[Foundation-l] CentralNotice and extending the Board Nomination period

[Robert Rohde]

CentralNotice scripts live on the image file server.  As some of you
may know, that server has been having serious performance problems
recently.  One of the steps taken early on to reduce load while people
work on fixing the problem was to disable CentralNotice on all wikis
(save Meta).

As a result, the "Candidates are currently being accepted for the
Wikimedia Board of Trustees Election" message that started on the 7th
has not been visible anywhere except Meta since the 11th.  I don't
know whether the server will be fixed before the nomination period was
supposed to end on the 20th.  Assuming it is not fixed, the planned
two weeks of candidate solicitations will have been reduced to less
than five days.  (This also explains why there have been no new
candidate statements since early on the 12th.)

In my opinion, that is simply not adequate.

I know it would throw a giant monkey wrench in other plans, but I want
to raise the possiblity that the technical problems with the site
notice should justify pushing back the rest of the Board election
timeline.  The Board of Trustees is one of Wikimedia's most important
institutions, and I don't think this is something we can justify
rushing through.

-Robert Rohde