[Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 95, Issue 3

[Marco Chiesa]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Joan Goma <jrgoma a gmail.com> wrote:
> This procedure is unfair for some candidates and is sowing suspiciousness
> against chapters.

Please read http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_bylaws#ARTICLE_IV_-_THE_BOARD_OF_TRUSTEES
section 3D

"Chapter-selected Trustees. Two Trustees will be selected by chapters
in even-numbered years according to a procedure approved by a majority
of the chapters and approved by the Board. Amendments to this
procedure also must be approved by a majority of the chapters and
approved by the Board. "

>
> Last elections I nominated a candidate and also sent questions to be passed
> to all candidates.
>
> The situation was absolutely crazy. Some candidates had access to chapters
> wiki and could have feedback from the answers of other candidates while
> others like the one I nominated didn't. One candidate, Phoebe, published
> her answers which honors her and the others not. When the election process
> finished nobody told the candidates without access to internal wiki the
> results. Still today nobody has told anything to them.  And ofcourse I
> don't know the answers to my questions.

The bylaws do not say that the chapters have to vote candidates, but
to select board members. This means that the rules are different from
those of an election.
>
> Chapters elected board members means that the chapters are who have to
> appoint them but doesn't mean that this doesn't affect and is of interest
> of the entire community.

I don't know Catalan, I know that in Spanish "elegido" means both
elected and selected, but in English the difference is clear.

>
> Chapters would do a favor to themselves if they publish the candidatures,
> and keep questions to candidates and discussion publicly. Otherwise this is
> only creating division and suspiciousness among chapters and communities
> and among communities with chapters and communities without chapters.

There are a number of reasons to keep the discussion closed. First,
chapters may propose for a seat someone who is not interested (let's
say I suggest Barck Obama), or the non-selected candidate does not
want to be publicly known as a loser. But I agree it would be good if
the Chapters gave a report saying: "We considered 10 people, 3 of them
declined the offer, and among the other 7 we though Alice and Bob were
the best choice because of this and this".

> I think that we must try to keep everything free and open by default. Only
> kept private when there are very strong reasons like legal requirements and
> this is not the case. It is ridiculous that we have gone to strike against
> SOPA and we are accepting to transform in privative the informations about
> a process that affects all the movement.
>

Privacy is a right too.
Cruccone