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

[GerardM]

Hoi,
You cleanly separate issues;

   - According to the current rules Danny is eligible to stand as a
   candidate
   - Should the rules for admission for candidature be changed
   - What can be done in practice during the elections

Danny is eligible to stand as a candidate according to the current rules, I
never denied this. I have and do question his fitness to become a board
member, I stand by that. What I have done is ask Danny to explain why he
stands vis a vis the arguments why it is not good for an ex employee to
stand.

Yes, the rules for admission should change. WMF personnel and people who
were employed by the WMF in the last two years should not be allowed to
stand for the position of board member.

The appreciation of the automated mailing to get the votes out is
distressingly different. It runs the whole gamut from people removing the
option to mail them to people endorsing it because it is good when more
people vote to people who see it as a late attempt to give more influence to
what some even call the American Wikipedia. It is distressing because it did
and does polarise the point of views. For me it removed my hesitation to
write again why Danny is imho not the right man for this function.

Having said all that, the current proceedings of this election do reflect
lessons learnt. I hope that what lessons there are to be learned from this
election will find its way in the next elections. I would welcome it when
Jimmy's suggestion to have the WMF send an e-mail at the end of the
elections to those that have not voted on all projects will be part of it. I
hope and expect that this is the last time that a person sends e-mails
scripting against the database for his own good reasons.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 7/9/07, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
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