[Foundation-l] Pointing out to an oddity

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 5/14/08, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Pointing out to an oddity
> > To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> > Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 10:55 AM
>  > On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Kwan Ting Chan
> > <ktc at ktchan.info> wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, 2008-05-14 at 17:12 +0200, elisabeth bauer
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I don't see any candidates on
> > > >
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Candidates
> > > > (the place where I would expect candicacies to
> > show up)
> > >
> > > Candidate's submission is on
> > >
> >
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2008/Candidates/Submissions
> .
> > Once the close of candidate submission period comes round,
> > the election
> > > committee will transfer the listings of those that are
> > verified to be
> > > eligible to the page you linked to, and translation
> > will also begin.
> > >
> > > Wily D wrote:
> > > > Apparently we're not supposed to know that
> > they exist yet - I don't
> > > know why.
> > >
> > > They are available on the submission page if one want
> > to see it. The
> > > committee would just prefer they not be as visibly
> > available until we
> > > have confirmed the candidates meet the eligibility
> > criteria and that
> > > their candidate submission meet the election
> > regulation. This is partly
> > > to ensure fairness to all those who stand. Say a
> > candidate submission is
> > > too long (as has been the case a couple of time), it
> > does take time for
> > > them to correct it. In the mean time, if it were all
> > widely visible, the
> > > other candidates can/will complain about unfair
> > advantages gained over
> > > the exposure to the longer statement.
> > >
> > > KTC
> > >
> >
> >
> > Then you should remove submissions that are too long (that
> > part at least is
> > trivial to check), or take less time promoting the ones
> > that are okay, or
> > handle all submissions in private.  However, hiding all of
> > the ongoing
> > submissions on a somewhat hard to find subpage is not a
> > good answer in my
> > opinion.  Seeing who intends to stand for the elections and
> > why has an
> > important influence on recruiting others.
> >
> > Incidentally, my instinct was the same as WilyD's, and
> > I added another link
> > to the submissions page prior to seeing this discussion.
> >
>
> I imagine keeping submissions private would hurt translation efforts.  I
> don't see the harm in having them somewhere hard to find so they are
> available to be worked on before they are advertised as being available.
>

You missed my point.  If they are going to be kept online, then I think they
should be easy to find as this encourages further participation in the
process.  Incomplete or problematic submissions might be handled offline,
but in my opinion, the completed submissions should be publicized on an
ongoing basis to encourage others to think seriously about participating in
the process before the close of the candidate submission window.

-Robert Rohde