[Foundation-l] 2011 Board Elections: Input needed

[Jon Harald Søby]

Hello, fellow Wikimedians.

On behalf of the 2011 Board Election Committee I would like to ask your
input on the criteria for voters in the election. In the last election
(2009), contributors needed to have at least 600 edits before the election
began and 50 recent edits (within 6 months). However, we feel that the edit
counts should be lowered, to allow newer contributors and mostly-inactive
members to vote, as we feel that they are also valued members of the
community. So our current proposal is a total of 300 edits, and 20 edits
within 6 months.

This only goes for the editing community; however, the community is more
than just editors. Previously, suffrage has been extended to (a) server
administrators, (b) paid staff and (c) current or former board members. This
still does not account for all community members though, and we would like
your input on what other community members should be eligible to vote (and
how to quantify other types of contributions).

In discussion amongst the community, the committee, board members and
others, the following categories of potential voters were brought up:

* Advisory Board members
* Developers who are not server administrators, but who have made a certain
number of commits (what number is "sufficient"?)

* Donors
** Donors above a certain $ amount (in that case, what amount should be the
limit?)
* University students in the Ambassadors program
* Researchers with access to the research user right

So, to round up, we would very much like your input on these matters; are
the edit count requirements fair, do the additional categories seem all
right, and finally, are there any other user categories that should be
eligible to vote?

Input can be posted here, on [[m:Talk:Board
elections/2011]]<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Board_elections/2011>or
to the board elections list,
board-elections at lists.wikimedia.org. We're looking forward to hearing your
thoughts on the matter!

On behalf of the Election Committee,
Jon Harald Søby
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by