[Foundation-l] Election criteria (was, will the Board accept the election result?)

[phoebe ayers]

I am coming late to the party.... but I wanted to say a couple things for
posterity :)

On 7/7/07, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hoi,
> > The difference is in the methodology. When a community is interested in
> > the
> > election and as a consequence enthuse about this you have what has been
> > the
> > practice of the previous elections. Gregory added to the process the
> > automated electioneering that is common to American elections. This
> > resulted
> > in a change of my appreciation of what is permissible. It resulted in
> > people
>
>
Pardon? I've been voting in American elections for a decade and have never
been subject to any sort of "automated electioneering." Whilst it is true
that there is often a lot of publicity about *candidates* in the US,
getting-out-the-vote drives and the like are fairly modest, often
nonexistent, and certainly not automated. Trying to make this a national
issue is as insulting as the implication that en: voters will only vote for
en: candidates. There is also a world of difference between trying to
improve voter turnout (what Greg was doing) and talking about an individual
candidate. The former would be an appropriate issue for future elections
committees to take up, to continue to try and improve our elections (as this
committee has done, I might add).

As for Danny's standing or anyone else's: the elections committee are very
clear on who can run. There are precisely three qualifications:

1. You must have been a contributor to at least one Wikimedia project for
one year prior to June 1, 2007, as indicated by the date of the registered
username's first edit, and must have completed at least 400 edits with the
same account on the same project by June 1, 2007.
2. You must make your real name known and must be at least 18 years of
age...
3. You must obtain at least the required number of endorsements from
eligible voters....

from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2007/en
Notice that there is is nothing in there about:
* professional expertise, languages spoken, ability to understand template
syntax, race, gender, ability to get along well with other people, ability
to spell, which project was edited, taste in ties, truthfulness, enjoyment
of air travel, ability to balance a budget, former employers, or anything
else.

That is, candidate fitness to actually be a board member beyond a bare
minimum of qualifications is left entirely up to the voters to decide. What
happens after the candidates are actually on the Board is, as Anthere points
out, up to the Board to decide.

If you or Jan-Bart or anyone else wants to change these election rules for
the future, fine, let's talk about that. But that is completely unrelated to
the present standing of any of the candidates, all of whom were eminently
qualified to run under our present system. Suggesting otherwise is
misleading and even spiteful. We are all free to support the candidates of
our choosing; we are not all free to argue about them on this list (at
least, I hope not).

As for David's original question... it points at a better question -- is
there any oversight of the election? This is a good theoretical question,
but it's poor form to assume bad faith of the Board before anything actually
happens.

best,
-- phoebe