Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022

Analysis committee

The selection process to form the Analysis Committee will be defined by the affiliates, with support of the Elections Committee and the Movement Strategy and Governance team as needed. - is that even feasible? In the CEE region right now we have a CEE Hub grant application to manage until mid-May as well as CEE Spring running and the biggest war in Europe in the last 70 years to handle on the side. I personally don't see how this selection process would work without the WMF doing this mostly by itself. Braveheart (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Braveheart, Thanks for bringing this up. Certainly the Movement Strategy and Governance team is happy to support regions and affiliates based upon their individual needs. Let me ping the facilitators supporting this region. They have more context and experience. They can probably answer your concern better than I can. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you Braveheart. I helped organise our "selector" process for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee for our region because I felt that this added value. In this case I am not sure why you would mobilize all the affiliates to create this analysis committee (it might be a good idea to first check how many suitable people want to volunteer for this at all?). If there is a need for this committee the Foundation could probably put this together without creating a whole process around it. This is also based on the belief that the final popular vote will seriously take into account the advice of the analysis committee. Considering the fact that the committee will not share the details of its analysis but rather translate those into more general ratings, and the fact that we have a community that lives for details... the question is how much impact this analysis committe has ( my guess is that the final step will probably for a large part turn into a "who edited most on which project" competition). Is there really no better proces to increase the diversity on the Wikimedia Board? Jan-Bart (talk) 07:56, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that there has been no contact with the regional facilitators (mentioned above by Jackie) in the meantime. Adding to that the fact that the CEE Hub grant proposal was moved from the grants team to the strategy team without us having any say in this, there is no time left for a complex process like this. Braveheart (talk) 15:28, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Braveheart,

thank you for raising this question. All Wikimedia affiliates in the CEE region have been informed by email or Telegram about this process. We would like to let you know that we have set up a coordination page for CEE affiliates last week to help them select a representative for the Analysis Committee. Furthermore, the affiliates are free to come up with their own time-saving solutions and use the available coordination page as a helpful resource to come to a decision to nominate a representative from the CEE region.

You may recall that affiliates from the CEE region completed a similar decision-making process in October 2021 (the MCDC "selection" committee). The difference here is that this committee will not make any selection, only evaluate candidates based on specific criteria provided to them by the Board of Trustees. Their ratings will be available for the affiliates' and communities' during the voting period.

The previous method used by CEE affiliates to choose their selector was a nomination period (during which one CEE community member nominated themselves), followed by a short endorsement period by the affiliates. You are free to use this method or choose another, that would feel more appropriate for you.

Please contact Aida, Branimir or myself (here, on talk pages or via the Telegram) if you have any questions. MNadzikiewicz (WMF) (talk) 06:26, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

The MCDC selection process is clearly way more important, so offering support where none was asked wasn't going to solve the underlying problems. Braveheart (talk) 09:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm also deeply confused by this, more by the approach of centrally deciding on new electoral bodies and asking staff to rally interest and participation. That's the opposite of how most wiki governance works, and in this case as Jan-Bart and Braveheart noted, seems like +++ work on a short timeline, for ??? benefit. It would have been just as fine and less confusing, for instance, to delegate quick assessments (according to the standards they themselves had set) to the election committee, and to make that committee more substantial / representative as desired. –SJ talk  14:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Also: this analysis work seems to involve facilitation by the whole 16-person movement-strategy team, which I thought was temporary... If that is becoming a permanent facilitation network, it's worth having a Meta discussion about how the existence of such a group (especially if its work is primarily implementing and facilitating a handful of elaborate WMF-defined processes) affects movement governance and leadership. Often the process of self-coordination and self-facilitation is practically how our communities govern themselves, and how people get experience in governance + community organization and build lasting community networks. @Jackiekoerner: interested to hear your thoughts :) –SJ talk  15:30, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Opinion

Hello, every time an election is called for, it is decided by the absolute majority of large communities. With only two seats without a ceiling on the votes of large communities and limiting candidacy, for example to marginalized communities (it was easy to determine this condition), the probability of a representative of these communities winning is very small. Greetings Nehaoua (talk) 23:37, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Nehaoua! Thanks for sharing this. The Board of Trustees created a process for this year's election to encourage opportunities for candidates outside of larger communities. The Movement Strategy and Governance team is reaching out to communities to encourage people to take part in the elections. You can read a bit more about the Movement Strategy and Governance efforts: Election Volunteers, Statistics from the 2021 Board of Trustees election, and the Post-Analysis of the 2021 Board of Trustees election.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions to increase the diversity of voters. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 06:11, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Nehaoua: this is a fine point. With a larger board we should strongly consider it. As a complementary idea, perhaps one or two community-observer seats could be added + appointed by the Board, to participate in Board discussions, and directly address gaps in who is at the table. This is not a new idea -- WMF has had Board visitors/observers in the past, mainly a representative from the Sloan Foundation which has supported the WMF for many years. I recall a number of occasions where their advice and input was extremely helpful. More recently this is done one meeting at a time (though nothing says the Board couldn't choose to invite someone for a year's worth of meetings). But there have rarely been similar observers from the communities. –SJ talk  14:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Hola a todos soy nuevo aqui y quisiera saber yo tambien si como nuevo miembro puedo ver sus temas a discutir para hacer mas facil mi comprension en este nuevo fesafio para mi.gracias. Maquinacristobal (talk) 17:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Template:Board Elections 2022 Nav – None community feedback?

None community feedback? ✍️ Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 17:51, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@Dušan Kreheľ - What form of feedback are you waiting for? And on what topic? Kaganer (talk) 08:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kaganer: Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Stats/Community:Feedback. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 19:42, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@Dušan Kreheľ - Creation of this subpage was announced or welcomed by Election Committee? Why you don't using one from regular talkpages? Kaganer (talk) 19:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

No, because the title content a text "Community:". The page should be almost concise, clear and to the point. In other discussion pages, various things are addressed with different weights and timeliness. As the example: Movement Charter/Drafting Committee/Elections/Feedback. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 20:04, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok. In my opinion, You choose inappropriate place and inappropriate form for your feedback. Why /Stats/* ? Why ":"?
Also your proposal is unclear. I could not understand what and where to add or change, in your opinion.
Please copy your proposal here; then separate subpage will be deleted. Kaganer (talk) 22:31, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

/Stats/ - Uff, bad created the title. Right is with none /Stats/.

Page will be deleted. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 07:21, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

The page was been moved into my user namespace and the last page localization was been deleted. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 08:07, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Messages of support?

Hi all, I see that @Legoktm: is receiving support messages for their candidacy at Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Candidates/Kunal Mehta, so far from @The other Kiwix guy, Ladsgroup, Addshore, Enterprisey, and Barkeep49:. I guess this is because they have advertised their candidacy somewhere and have asked for endorsement? Should we other candidates also do the same? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how others found there way there, but his candidacy was hardly advertised to me (though I was asked to do it). Having worked with Lego before, I expressed my happiness with his candidacy at which point he asked if I might be willing to say so on wiki. As statements of support are pretty standard in US elections (for which I have a great deal of familiarity) and were something I did when I ran for a position on enwiki, I was happy to do so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

To note, I wasn't asked by Legoktm (or anyone else) to leave my comment there. I'd hope that, given the difficulties with community-adjacent processes essentially curating who the community can vote on, people will find other ways to let their views and support be known. This is one of those ways. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi! I've been roughly going about the same process as the last time I ran for the Board. Some of the comments are from people I've worked with enough that I consider them personal friends, or people who expressed their support either publicly or privately, and I asked them if they'd be willing to leave a comment on the talk page so all those expressions would be in one place. I have been careful not to link the talk page from my statement to avoid running afoul of the rule which prevents linking to "to lists of endorsements", though my understanding is that's primarily to avoid slate-type voting.

I do not believe there is any prohibition against advertising ones' candidacy (please correct me if I'm wrong!!), though I haven't actually gotten around to that because of IRL issues besides a quick toot when I first nominated myself and discussion on the offline-l list (where all candidates were invited to discuss themselves). Legoktm (talk) 00:58, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

For the record, my message was initially posted on offline-l in response the election process announcement stating that the UG would have to pick a candidate. Both @Kelson and I agreed we should support Kunal and said this much without him having to ask for it. The other Kiwix guy (talk) 07:35, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Analysis committee ratings

Thank you for publishing the analysis committee's rubric, I understand the page currently says, "The details of the evaluation of each candidate will not be shared". However, will candidates be able to see their own rating to verify it's correct? Thanks. Legoktm (talk) 05:07, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Legoktm! Thanks for asking this question. The Analysis Committee gathered together to rate the candidates using the rubric. The rating process was done by a committee of 7 people. This is a subjective process, and I am not precisely sure how the candidates could verify their rating. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The committee decided to create a rubric, so it would seem they believe their ratings are in some sense objective. Given that the committee is apparently relying entirely on the candidates' statements to assess them, there is considerable room for error by the committee, and candidates should have the opportunity to point out such errors to the committee and request reevaluation.

Ordinarily would be less of a problem, because candidates would at least be able to explain to the affiliates why the rankings are wrong, but the decision not to release the full rankings before the affiliates have voted has eliminated that option as well. Emufarmers (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF): I can now see that I got a "silver" rating despite getting the third-highest overall score. I don't really understand the rubric though, my reading/interpretation was that you would have needed a 19 in overall score to get the gold rating, yet three candidates who didn't score that high did. Legoktm (talk) 20:57, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Legoktm! It looks like there was an error with the rating information sent out to the Affiliate Representatives. The corrected information will be sent to the Affiliate Representatives today. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

In fact, the corrected ratings were not sent out until July 6. To clarify the sequence of events for anyone reading:

• A candidate suggested on June 18 that candidates should be allowed to see their own ratings in case they were incorrect
• The committee rejected this suggestion (I assume it was conveyed to them)
• The committee sent out incorrect ratings in secret on June 20
• Because the ratings were secret, nobody was able to report that they were obviously incorrect before the voting started
• A candidate reported that the ratings were incorrect on July 2
• The committee failed to correct the ratings until July 6, when the selection process was nearly half over

Emufarmers (talk) 01:03, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF) - you weren't pinged on the above so just looping you in. This would be a pretty significant flaw and that's assuming that either no affiliate rep voted (or determined their vote) in the timeband where the detail was incorrect or that every rep who did vote confirmed their vote afterwards. If that's not the case, the magnitude of the issue is quite a lot greater.

Are we confident that all the reps who voted in that period did indeed confirm their votes and that it's not caused any incorrect participation? Who is verifying such? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:57, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, to you both Emufarmers and Nosebagbear! First let me clarify about the process. The Movement Strategy and Governance team compiled the ratings of all the Analysis Committee members and there was an error on the spreadsheet. A member of the Analysis Committee, who was also a voter in the Affiliate Selection process, suggested that the ratings didn't seem correct so the facilitators supporting the Analysis Committee looked into the calculations. The error happened because there was a change in how the ratings were calculated. The change was instead of one overall rating, the Analysis Committee asked for more nuance to be shown in the ratings. The corrected ratings were sent out as soon as the calculations were reviewed, corrected, and reviewed again several more times. The correction email sent directly to affiliate voters also included information about recasting the vote if preferred. As this information was sent to all affiliate representatives, affiliate representatives have the information they need to recast their votes should they need to do so. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Late June - The Analysis Committee ratings will be shared with Affiliate Representatives via email

Are these ratings published on wiki and publicly available?

Bluerasberry (talk) 14:26, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bluerasberry, The Analysis Committee ratings will be published on Meta-wiki after the completion of the Affiliate Voting period. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:14, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I thought that these ratings where supposed to go to affiliate groups so that those voting stakeholders could use them in the affiliate election which is happening right now, and ending in 3 days.

I do not see evidence that these ratings are reaching affiliate groups. I am not sure what is happening or supposed to be happening, but I though those ratings were supposed to inform how affiliates cast their votes. The affiliate representatives are volunteers and there is no system in place for them to distribute media like this to voting stakeholders, especially if the context is supposed to be that these guides are private and not published. Wiki community members are accustomed to transparency, and it is not clear to me why ratings are not published and why these ratings are supposed to be secure and private media. We hardly have anything private in the movement. I think this voting guide is supposed to be private, but I am not clear on why that is.

My expectation is that the inaccessibility of analysis committee ratings means that they are unlikely to be a factor in how affiliates vote. Bluerasberry (talk) 11:36, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, the ratings were sent out in secret to affiliate representatives; I don't know if affiliates that chose a representative later got anything. There is a copy of the new and old ratings in this thread. (Unfortunately, the tabular formatting doesn't really come through on that archive.)

Like you, I'm not sure why anyone is treating these ratings as a secret. As you say, if the ratings are intended to help affiliates vote, obviously they need to be distributed to all affiliate members (and I would hope there's more than one affiliate that still conducts its business publicly!). Emufarmers (talk) 17:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Hey Bluerasberry and Emufarmers, Thanks for sharing your concerns above. Regarding the affiliate representatives who were included in the process later, yes, they did receive the information. One person is coordinating the engagement with affiliate representatives and ensuring they are able to vote and receive the needed information.

The Analysis Committee ratings were intended to be shared with the affiliate representatives so they could make their decisions. By doing this, the hope was to provide the affiliates with the information and shield the candidates from some public discussion of their ratings, keeping equity in mind. Public scrutiny based upon identity and personal experience can feel uncomfortable. Affiliate representatives did share the rating information with their affiliate membership. The Elections Committee said that was alright and only asked that the ratings just not be published on-wiki until after the affiliate selection.

These ratings will be published after the results of the Affiliate Selection are announced. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I dispute that affiliate representatives have acted as you described, and even that such a complicated process is reasonable to expect of volunteers. Affiliate representatives are volunteers and almost none of them have a plan, the technology, or the social system to be able to get this information to the community stakeholders who need to make the decisions. If these ratings are going out, then the evidence would be mailing lists because that is how volunteers send information to the members of these voting organizations. I am not seeing either general mailing lists or private governance mailing lists sending this out. The Wikimedia community is not demonstrating consent to this election process. "Consent" is not a lack of protest or objection; it is voluntary and proactive participation and affirmation. I am not seeing indication from volunteers that they understand how the WMF staff's new election design is supposed to work or that they are able to carry this out.

There is a major disconnect in the expectations of the paid WMF staff who designed this system and the volunteers who have to use it. I do not see awareness among WMF staff of the large labor and infrastructure demands that the WMF is making on community. Also many community members would be afraid to tell you this because they do not want you to think they are disorganized, and community groups who communicate a lack of understanding to the WMF experience negative consequences. Like for example, these are complicated instructions, we have 100+ community organizations who are supposed to follow them, and I see little public indication that any of the tens of thousands of stakeholders have any questions about this. The talk page here is surprisingly absent of activity.

The design of the election should be in Wikimedia community control. There is a lot of pressure from paid staff in this election process, and paid staff do not understand what it is like to be a Wikimedia community member volunteering so much time on this short schedule with challenging instructions. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

July 1, 2022 – July 15, 2022 - Affiliate voting period to shortlist candidates.

Are the instructions for affiliate voting published on wiki and publicly available?

Bluerasberry (talk) 14:27, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Bluerasberry, The voting instructions were emailed to the Affiliate Representatives directly. Here is what was sent:

Dear Affiliate Representative,

Now is the time to vote in the 2022 Board of Trustees election. You may do so now until 15 July at 23:59 UTC.

Affiliate Representatives will vote to select 6 of the 12 candidates to continue on to the Board of Trustees Community Voting period.

Read about the 2022 Board of Trustees candidates, candidates’ answers to questions proposed by Affiliate Representatives, and Single Transferable Vote method.

Please visit this link to vote using SecurePoll. For more information, please visit the 2022 Board of Trustees page on Meta-wiki or email me with any additional questions.

<Facilitator>

Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

What about the affiliates that didn't select a representative in May/June? The affiliate participation page has no info. Emufarmers (talk) 23:50, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Emufarmers, Please see my response just above. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Here are the ratings

Emu linked to these above. I do not know how to make sense of them but such as they are, I think this is the best that we have to share.

Name Username Wikimedia Background Sought Skills Regional Experience Human Rights and Under-representation Overall Average Rating from overall avg Rating from avg of the nine criteria
Shani Evenstein Sigalov Esh77 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Esh77> 21 18.5 17.5 19.5 19.13 Gold Gold
Farah Mustaklem Fjmustak <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fjmustak> 20 16.5 18.5 17.5 18.13 Silver Gold
Kunal Mehta Legoktm <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Legoktm> 21 17.3 14.0 17.0 17.31 Silver Gold
Mike Peel Mike Peel <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel> 21 17.0 18.5 12.5 17.25 Silver Gold
Michal Buczyński Aegis Maelstrom <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aegis_Maelstrom> 21 17.5 13.0 16.0 16.88 Silver Gold
Tobechukwu Precious Friday Tochiprecious <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tochiprecious> 19 13.5 18.5 15.5 16.63 Silver Gold
Joris Darlington Quarshie Joris Darlington Quarshie <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Joris_Darlington_Quarshie> 16 14.5 17.5 17.0 16.25 Silver Gold
Egbe Eugene Agbor Eugene233 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eugene233> 18 13.3 19.0 14.5 16.19 Silver Gold
Lionel Sheepmans Lionel Scheepmans <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lionel_Scheepmans> 21 13.0 13.0 14.0 15.25 Silver Silver
Gilbert Ndihokubwayo Gilbert Ndihokubwayo <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gilbert_Ndihokubwayo> 15 12.0 17.5 15.0 14.88 Silver Silver
Gina Bennett Redwidgeon <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Redwidgeon> 16 11.0 11.0 13.5 12.88 Silver Silver
Abderamane Abakar Brahim Abakar B <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Abakar_B> 12 10.5 14.5 11.5 12.13 Silver Silver

Bluerasberry (talk) 17:32, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to the wonders of VisualEditor, I was able to pull a properly formatted copy out of my email. :)

Name	Username	Wikimedia Background	Sought Skills	Regional Experience	Human Rights and underrepresentation	Overall Average	Rating from overall avg	Rating from avg of the nine criteria
Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Esh77	21	18.5	17.5	19.5	19.13	Gold	Gold
Farah Mustaklem	Fjmustak	20	16.5	18.5	17.5	18.13	Silver	Gold
Kunal Mehta	Legoktm	21	17.3	14.0	17.0	17.31	Silver	Gold
Mike Peel	Mike Peel	21	17.0	18.5	12.5	17.25	Silver	Gold
Michal Buczyński	Aegis Maelstrom	21	17.5	13.0	16.0	16.88	Silver	Gold
Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Tochiprecious	19	13.5	18.5	15.5	16.63	Silver	Gold
Joris Darlington Quarshie	Joris Darlington Quarshie	16	14.5	17.5	17.0	16.25	Silver	Gold
Egbe Eugene Agbor	Eugene233	18	13.3	19.0	14.5	16.19	Silver	Gold
Lionel Sheepmans	Lionel Scheepmans	21	13.0	13.0	14.0	15.25	Silver	Silver
Gilbert Ndihokubwayo	Gilbert Ndihokubwayo	15	12.0	17.5	15.0	14.88	Silver	Silver
Gina Bennett	Redwidgeon	16	11.0	11.0	13.5	12.88	Silver	Silver
Abderamane Abakar Brahim	Abakar B	12	10.5	14.5	11.5	12.13	Silver	Silver

Emufarmers (talk) 19:23, 12 July 2022 (UTC);
Sortabled, design of the table header: ✍️ Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Voting compass statements wanted now

Add yours before 20 July 2022 at

• Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Election Compass/Statements

Bluerasberry (talk) 20:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Where is their ranking poll which was supposed to start yesterday? I'm wondering if we even need one. Even the full 43 Likert questions shouldn't take more than a couple hours at worst, although I wouldn't be opposed to staff or the committee eliminating the duplicates and unworkably ambiguous. But limiting to just 15 seems pointless and wasteful of potentially valuable information. New4Q (talk) 11:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi New4Q, Thanks for participating in this. There was a delayed start to the voting because more time was needed to combine and clarify statements. You can vote on which statements you'd like to see included in the Election Compass. You can endorse the statements by clicking the "Upvote this statement" box below each statement you wish to see in the Election Compass. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Here, for what it's worth, is a diff of the work done: [1]. A few proposals were dropped – a statement about Abstract Wikipedia, another about moving from CC BY-SA 3.0 to 4.0, one about advocating for the Global South, one about the Board conducting more of its business on-wiki, and another about offering office hours (which did seem redundant, as such office hours are offered already).

Still, it would have been nice for someone to have informed the community that there was going to be a delay a few days ago, or for someone to say "Sorry." --Andreas JN466 19:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Those do not seem objectionable to me. I am certain that I would love to hang out with anyone who has a strong opinion on whether or not approval of the CC-BY-SA transition from version 3 to 4 should be a qualification for the Board. My apologies to whomever proposed that one. New4Q (talk) 04:59, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I struggle to understand why the Abstract Wikipedia question was dropped. It had already been clarified by Cornelius on the page, it was not combined with any other question, and other questions of the same form were allowed. Because of the edit summary that was used, I am not even sure whether the decision to delete questions without explanation was made by the elections committee or by the MSG facilitators, or perhaps whether this question was mistakenly lost in the reorganization. Emufarmers (talk) 18:54, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I would very much like to know this as well. Was the removal of my question about Abstract Wikipedia intentional? Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 18:57, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Since the voting only lasted through August 3, this was unfortunately going to be a fait accompli unless we got an immediate response. Nevertheless, I do not understand why, after two weeks, nobody is willing to say whether a question was removed intentionally or accidentally. Emufarmers (talk) 22:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Improving voting instructions

The linked voting instructions on Wikimedia Foundation elections/Single Transferable Vote explains how votes are tabulated, but doesn't clearly explain how to strategically vote. The instructions from last year at Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Voting#Voting_Example_and_Best_Practices are really good in comparison, as it clearly states that you should not rank candidates you don't support. I would suggest that the 2021 instructions are copied over to this year's instructions.

I mainly bring this up as the offline group nearly made this mistake, but was able to fix it in time. Whenever the vote data is released, we'll see how many affiliates ranked all the candidates (hopefully none!). Legoktm (talk) 19:21, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@Legoktm: As candidates, we shouldn't interfere with voting like this. Mike Peel (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Promoting understanding of how STV works, and making note of potential issues around it, is not interference. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 21:53, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

The instructions and recommendations from WMF listed above are easy to follow when the vote is being cast by a single person. That person can fully decide on their own who they want to list or not list and how to rank them. The situation is a bit different when the vote is cast as the result of several people giving an opinion. The end result of the collective vote is that ALL candidates are ranked, and some of them have the same ranking. There is no such thing as a black and white decision as to how many should end up being listed and how many should not. As such, I absolutely recuse the idea that the first cast was a « mistake » that required « fixing ». I took the responsibility of interpreting the votes of the members to decide of a final list, that seems to be a fair representation of the people opinions. I could have chosen to list only 1 or 3, or 6 or 12, and none of those decisions would have been a mistake. That would have been strategies, but not mistakes. Casting a very small number of candidates may have the benefit of pushing more your favorites (UG benefits), but casting more votes help build a more consensual decision (collective benefit) Anthere (talk) 00:03, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

In some cases user groups may have unanimous decisions on listing only a handful of candidates. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 16:43, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the relevant page sat as a draft all this time, and has now (after the voting has started) been redirected to a page that gives misleading advice like "Starting from the top, the voter will begin ranking candidates they consider most suitable to be elected. Candidates that the voter believes are least suitable should be marked toward the bottom of their list." It (and the actual SecurePoll voting page) also links to this page about STV calculations for some reason; I have trouble imagining any voter will find that page helpful.

Given that virtually everything on the voting information page from last year remains valid and helpful, I'm not sure why it wasn't simply copied over. Emufarmers (talk) 16:15, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Right after the voting started, I went ahead and tried to incorporate the point about not ranking candidates that you consider unsuitable. However, by chance I have come across this (via this), and now I am doubtful that this was the right move. If the advice on that page was bad, then I can now understand why it wasn't copied over!

I'm not going to revert myself at this point, but I'm leaving a note here for future reference. Emufarmers (talk) 03:25, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

How do you want upvotes?

Just comments below the final WMF team comment? Or on the talk page? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:22, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Nosebagbear! Thanks for asking this question. You can vote on which statements you'd like to see included in the Election Compass. You can endorse the statements by clicking the "Upvote this statement" box below each statement you wish to see in the Election Compass. I believe this should add your signature to each statement as an endorsement. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Results overview

The upvotes for each proposed Election Compass statement appear on a separate subpage, e.g.: Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Election Compass/Statements/1. So, short of adding all those pages to one's watchlist, it's a bit hard to keep an overview.

I propose we create a section below where all these individual pages are transcluded.

Any objections? --Andreas JN466 20:58, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

See User:Jayen466/Election Compass Upvotes. --Andreas JN466 21:46, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Not really "upvotes"

Normally with an upvote a statement would rise in the order as more people vote for it. As this is not the behavior of this page, is upvote actually the right word? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Came here to say this after "upvoting" at least one statement that I disagree with. Would recommend replacing "upvote this statement" (which means "I agree with this statement") with ~"I would like to see where candidates stand on this". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@DBarthel (WMF), JKoerner (WMF), MPossoupe (WMF), and CKibelka (WMF): — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:42, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi there, Barkeep49 and Rhododendrites! Thanks for participating in the process. On the Election Compass page is says, "...community members can upvote the statements they see as the most differentiating and therefore helpful to learn from the candidates about them." I am not sure about moving statements up or down on the page as I have not been a participant in this process of upvoting on Meta-wiki before. I know some websites do move statements up and down, and others just show a symbol denoting votes. Is there something that would make this process more clear? Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, yes, I won't speak for Barkeep, but it's probably safe to assume we've read the instructions. :) IMO it's generally not ideal when the big, colorful, attention-getting thing that people interact with means something completely different when separated from the instructions (on a different page entirely, even -- the text at the top of the statements page is still about proposing statements), if at all avoidable. This seems avoidable is all. For the purpose of "upvoting", the statements page has other confusing language, too. Immediately above the upvoting buttons you're instructed to "vote on your favourite statements" -- not "statements you want to see candidates' positions on", but "your favorite statements". Above that, among the language about proposing statements, it says e.g. The tool asks you to position yourself to these statements. Asks you to position yourself. I'm familiar with the tool it's talking about, but someone who isn't could assume it's referring to the upvoting tool. That one's relatively minor compared to the others, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Update: Edited one of them. I would've rewritten the instructions to be about "upvoting" rather than proposing statements, but I'm not confident enough that I won't break the translation formatting. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:36, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry, a clarification. By "came here to say this" I was only talking about the header (the use of the term, not the reordering part). Sorry for that bit of confusion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Rhododendrites, Thanks for your feedback and edit. I can see which additional edits can be made to clarify the process a bit better. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

When is the "Meet the Candidate” session?

@JKoerner (WMF): What is the date of this session - and what is the process going to be?

Given that ElectCom imposed such aggressive restrictions on candidates communicating with the people who would like them to answer questions, the comparative importance of such outlets that do remain become ever higher.

Has ElectCom yet responded to the query raised by @Emufarmers: about why the rules were only implemented well into the process and why certain phrasings were used (visible at this section and at the bottom of the section above?

While I'm confident that I'd have caught any response on-wiki, thus far the single ElectCom direct reply I'm aware of was in one of the email lists, which I only sporadically observe. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:12, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: at the most recent Conversation with Trustees, we were informed that the live "Meet the Candidate" sessions had been scrapped, and instead we would be recording video responses to the six most endorsed questions. I asked ElectCom if we could hold our own office hours anyways, and was told I was not allowed to do so (though it's not 100% clear to me they fully understood my request). Legoktm (talk) 22:56, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF) - a few questions that arise from that answer by Legoktm:

1. When did this make it into the ElectCom documentation? As far as I can tell there were only 5 days between the first addition and the deadline - and it only made it onto the front page a couple of hours before it closed because I added something to encourage endorsements.
2. When did the decision get made to change from an actual hustings?
3. What steps were utilised to encourage individuals to submit questions, across different projects/languages?
4. As the guideline specified Attend Board of Trustees election-oriented community meet-ups without prior approval from the Elections Committee. [my stress] 'not "We have decided to not allow IRC events or private office hours" are these not contradictory? The change would seem to require that either ElectCom never intended to grant that approval or that ElectCom, after already having changed the rules mid-election without prior discussion has done so again (without a change to the listed guidelines).
5. The last was just a follow-up to a candidate's question - the one at the bottom of this section.

The BGC specifically concurred pre-election that non-responsiveness by ElectCom and non-transparency were indeed both issues. While I appreciate your personal efforts both last year and this year, I'm, bluntly, saddened that the same issues appear to be reoccurring. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:19, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Carlojoseph14 given the reply you've just made on the guidelines page, I'm pinging you to this one as well. Questions 1-3 should be very quick, but for an direct ElectCom answer, Q4 is the one that I'd prefer a priority answer to. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:29, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for the late response, was away because of work. Hi Nosebagbear, I’ll share the Elections Committee responses to your questions in number order:

1. The change from Meet the Candidate sessions to the candidate videos was rather quick. After further thought, we tried to better acknowledge the issues involved with the sessions last year - there was inequity because of language barriers and opportunities of participation due to the time demand - hours and various time zones. This video solution seemed like a compromise for this election. We admit it is not a perfect solution, but certainly provides more balance of time expectations for both candidates and voters.
2. The decision was made in about a week after some asynchronous discussions between the Board Selection Task Force and the Elections Committee. Ultimately we decided this was the best solution for this time.
3. The Movement Strategy and Governance team made a call to submit questions. The link about the community questions was also in the announcement of the 6 shortlisted candidates. That was sent out via Wikimedia-l and posted in various channels.
4. It is the Elections Committee’s intention to oversee the election and support equity in the process. If all candidates were able to host office hours and reached out to the Elections Committee about it, the Elections Committee would be open to discussing office hours. What we could not approve was one candidate hosting their own office hour or one candidate’s participation in a community podcast by themselves. Those actions imbalance the election processes when some candidates are able to engage with the community more than others. While it would obviously be better for all of us if the guidelines could anticipate all possible situations that may emerge in an election, they don’t, and the Elections Committee must sometimes make decisions or clarifications of our intent during the elections process.

It’s understandable that community members want to engage with the candidates. We are trying to find a reasonable balance of engagement to not privilege the candidates who have more free time. Carlojoseph14 (talk) 05:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

@Carlojoseph14: Your statement is entirely inconsistent with everything the election committee has done until now. Every time the committee changes the rules or adjusts the deadlines, it only disadvantages those of us with less time. I rearranged my weekend and canceled plans so I'd be able to get my videos filmed in time. But when a candidate asked, the deadline was extended, burning my time. I finished cutting down my Election Compass statements to 300 characters, only to be told that another candidate had asked and they would be extend to 500, again, burning my time. Knowing that there would be a live "Meet the Candidates" session, I spent time preparing for it, only to be told that they were cancelled and replaced with videos. I only asked for office hours to recoup my time that otherwise, is entirely wasted (the Election Committee has still not responded to my email on this subject btw Update: the committee intended to reply on August 2nd, I was just accidentally left of the To list. Thanks to Jackie for sending me a copy just now).

Now I'm reading that when the Election Committee told me that it was banning IRC events (but not Telegram, Discord, Matrix, etc.) and denying me from holding my own office hour, that's not actually what it meant. Rather I had to ask the other 5 candidates, and if they were on board, we could've done it.

Here is my ask to the committee: publish any more secret rules that the committee apparently has (e.g. "don't participate in a community podcast by yourself"), and then stop changing the rules and stop changing the process. If the committee really cares about equity it would stop making decisions that clearly benefit some candidates over others. Legoktm (talk) 22:40, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Interim (very unofficial) count

Utilising the very helpful User:Jayen466/Election Compass Upvotes above, I've made an interim table. It is done just by me manually counting, and is based off things at 12.30UTC 2nd August.

The current threshold is 15 endorsements, which makes it very, very, close at the boundary. We have 2 statements with exactly that many, 3 only included by 1-2 "spare" endorsements, and 4 only needing 1-2 more. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:59, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Just to clarify: We aka the Election Committee take the top 15 statements, not those with at least 15 endorsements (see: We would like to ask you to propose these statements (until Wednesday, July 20) and then have a quick upvoting session on them (from July 25 to August 3), to select 15 of these statements. ) The number of statements needs to be fixed at 15 because of workload for candidates and translators. Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 15:06, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I highly recommend striking the endorsements by New4Q, who is a community and WMF-banned editor. Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 16:26, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint. Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 00:33, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@CKibelka (WMF): When is the end of the vote? At 3 August AoE. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Cornelius is of course correct - it just so happened that when I made the table, counting down 15 got us to 2 statements that had 15 endorsements. I suspect, though don't know, that the threshold is probably slightly higher by now Nosebagbear (talk) 00:08, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@Dušan Kreheľ Midnight UTC (time stamp). Cornelius Kibelka (WMF) (talk to me) 00:33, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Statement	Number of endorsements as of 1230 UTC 2nd Aug
1	30
2	15
3	10
4	21
5	19
6	32
7	12
8	14
9	10
10	18
11	18
12	8
13	20
14	5
15	7
16	13
17	5
18	7
19	17
20	14
21	5
22	7
23	31
24	6
25	10
26	17
27	16
28	9
29	23
30	9
31	22
32	14
33	15
34	4
35	10

Hey all, I'm writing here to note the voting for the Election Compass statements is open until August 3 at 11:59 pm UTC. Once the voting closes, I will count the votes and share with the Elections Committee for review. As recommended above by Vermont I will not be counting the votes of New4Q as that account was identified to be an account operated by a community and Wikimedia Foundation-banned contributor. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The unofficial result of the user selected statements

Rank	Votes	Question	The last user vote
# 1	41	1. The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	2022-08-03 21:08:50 UTC
# 2	40	23. The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	2022-08-03 23:10:52 UTC
# 3	39	6. I am uncomfortable with the way the WMF increasingly assigns itself unilateral authority to make decisions about the Wikimedia projects which then affect the community	2022-08-03 21:09:16 UTC
# 4	31	31. The WMF should continually seek to reduce, rather than expand, its scope of responsibilities, leaving as much as possible to the community's self-organized capacity	2022-08-03 21:11:47 UTC
# 5	29	4. WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	2022-08-03 21:14:46 UTC
# 6	28	29. The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	2022-08-03 21:11:07 UTC
# 7	28	13. The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	2022-08-03 23:09:53 UTC
# 8	27	26. The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	2022-08-03 19:54:09 UTC
# 9	26	10. Future community seats of the Board of Trustees should be filled purely by a contributor (editor, volunteer developer, and so on) vote on all nominees	2022-08-03 21:16:26 UTC
#10	25	5. I am uncomfortable with the way the WMF organization has continuously grown its staff headcount and budget and taken on more and more tasks that are not directly related to the Wikimedia projects and the volunteer communities working on them	2022-08-03 21:15:04 UTC
#11	24	2. Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	2022-08-03 21:14:11 UTC
#12	23	27. Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	2022-08-03 20:36:15 UTC
#13	23	11. The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	2022-08-03 21:16:35 UTC
#14	22	8. The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	2022-08-03 20:35:39 UTC
#15	22	20. The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	2022-08-03 23:50:51 UTC
#16	21	32. The WMF should voluntarily recognize a staff union with proof of support from a majority of eligible unit members	2022-08-03 21:12:20 UTC
#17	20	25. The Wikimedia Foundation should allocate additional resources to research, documentation, and advocacy of real-world policy issues that affect Wikimedia users and Wikimedia projects (for example, issues of access and free expression)	2022-08-03 23:11:29 UTC
#18	18	19. The Wikimedia Foundation should allocate a higher percentage of their resources into tasks related to contributing to the projects	2022-08-03 12:38:34 UTC
#19	16	35. Had I been a member of the Board of Trustees in May 2020, I would have voted in favor of the Brand Project Support resolution	2022-08-03 20:36:52 UTC
#20	16	33. The WMF should get consensus from respective communities before running fundraising banners on their wiki	2022-08-03 21:12:34 UTC
#21	15	16. Wikimedia Foundation projects should compete for Movement funds with projects of other Wikimedia organizations (except for keeping the sites up)	2022-08-03 19:51:28 UTC
#22	15	18. The represented diversity is more important than individual qualifications of members of the Board of Trustees	2022-08-03 20:35:57 UTC
#23	15	7. I am uncomfortable with the way the Wikimedia Foundation serves the interests of Big Tech (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft)	2022-08-03 21:15:38 UTC
#24	13	3. The Wikimedia Foundation does not spend enough money in countries of the "developing world"	2022-08-03 23:16:14 UTC
#25	12	24. Had I been a member of the Board of Trustees at that time, I would have voted in favor of the Wikimedia Enterprise project	2022-08-03 20:36:10 UTC
#26	12	30. The community may recall a selected candidate for any reason	2022-08-03 21:11:25 UTC
#27	11	9. The departures of numerous senior staff members in 2021 indicate a problem at the Wikimedia Foundation	2022-08-02 19:05:35 UTC
#28	11	22. Regional and Thematic Hubs create more unnecessary hierarchies and complex structures in the Wikimedia Movement	2022-08-03 09:06:54 UTC
#29	10	28. The details of the evaluation of each candidate done by the Analysis Committee should be shared with the community	2022-08-02 19:07:18 UTC
#30	9	12. Wikimedia Foundation spending by country must be prominently reported	2022-08-03 19:50:17 UTC
#31	8	21. The "Global Council", recommended in the Movement Strategy recommendations, will not fulfill the goal of equitable representation in global decision-making	2022-08-02 20:30:23 UTC
#32	7	15. Staff of the Wikimedia Foundation should be totally excluded from organizing the Board of Trustee elections	2022-08-02 06:21:39 UTC
#33	7	14. Grantmaking to Wikimedia editors and community affiliates in the Global South should be increased to 5% of gross Wikimedia Foundation annual budget	2022-08-03 12:37:26 UTC
#34	7	17. Regional quotas for grants/funding and participation (e.g. to Wikimania) should be removed	2022-08-03 20:35:52 UTC
#35	6	34. Nowadays, it is practically impossible for Wikimedia user groups to be recognized as a Wikimedia chapter	2022-08-03 20:36:35 UTC

The table is generated with the script. The votes of the user New4Q are skipped because this comment. The source of the statement list is Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Election Compass/Statements.

✍️ Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 00:05, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

16 August or 23 August?

@RamzyM (WMF): I know you are probably busy, but why were the compass results pushed back a week? Was this always meant to be on the 23rd or did something happen that caused a delay? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:13, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

See mailing list announcement of the delay:

"... Several candidates requested an extension of the character limitation on their responses expanding on their positions, and the Elections Committee felt their reasoning was consistent with the goals of a fair and equitable election process. To ensure that the longer statements can be translated in time for the election, the Elections Committee and Board Selection Task Force decided to delay the opening of the Board of Trustees election by one week - a time proposed as ideal by staff working to support the election. Although it is not expected that everyone will want to use the Election Compass to inform their voting decision, the Elections Committee felt it was more appropriate to open the voting period with essential translations for community members across languages to use if they wish to make this important decision. The voting will open on August 23 at 00:00 UTC and close on September 6 at 23:59 UTC." Andreas JN466 20:26, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

@MJL: yes, per ElectCom's announcement above, the voting has been delayed for a week. Our team is updating the old dates on Meta pages as we speak. Thanks, RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Candidates Statements

Do You want as this for 2022 Board of Trustees election? Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 15:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Hm, i see the problem (without me) Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Election Compass/Overview. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 09:36, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Übersetzungen

Es wurden Änderungen an der Seite vorgenommen, die noch nicht übersetzt werden können, irgendein Übersetzungsadmin müsste das mal bitte schnell erledigen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@JSutherland (WMF): You were the last one to do this, so I'll ping you. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Und @DBarthel (WMF): auch mal angepingt, du hast ja behauptet, Du könntest das auch, mach mal endlich. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:16, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@Sänger - gewöhn dir erst mal einen vernünftigen Ton an, wenn du mich anpingst. Nicht mal deine These von der WMF als Erfüllungsgehilfe der Community gibt dir das Recht, mit mir so unverschämt zu reden. DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Du hast gesagt, Du könntest das, das ist, wie Du schon lange weißt, sehr überfällig, Du hast trotzdem nichts gemacht. Natürlich bin ich da ungehalten, wenn Du nichts in einer derart zentralen und wichtigen Sache unternimmst, obwohl Du schon sehr lange davon weißt. In einem solchen Fall ist imho mehr als eine halbe Stunde "sehr lange".

Aktuell kann es bei der WMF nichts wichtigeres geben als diese Kuratoriumswahl, erst recht nicht beim "Übersetzungskoordinator" und Mitglied des "Movement Strategy & Governance Team". Das ist aktuell Deine Kernaufgabe. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:51, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Und gemacht hast Du noch immer nichts: [2], dass das hier ein Redirect von der anderen Disk ist habe ich gerade erst mitbekommen, war nicht meine Entscheidung, es geht nicht um die Seite, die hier oben als Seite angegeben ist, sondern um die in der History verlinkte, also die zentrale Startseite füür die gestern angelaufenen Kuratoriumswahlen., nicht irgendeine irrelevante Seite irgendwo in den Tiefen der Vogesen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Wer hat beschlossen, die deutschen Seiten in elendem Gendersprech mit Kandidierenden und Kandidat*innen, statt Kandidaten zu verfassen? Frau Olga (talk) 17:10, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Frau Olga: Ich, entsprechend unseren Prinzipien von maximaler Inklusivität. Lieben Gruß, DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 17:11, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Und dafür bin ich Dir dankbar. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:47, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Hach! :) Danke schön! DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Voting stats

Are you up to an experiment?

See daily updated voting stats here: Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Stats

To view those data in real time, click here: https://vote.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SecurePoll/list/1364

Thanks

MPossoupe (WMF) (talk) 13:17, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@MPossoupe (WMF): can you explain where the "Eligible" column comes from? Is the list of eligible voters publicly available?

I do think it's worth adding some caveat that a user's home wiki is not always accurate, and tends to be less reliable for much older Wikimedians (c.f. T184318#3879927). Like, there's one voter from test.wikipedia.org, which is not actually anyone's home wiki. Legoktm (talk) 05:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Legoktm,

The eligible voters list is the one public. See T309753 for more details about the script. Thanks for pointing to the details about the home wiki issue.

Thanks MPossoupe (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation staff should vote from their WMF accounts

Proposed rule for next election:

Anyone who has an active WMF account should vote from that account and not from any other account they have. The context is that WMF staff often have multiple accounts which have the technical right to cast a ballot.

Possible variations:

1. Anyone with multiple accounts, where one is affiliated with an institution, should vote from the institution account.
2. Let it be known: severe penalty for any user found to vote from multiple accounts.
3. If anyone casts a ballot, and that person has multiple accounts, then that person must disclose their accounts in Wikidata.
   1. All voters with multiple accounts presumed notable in Wikidata
   2. Voters disclose all of their accounts in the Wikidata item for themselves, using the property Wikimedia username (P4174)

I got the idea to propose this when I looked at the voter name list which MPossoupe (WMF) just shared.

I have no reason to believe anyone is violating any rule. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: - several issues jump out to me. One is that any person with a privacy alt, or potentially even a cleanstart, would be required to out themselves to meet with point 3. Regarding the WMF-staff aspect, while it would probably reduce the rate of accidental double votes, those members who do maintain two eligible accounts are those most likely to have a specific desire to vote from their community account on an ideological basis.

Currently your section does exclude one very clear reason - why it should take place. The context is of course correct, but doesn't inherently provide a reason, and should. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Counterpoint: I am a WMF employee now but I've been a volunteer for much longer and I've voted in (and also been a candidate for) the WMF Board of Trustees election as a volunteer for all that time. It is the 'citizenship' that I identify with for the purposes of community elections. Why should I be forced to use my much more recent staff role account? Wittylama (talk) 16:21, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Protest votes not possible

I would have welcomed the opportunity to cast a vote for new members of the Board of Trustees, which I regard as having utterly failed to discharge its responsibilities of oversight over the Foundation. However, the method of selection of candidates was a complete travesty. The poll software did not permit me to register either "none of the above" as my vote or a token vote for last preference only. So I instead note here for the record my having attempted to spoil my ballot in protest. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir, this was raised last year too, so it would seem you're not alone. I just filed a feature request for it on Phabricator. Emufarmers (talk) 19:23, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Alert about voting for non elegible people

Hi, after having fully informed myself I couldn't vote. I strongly suggest to stop advertising voting in this way because many users like me who are not eligible may try to vote! I also think also the users who log in onto wikipedia quite often should be able to vote! Alessandromerlettidepalo (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@Alessandromerlettidepalo do you mean advertising through the banner(s)? It does note fairly prominently the "check eligibility" aspect which should avoid wasting too much time for most. Nosebagbear (talk) 17:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess in the list of things you do in the guide to voting it should be the first point or it should mention the 300 edits, any common human usually thinks any "resident" is able to vote if not "banned" or similar... Alessandromerlettidepalo (talk) 04:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

elegible or not?

Hey everyone. On 26 August i recieved an email from board-elections@lists.wikimedia.org says "Dear Ruwaym, We reach out to you as you are an eligible voter in the 2022 elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, which have just started...." But when i wanted to vote i see "

• Sorry, you cannot vote in this election as you are blocked on at least 2 wikis.
• We apologize, but you do not appear to be on the eligible voter list. Please visit the voter help page for more information on voter eligibility and information on how to be added to the voter list if you are eligible." Can someone explain what is happeaning?

Ruwaym (talk) 21:27, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

The mass mail was probably sent, because you are an active user in some projects, and without checking for eligibility. I doubt, that there is some real list, it's just a set of data, that is checked on spot methinks.

You are indefinitely blocked on three projects, arWP, faWP and faWQ, so you are not eligible. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 04:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I did not expect anything else. Ruwaym (talk) 06:50, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@فرهنگ2016 @Sunfyre Thank you for indefinitely blocking me. Ruwaym (talk) 06:52, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I think their ultimate point remains, however, which is that we shouldn't be emailing people specifically saying they're eligible if they are not.

For future years, if the list is generating off purely the edit-count criteria, either it needs to also be checked off the block list (which I don't think would be impossible) or it shouldn't then say they're eligible. It could be a general "get out the vote" but targeted to those who will be probably eligible. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:26, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm a Wikipedian, i searched in my encylopedia. I guess the term that describes my general feeling about this, is: w:Dehumanization. Ruwaym (talk) 14:50, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Alright Mr dramatic troll, that's enough from you Nosebagbear (talk) 00:25, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

We use this script to generate the mailing list. As far as I know (and I know very little about this stuff), there's no easy way to include a check for blocks on 2+ projects with that script. But since the email script is pretty much only used for Board elections, which have have that 2+ block restriction for a long time, it seems reasonable to investigate. Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 03:36, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

@JSutherland (WMF): Thank you for the explanation. I just thought that Metawiki works independently, and doesn't value users based on local infinite blocks. Anyways, explanations looks enought. After all, I don't expect my local blocks to be investigated by Meta, if it's fair or unfair whatever... Best Wishes.--Ruwaym (talk) 13:54, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Notification

Can I sign up to get an email when the next question period starts, for the next election? I got two emails saying it was time to vote in this election, but by then the period to submit questions had long expired.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:14, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

An interesting point @Anythingyouwant - I only knew about the first set because I stumbled onto it, and the second set (election compass) as a result of the first. Getting the word out for questions was lacking, especially in on-wiki terms, and should be improved. A sign-up list method (whether for notifications or emails) could be one branch of this. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:28, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Do you know if there’s anything more that I can or should do about this, besides starting this talk page section?Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:19, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: After each election there is a post-mortem where people provide feedback (see the 2021 one). I will make a note to copy your question/comment over when it starts and ping you. Legoktm (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much, I appreciate that offer, and will appreciate the ping!Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:34, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Please don't use UTC deadlines

In the past we have noted the problem of using UTC deadlines and requested that major deadlines use UTC-12/AoE "Anywhere on Earth" as the timezone. This has been the case with Wikimania submissions, MCDC elections, and earlier affiliate voting. Rationale: using UTC puts those "west" of the prime meridian at a disadvantage in being on the wrong place for the "September 6" deadline to be true. Using AoE deadlines speaks directly to one of the main strategy recommendations Ensure Equity in Decision-making." See: Midnight_deadline for an explanation of this best practice. Thanks. - Fuzheado (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

This caused huge headaches for the MCDC election since it was not (at the time) possible to set up a non-UTC-midnight time (so we had to hack it on the database level and voting was only possible from one wiki as a result). Might be possible for future elections, though it does get quite confusing when deadlines actually are given the software assumes UTC. Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 03:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps we could specific a half day later in UTC terms, but then use "UTC-12/AoE "Anywhere on Earth"" in the documentation - still a hack, I concede, but a more social one? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree entirely with the advantages of having an AoE deadline. I'm very surprised to hear of election software that "assumes UTC" - can you clarify what you mean by that? I hope the software can be updated to accommodate best practices for humans, as usual. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 17:59, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Voting for the Board of Trustees election closes and the timeline for result

Here is a message from the Elections Committee. To read this message in other languages, try the Movement Strategy Forum.

Thank you to all who participated in the 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election! Voting closed September 6 at 23:59. The official data, including the two most voted candidates, will be announced on or after September 21st. Please note these will be preliminary results. The official announcement of the new trustees will happen later, once the candidates have been approved and appointed by the Board.

5,955 community members from 194 wiki projects have voted. This makes 8.8% global participation. In 2021, 6,946 people from 216 wiki projects cast their vote. A full analysis is planned to be published when the results are announced. In the meantime, you can check the data produced during the election.

Diversity was an important goal with these elections. Messages about the Board of Trustees election were translated into about 40 languages thanks to election volunteers and community members.

Best,

The Elections Committee

JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2022 (UTC)