[Foundation-l] Chapter Selected Board Seats - Time for questions

[Michael Peel]

Hi all,

I'm expecting to be contradicted here, but I have to ask these questions in order to personally understand the politics surrounding this topic.

My understanding here (having been subscribed to the chapters mailing list since the start of the chapter-selected WMF board seats - i.e. since late 2008) is that the Wikimedia Foundation wanted this process to be conducted in private in order to have candidates that would benefit the WMF's governance process, and would benefit from the chapters' networks of experienced and knowledgeable individuals, whilst not requiring those candidates to go through the elongated public ordeal that the community-elected seats involve (and in particular: the public Q&A and voting requirements that are expected of a community-selected trustee).

There were reasons why the Wikimedia chapters were not able to make this process public in the past (and why they are not able to have a public vote on this issue). These reasons are due to the chapter's understanding of the context of this topic, rather than the chapters deciding on their own that the process needs to be kept confidential. It's absolutely fantastic that all of the candidates for this election are willing to make their statements public - but the credit here is really due to the the candidates that have put themselves forward for this election in an open manner, rather than anything else.

If I'm wrong here, then I would really welcome corrections. But I really don't like that the requirement of keeping the decisions made by this this process is being put on the Wikimedia chapters rather than the Wikimedia Foundation. It may be that this issue has arisen due to a misunderstanding between the Wikimedia chapters and the WMF, but please don't think that this confidentiality is solely due to the chapters here.

Thanks,
Mike
(internal-l has had the standard approach that Wikimedia trustees can declare that their emails are reflecting personal viewpoints rather than those comments representing the chapters that they are trustees of - and I hope this extends to foundation-l. My comments and queries here are solely my own rather than WMUK's.)

On 3 Mar 2012, at 01:29, Tinu Cherian wrote:

> Thanks Beria for taking the initiative for making the list of candidates
> and statements on a public wiki.
> 
> It brings in more transparency and better understanding of the process to
> the whole of the Wikimedia World.
> 
> All the best wishes to the candidates!
> 
> Regards
> Tinu Cherian
> Wikimedia India.
> 
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 7:57 AM, Béria Lima <berialima at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hello people,
>> 
>> So after receive authorization from all candidates, the list of candidates
>> + statements are in meta, and you can find it here: http'://
>> meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates
>> 
>> Until 14 March is time for questions, so if you have any questions to any
>> of the candidates, please put your question in this page:
>> 
>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Candidates/Questions(there
>> are already some questions and some answers there)
>> 
>> So there is only one thing. Candidates are not forced to answer, and even
>> if they do, they're not forced to answer in public, so might happens that
>> some answers won't go to meta. If you ask a question and the candidate
>> don't want to make the answer public, I will send you a mail with the
>> answer - but of course, you can't leak the answer anywhere.
>> 
>> Also do keep in mind this isn't a community vote. We are trying to keep as
>> public as we can, but the discussions the chapters will have will be
>> private. So don't expect me to post those in meta.
>> _____
>> *
>> *
>> 
>> *[image: Inline images 1]*
>> 
>> *Béria Lima*
>> 
>> * *
>> 
>> * Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter
>> livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano.*
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> *Ajude-nos a construir esse sonho.* <http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos>**
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> *
>> ** <http://wikimedia.pt/Donativos>*
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