On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 2:10 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
So do I. :) (Indeed, I have had occasion to remind, uh, a colleague, that editing Wikipedia or its sister projects is a bit of an unusual hobby, and that it's Perfectly Fine to not choose to volunteer to do that on your personal time.)
if, as Asaf points out, it is an issue of roughly 10 people then it is probably not really worth a lengthy discussion - it is easier to get voting rights anyway. All in all, I think it is good that we try to be inclusive, and WMF people (just as many others professionals employed within our movement) definitely have an important perspective to add. Yet, it really is not that difficult to edit a little bit. Voting rights are also a certain privilege. Even if the only reason staff of WMF and/or chapters are not automatically eligible to vote is the fact, that there are hypothetical concerns about some possible political influence, it still may be enough just because the threshold to get voting rights is really low. So, I think that as long as the rules are known well ahead in time, it is totally fine to have universal requirements irrespective of where one is employed.
(btw, I think it is also idealistic to assume that a determined political group would not make a coordinated effort to gain voting rights to have influence - just look what happened to Hugo awards and the Sad Puppies fraction ;)
best,
dariusz "pundit"