Risker, SJ, Pete, and others -
Help! This election is what people make of it. It might be the case that
many people concerned about Wikimedia governance do not even realize what
is at stake in this election. There has recently been a lot of discussion
about the board of trustees. In this election, there will be turnover of
two seats. If anyone has ideas for getting chapters more involved in the
election then please get anyone involved in any way that you can.
SJ in response to your questions
1. So far as I know no one has contacted chapters directly. I would like
for every chapter to take responsibility for contacting a few others and
confirming that they are engaged in the election. It would be difficult to
centrally manage communication with everyone. Do you know anyone at any
chapter that you could ask to have their chapter discuss the election with
a few others?
2. I do not expect anyone to contribute to the election questions.
Anyone may. Last election there were four candidates and only about 2/3 of
chapters voted, so perhaps the votes were cast by personal connections. My
personal perspective is that a lively election discussion has not
historically happened. One could happen this time - if you can encourage
anyone to start one then please do so.
Anne -
1. Yes there are three white males on the election committee. If you
identify someone else who wants the role then please have them contact me
and I will advocate that the election committee give them my position if
you think diversity is useful. There is nothing that I am doing in this
role that I could not do outside of it, and I feel that any non-white male
in this role would get no particular privilege to do anything they could
not otherwise, but just the same, consider my position open for anyone who
wants it. I would coach my replacement.
2. I care less about the characteristics of candidates and more about
the characteristics of voting organizations. I want every organization with
a vote to vote, and if you can think of a way to encourage more
organizations to vote, then share. I want the inactive chapters to vote
even if they have not had wiki-engagement for years. Election success from
my perspective is the highest possible vote rate and the most communication
among chapters to encourage each other to vote and to discuss how they will
vote. If possible, I would like every voting organization to give a
statement describing how they decided their vote, but that is left to the
chapter to share as they like and I think it would be unfair to pressure
anyone to do this. In some cases voting might mean one person cast the vote
without consulting with others, and in other cases it might mean that there
was an effort to get opinions from a large chapter membership. Whatever the
case, I want all organizations to vote, and I would prefer that chapters
look to each other and think about everyone else's vote process.
Everyone - feel free to speak up if you want election assistance!
yours,
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 11:07 PM, Sam Klein <sjklein(a)hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:
Lane writes:
Can you please contact any Wikimedia chapter and
ask them to request
nominations?
Ok. I take it they have already been emailed directly? And each chapter
can handle this however they like?
Get any chapter to make any request for whatever
kind of person they
would nominate, then maybe they can call for whatever they want.
Where should they do this – on Meta somewhere, on this list, on the private
chapters mailing list? Is there somewhere they can see wishlists others
have proposed?
This questions page does not shed much light; who is expected to contribute
to it?
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Questio…
===
Risker writes:
Well, I was interpreting SJ's question to be
directed to everyone who is
involved in this election, not just the three election coordinators.
Yes. And +1 to your other comments.
I think the selection process would benefit from the affiliates considering
& sharing what is on their wishlist for candidates, before nominations are
closed. If the facilitators can help make this happen, all the better.
===
Ask questions everywhere. This is a wiki election
and should proceed in
wiki style.
++ Good, that's why I asked in the first place. Feel free to migrate this
discussion elsewhere.
SJ
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Lane Rasberry
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lane(a)bluerasberry.com