote for him, that's simple. If they do not feel they are represented by
>> this guy - fine, they vote for somebody else. We can make sure there is
>> a
>> rotation, for instance, if a representative of maltese Wikipedia takes
>> the
>> seat, next year he is not eligible to run for this seat. And we can
>> think
>> about the channels small Wikipedias would reach their representative.
>> But
>> if it all goes to unrestricted general vote - none of these projects is
>> going to be represented. Then only stewards/active members of big
>> projects
>> have a chance to be elected, and we are back to the countless
>> lamentations
>> about insufficient representation of the community.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Yaroslav
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Ziko van Dijk
> Roomberg 30
> NL-7064 BN Silvolde
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