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

[Fae]

On 30 April 2013 10:47, Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de> wrote:
> And to come back to the topic.
>
> At least in the theory, if someone is blocked in a project, than he has a
> serious problem with that community. And the reason that his block is not
> lifted should be a serious one. And if someone has a serious problem with
> more than one community, than it is questionable if he should be eligible to
> take part in the decision of such an office. So from the theory I think the
> rule is ok.
>
> If in the praxis someone is blocked by a project arbitrarily and he is not
> able to appeal by that community, than that community and that project has a
> real problem. And we should look into detail what is going wrong in that
> project and in that community. But this is not an issue of the election
> committee.

Certainly that is a theory. However we also have people that are
voluntarily blocked as part of an enforced wiki-break, and we also
have examples of Wikimedians who were blocked on a project years ago,
and never could be bothered to go through the pain of an appeal but
instead successfully focus on some of the other Wikimedia projects and
leave that pain behind. In neither of these examples would it be fair
to claim that such folks are so set against our mission that they must
not have a vote. Perhaps we ought to separate these things and allow
individuals to apply for a right to vote if they can provide a case of
unusual circumstances that may make a waiver against the basic rules
seem reasonable to a panel?

As for when a block might be "arbitrary", I don't believe the WMF or
the community has any way of determining when this is the case.
Certainly some rationales for blocks appear arbitrary.

Thanks,
Fae
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