[Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board & FDC elections?

[Risker]

On 29 April 2013 18:48, Asaf Bartov <abartov at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 2:37 AM, Itzik Edri <itzik at infra.co.il> wrote:
>
> > I agree. We should limit it to only community members, or to give equal
> > right to everyone.
> >
> > Asaf, you right, but we are talking also about the FDC elections. a
> > processes where we are not granting chapters and others organizations the
> > right to vote but granting to the WMF. Giving only WMF staff, and not
> > chapters staff the right to vote in community process, it's like saying
> the
> > first are part of the community, but the second are not. I don't even
> want
> > to refer to the sensitive issue of the staff voting for their "bosses"..
> >
>
> That's a very good point, and I think the chapter board members and staff
> definitely _should_ be given a voice _at least_ in the FDC elections.  I
> leave it to the Elections Committee to propose solutions.
>
>
>

The Elections Committee posted its plan weeks before the election started,
with hardly any commentary at all; it is only now, after candidates may
start entering the race, that people are complaining that we've failed to
give the "right" people a vote (or alternately, that we've given too many
people a vote).  There is almost no variation between the voter eligibility
this year and in the previous election; the only relevant changes are dates
for eligibility and the developer commit process (which was changed because
the Engineering Department changed the way that commits were done).

I suggest that those who would like to see changes at the next election
post on the election post mortem page[1] now, so that these ideas aren't
lost to time.

Risker (Election Committee Member)



[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mortem