Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2020

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Board minutes

Can we please get the Board meeting minutes for the past year published in time for the Call for Candidates? There are several issues over the past year on which the minutes likely shed light. EllenCT (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. These should have been posted weeks ago. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 06:47, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

CRoslof - thanks for adding the minutes through Feb. Minutes for the rest of this year would also be welcome. –SJ talk  15:58, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Postpone?

(Pinging the elections committee: @AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, KTC, Mardetanha, Masssly, Matanya, ProtoplasmaKid, and Ruslik0:)

I think a decision on whether to postpone the 2020 board elections needs to be made pretty much now. By this point in the last board election, the call for candidates had already launched, and candidate presentations and questions were invited.

I think there's a case to be made for a delay of a couple months. Many people don't have time for an election right now.

Normally, the schedule would be constrained by the fact that the election needs to happen early enough for the events at Wikimania, but that's cancelled this year, and strictly speaking the last election's appointments last "until September 1, 2020 or until the Board appoints a replacement for that seat, whichever comes first", so as long as the delay isn't more than three months, there's still time to have a delayed election and not have a gap between terms. --Yair rand (talk) 17:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Yair rand, planning for the election have been temporarily put on hold the last few weeks due to COVID-19. As you stated, the normal schedule have the election in time for those elected to go to Wikimania, but as the conference have been cancelled we no longer have to work to that. As the election schedule haven't yet been announced, there's nothing for us to formally postpone. Once things get moving again, appopriate date for the election will be decided and an announcement will be made. -- KTC (talk) 09:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Dear KTC, any update? –SJ talk  10:01, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Sj (talk · contribs). I don't have any new information. Speculating entirely personally, given the delay was COVID-19, and the situation in the US haven't really improved, I wouldn't expect any changes until next year. -- KTC (talk) 10:05, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

That's surprising -- the unexpected rise of the pandemic was a plausible reason to put off an election, but its continuation for another year doesn't feel like a reason to stop activity normally carried out online. Can we get an official update on the current expected timeline? –SJ talk  00:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Just to note that I have asked for possible update. -- KTC (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi KTC, do we have an ETA for the update? Thanks, Levivich (talk) 05:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi all. Apology both on behalf of myself and the board for the delay in response. I received a response from the board over the weekend. It is the conclusion of the board that the foundation is not currently able to proceed with the elections, and is aiming for a date in Spring. More information will be available after their December board meeting. Regards -- KTC (talk) 18:49, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

What I do not quite understand: The whole world, or at least big parts, learnt in the past seven months that many things that have always relied on RL interaction can be done online. In the meantime Wikimedia, notabene an online community, is unable or unwilling to prepare a vote which has always been online. → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 13:34, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree, this is an online community, votes and elections are done online since they were done, I fail to see a reason not to go ahead with it. I think it's just a straw-man, but I'd like to know the real reasons for this delay. Covid-19 is absolutely no excuse for it. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:06, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Pinging here as well: @AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, KTC, Mardetanha, Masssly, Matanya, ProtoplasmaKid, and Ruslik0:
Spring is coming nearer, and you still have done nothing at all. This here is a completely online business, so Corona is absolutely no reason at all for any postponing or delay. In other words: The whole postponing never ever had any legitimacy. You said something about spring, and spring starts next month. The whole election process will take at least a few months, from asking for candidates, over interviewing them here on Meta, vetting them legally by the WMF, and finally starting the election process itself, that will take as well quite some time. So if "this spring" should really mean something, you should start asap with the long overdue election process. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 12:47, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Next ping: @AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, KTC, Mardetanha, Masssly, Matanya, ProtoplasmaKid, and Ruslik0:
Spring has already started, and still nothing has happened, still the committee doesn't do anything in the direction it is supposed to work, and supposed to do so since over a year now. The whole board doesn't have any legitimacy any more, nobody< is properly vetted by the only instance possible to do any proper vetting, the communities. It's just a self-appointed entity, thus without any real legitimacy. Whern will you finally start doing your work? Why do you work so hartd against the community, i.e. the whole Wikiverse (the WMF is nothing without the community, it's only reason to exist is to help the community, it has no right to exist on its own). Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) Hold the election 06:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Voting System

In 2008, 2009 and 2011, the Schulze method, a preferential voting method, was used for the Wikimedia Foundation elections. So the SecurePoll modules to run an election with the Schulze method are already available.

In so far as three seats have to be filled this year, I would like to ask whether we could go back to the Schulze method this year (instead of using a Support/Neutral/Oppose system).

I mean: A voter might want to say something like "I support candidate A and candidate B. If both candidates could be elected, then both candidates should be elected. But if only one of these two candidates can be elected, the seat should go to candidate A rather than to candidate B." Markus Schulze (talk) 15:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• ++ I believe Schulze is broadly considered to have better outcomes across a range of election types. –SJ talk  15:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
• If this is used, we need to fix the UI difficulties that have been present in earlier Schulze-method Board elections, including the problem that there was an option to leave rankings "blank" (which was treated as lowest preference, unbeknownst to some voters). Perhaps we could use a variant of User:Ladsgroup's voting script? --Yair rand (talk) 22:54, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

  We actually use Schulze method in Persian Wikipedia for its ArbCom and I'm strongly against using it and even made an RFC to remove it (while unsuccessful). Some of my reasoning are specific to Persian Wikipedia but one point that is relevant here is that Schulze is one-winner voting method and it's not designed to be used for electing committees and groups of people (while you still can use it for that). The gadget I built is for electing new mediawiki logo in which it has only one winner. There are other methods like Meek (last time I heard but haven't done much research on them) that are designed for choosing group of people but I know that none of them are implemented in mw:Extension:SecurePoll Amir (talk) 23:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

  Interesting. Perhaps we could ask some voting designers for an update on options for selecting groups. –SJ talk  03:26, 4 October 2020 (UTC)