Talk:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016

Election facilitators

According to the resolution:

• There shall be three Election Facilitators who are jointly responsible for overseeing and carrying out the election. Election Facilitators shall not be candidates in the election and shall not endorse any candidate nor shall they participate in any public discussions of candidates' merits. Where they are Board members of organizations voting in the election they are expected to recuse themselves from any decision about how the organization's vote is cast.
• [...] the Election Facilitators shall be selected by the consensus of the affiliate organizations [...]. Those who wish to serve as Election Facilitators shall indicate their interest on a designated Meta-Wiki page.

Please sign here not later than 17 January 2016 if you are willing to serve as an election facilitator.

• harej (talk) 09:03, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
• Laurentius (talk) 09:04, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
• Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 11:29, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
• It seems that the selected election facilitator decides the schedule for the election. I advocate for the schedule at Talk:Affiliate-selected_Board_seats#Timeline_to_promote_in-person_community_discussion_of_nominations_and_voting. Perhaps more discussion would be useful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments on facilitator selection

• At Affiliate-selected Board seats/Resolution #3 says, "the Election Facilitators shall be selected by the consensus of the affiliate organizations no later than March 1 of each even-numbered year". I propose to delay confirmation of facilitators until 1 March. The election schedule can be confirmed after that time by the facilitators. Right now the last set of facilitators is proposing less than one week between nomination and confirmation. That may be fine, or not, but there is almost no community discussion about the election process and I see no pressing reason to rush things along. The point of the election is community engagement and that has not been established yet. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

  You need to select the facilitators in order to start the process (the job of the facilitator is exactly to carry out the election process!). Note however that it's one week for declaring that you are willing to serve as a facilitator, but if needed there may be more time afterwards for the affiliates to decide who the facilitators are (for instance, if there are more than three people listed, or if affiliates doesn't like those people). Actually, the rationale for these dates are:

  • new board members are expected to go to Wikimania (June 21);
  • in order to plan for that, they should be selected at least six weeks before Wikimania (May 7);
  • the minimum duration of the election process as agreed in 2014 is 90 days (7 February);
  • leave at least one week to set up the election process (31 January);
  • leave at least one week to the affiliates if they need to talk about the facilitators selection (this should be easy, but we have people who like endless discussions) (24 January).

  Therefore, I think it would be imprudent to close these "nominations for facilitators" later than 24 January. And seriously, we don't need so much time, this is the easiest step; if we can take some more time somewhere, it's better to keep it for some other part of the process. - Laurentius (talk) 19:34, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Laurentius It seems like confirmation of the election coordinators currently means a confirmation that the election must be resolved in time to have the new board members at Wikimania. I am not convinced that there can be good community participation on any schedule that forces a May 7 end, especially since only April 22-24 Wikimedia Conference 2016 convenes and that is the most reasonable venue for having an in-person international discussion about the appropriate candidates. I would like for the schedule to allow nominations until a week after that event. If that means that the elected candidates are not chosen by Wikimania, then I think that is not a problem. A worse problem would be a hurried election which does not have broad community support, and three years of community resentment due to some people feeling that they did not get sufficient notice.

If the election facilitators are the ones who confirm the election schedule, then I propose that the confirmation of facilitators be delayed longer. There has been no community participation in the election schedule discussion. Election facilitators should not be confirmed until after there is discussion around some schedule, because the role confirmation and the schedule are so closely tied together. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:58, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The proposed timeline says that there will be two months of discussion which will start one month from now. I still don't see how there could not be enough time.

Anyway, new board members are expected to be officially appointed at Wikimania, as usually happens. If you want to change this, I suggest you start asking for an opinion from the board. (Note that from 24 April (end of the Wikimedia Conference) to 21 June (start of Wikimania) there are 58 days, which is not enough for the process outlined in the resolution to be carried on, even if one does not care about people booking their flights) - Laurentius (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Confirmation of timeline

The three Election Facilitators have conferred and we recommend the timeline set out Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016#Timeline. Because there has been a slightly confusing discussion of the timeline we would be grateful if some chapter/thorg representatives would confirm that they are happy with proceeding on this timeline. (Not a formal vote, just an indication of support for proceeding on this basis). Thanks, Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

1. seems fine to me, thanks. --FiliP ██ 21:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
2. The board of wmnl has met January 21st, 2016 and approves your proposal for asbs selection process, timeline and facilitators. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 22:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
3. No objection from WMDE. Thank you for your effort and dedication. sebmol ^? 09:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
4. OK from the Board as well. Alice Wiegand (talk) 15:44, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
5. The board of Wikimedia Italy also approves. Thank you for your work! --Atropine (talk) 16:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
6. +1 from the board of WMAT. --Kulac (talk) 11:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
7. Agreed from WMAR (January 30 board meeting). Galio (talk) 11:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
8. OK for WMCH. Thanks for your work Stephane (talk) 15:18, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
9. (please - add comment here )

The timeline is set. Thanks to those who commented. I hope that if anyone has comments about other aspects of the election then they would share them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Election setup

I am copied pages for the 2014 process to set up the 2016 process.

• Affiliate-selected Board seats/2014/Nominations

  Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations

• Affiliate-selected Board seats/2014/Voting

  Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Voting

• Affiliate-selected Board seats/2014/Results

  Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Results

• Affiliate-selected Board seats/2014/Call for candidates

  Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Call for candidates

Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:54, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I've edited a few points. - Laurentius (talk) 11:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I redirected the talk pages of all of these to these talk page. I thought centralized discussion of the election would be better. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:09, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Messy list

Hi, could tranlsations of listed candidates' pages be more neatly displayed after each main link, by "(en)", "(es)", "(zh)", etc? It's going to end up being kilometres long and full of repetition. Tony (talk) 08:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

The current list is messy because it's generated automatically. This is the easiest way to ensure that all pages are listed. The idea is that in a week from now, when nominations will close, it will be replaced with a manually written list, with only the relevant pages. - Laurentius (talk) 13:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

There is not a need to list every translation in the nomination list; the software can automatically select the best language, and the reader can switch language if they want.

Only one candidate has had their page marked for translation, by user:Jean-Frédéric on 2016-02-21. Some of the candidate pages have been waiting for over a week to be marked for translation. Will they all be marked for translation? When? How are translations being organised? Is there intention that a minimum number of languages are supported? Or is translation just adhoc? John Vandenberg (talk) 02:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

If there is no process in place, can I suggest that pages are marked for translation once they have an endorsement. IMO one affiliate endorsement is a practical pre-requisite for being an affiliate selected candidate. John Vandenberg (talk) 03:09, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

+1 Pete F (talk) 08:11, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I don’t know whether there is a process in place (the facilitators would know better). I went ahead with Christophe’s because it was the only one published when I went on my translation marking spree :) (itself triggered by The Land ;) When I had a look later on it was not always clear to me whether a candidate was still working on their page − in which case I’d rather not mark it for translation, as it wastes my time (I will have to do it again), the translators time (as their translations will be lost), and the candidate time (as they would have to navigate through the mud of translate tags to make adjustments).

I think it would be good that a candidate indicate themselves when their page is ready for translation.

Anyway, I see now that Ата marked all for translation − thanks :)

Jean-Fred (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Just to confirm, no there is no process in place and all assistance with translating and organising these pages is welcome. I am intermittently trying to mark things to translation but don't understand how to use the translate syntax particularly well myself. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 13:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Ping me next time there is a bunch of nominations to mark, ok? Thanks --Ата ^(talk) 07:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

• The Translation software has some bugs right now that makes marking it up more of a PITA then usual sadly but still doable, can someone point me to the pages which need to be marked up? I'm happy to help. Jalexander--WMF 11:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC) [ahhh I see @Ата: did it :) \o/ well add me to the list of happy to be pinged. Jalexander--WMF 11:17, 6 March 2016 (UTC)]

Unfortunately, there seems to be some problem with Special:NotifyTranslators. I filed phab:T129069. Jean-Fred (talk) 12:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I have just now emailed the translators mailing list to ask for help - many thanks to everyone currently involved in translating and preparing pages for translating. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Off-topic questions

Just a note that I have removed a question to the candidates as it related to a specific block of an individual on one Wikipedia. As the WMF Board does not get involved in project-level content or conduct issues I felt this was clearly off topic for this Q&A session. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 12:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

No new nominations will be accepted after 8 March?

No new nominations will be accepted after 8 March, but voting affiliates may submit endorsements until the finalization of the ballot on 23 March. Only candidates who receive an endorsement from a voting affiliate before this date will be included in the election.

Does "this date" in the second sentence refer to 8 March or 23 March? Specifically, is it possible for a nomination to be submitted without any endorsements by 8 March, if it later gets one or more endorsements by 23 March?--Pharos (talk) 05:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

It refers to 23 March. Nominations have to be submitted by 8 March, but the endorsement may be given even later (until 23 March). - Laurentius (talk) 07:11, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Category list

This may be me being thick, but I can't see Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations/Leigh_Thelmadatter linked from the list on the nominations page itself, and I can't work out why. Anyone have any ideas? Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 21:52, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I can see it. John Vandenberg (talk) 23:32, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Collapse completed timeline

I think the months that have been completed should be collapsed. John Vandenberg (talk) 09:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Consistent candidate page titles

Should Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations/Maarten be renamed to include surname 'Deneckere', as per all the other candidate page titles? user:MADe, any objections to that? John Vandenberg (talk) 23:34, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is helpful - there are after all a number of Maartens in the Wikimedia movement. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 13:23, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Referencing specific candidate answers to questions in links

Hi,

I'd like to be able to reference specific answers I've made to other questions on the question page itself, but there are no stable links since all the headers are the same (my name), and I've been answering the questions out of order, so the number in the link changes. Could we have something like {{anchor|legoktm-learning-from-arnnon}} for easy linking? Legoktm (talk) 05:28, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Legoktm I fail to understand. Can you please ask the question in another way? Here is a link to your response to the Arnnon question - Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Questions#Kunal_Mehta. Were you saying that this link is not sufficient? Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, let me use a better example. In an older revision, the anchor for my answer to "What's the crisis" was "Kunal_Mehta_3". I added another answer, and the anchor pointing to the crisis question is now "Kunal_Mehta_4". Legoktm (talk) 16:42, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Legoktm I see. So there was this link, Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Questions#Kunal_Mehta_3. At a point in the past, that #3 link went to your response to the "what is the crisis" question. At present, somehow the link order has been changed, and now your answer to the "what is the crisis" question is 4 instead of 3 (Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Questions#Kunal_Mehta_4), and the #3 question is now something different. It seems that you are wondering why the links would be unstable and change numbers. I also am not sure what is happening here. I am not sure what to or why number order would change. Thoughts from others? Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. Creating static links sounds very sensible but Kunal's proposed solution is well beyond my wikimarkup skills... is there documentation on how one creates new anchors? Thanks!Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Legoktm For now, I have to respond to your request by saying no. I am unable to provide what you are requesting. It is a reasonable request and I wish I could explain why some links are breaking, but I cannot. The best advice I can give for now is to not rely only on links, but also give verbal descriptions of other text when you link within the discussion. I am sorry for being unable to do more at this time. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Um, why wouldn't {{anchor}} as originally suggested work for this? It just needs to be added immediately below the heading for the linked sections, for example, adding {{anchor|legoktm-learning-from-arnnon}} immediately after the level three heading would allow someone to link to that answer with [[#legoktm-learning-from-arnnon|Legoktm's answer]]. wctaiwan (talk) 07:35, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Number of votes for Schiste

Hi. Thanks for the counting. Total votes forty. Of which 16.09 for Antanana and 9.91 for Siska, which accounts for 26 votes. That leaves 40 minus 26 is 14 votes for Schiste. Elected first isn't equal highest number of votes. Great to have two winners. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 16:20, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Christophe was elected in a previous round with a higher number of votes than the required 14. When that happened, the votes cast for him were redistributed among the 2 remaining candidates at fractional weight. (Sorry, very brief explanation, hope that makes sense...) Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 20:12, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikimedia Uruguay

Hello, I'm a Wikimedia Uruguay member and I manage the association's Facebook and Twitter accounts. Recently I've focused on the former, so only todday did I realise a May 3 tweet by (Chris about the 2016 Affiliate-selected Board seats election.

We had no representative at the 2016 Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. Also, the Wikipedia Signpost didn't have any news on the election until the results were out. As a result, we weren't aware of the election and didn't cast out votes.

I admit that I should have been more dutiful and should have been aware of the elections. However, I also think that there should have a better process to make sure that every affiliate is aware of the elections and cast their votes in time.

Yours faithfully, NaBUru38 (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

NaBUru38 There was a vote from Wikimedia Uruguay. The name for the vote is someone who is listed as an officer of the chapter. I am not sure if they have made their real name public, so I ought not share their name, but if you email me then I might share more information.

I also want better processes for announcing this and the other board election. If you make a request, then perhaps next time, there can be an announcement in the way that you wanted. 40 of 42 eligible organizations voted, so I expected that communication was sufficient. Any advice you have for running future elections would be useful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:55, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, NaBUru38 (talk) 11:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)