Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2008

The election ended 21 June 2008.
Please leave suggestions for next year on Talk:Board elections/2009.

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Error: "Your Wikimedia user ID could not be determined."

The following discussion is closed: Bug fixed.

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"Your Wikimedia user ID could not be determined. Please log in to the wiki where you are qualified to vote, and go to Special:Boardvote. You must use an account with at least 600 contributions before 00:00, 1 March 2008, and have made at least 50 contributions between 00:00, 1 January 2008 and 00:00, 29 May 2008."

I am logged in at en.wikipedia, I went to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Boardvote , I have more than 600 edits made before 2008-03-01 there[1], I've made more than 50 edits between 2008-01-01 and 2008-05-29[2], I've allowed spi-inc.org to set cookies but I'm not logged in there (it shows my IP), and I've tried to vote several times.

Is this the error that comes up due to the synchronization problems, or something else? -- Jeandré, 2008-06-01t00:28z

nah its synchronisation problems, will be dealt with soon :) ..--Cometstyles 00:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

We're all actively trying to fix it on IRC. :-( Cbrown1023 talk 00:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Working now. -- Jeandré, 2008-06-01t09:57z

What about the localisation? Not showing Indonesian for me whereas recognized as REX@idwiki. ~REX^{••talk••} 10:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

We're working on the problem, and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Sorry for the inconvenience. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:28:09, 02 June 2008 (UTC)

Localisation should be working now. KTC 17:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Vote number

The following discussion is closed: Voters can rank any number of candidates.

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How many candidates can we vote for? — Rlevse • Talk • 00:33, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe you can vote for all ..not sure though about this year...--Cometstyles 00:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

See w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-05-26/Board elections: you can rank all the candidates. -- Jeandré, 2008-06-01t00:40z

Outside agency?

The following discussion is closed: Software in the Public Interest is hosting and tallying the election.

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Didn't an outside independent agency oversee elections/votes the past couple of years? Is that happening this year? rootology (T) 07:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the election is being hosted on Software in the Public Interest's servers, and they hold the cryptographic key to the votes and will generate the results. —{admin} Pathoschild 07:25:50, 01 June 2008 (UTC)

Interface translations

The following discussion is closed: Bug fixed

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When I go to the vote page on the external server I get English interface even if I come from some other language project. Can this be changed? And if I manually add "?uselang=sv" I get old instructions for the 2007 election. You say that to translate the interface at translatewiki, but the Swedish translations there looks updated. Some other languages also have old messages on Special:Boardvote (for example https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote?uselang=fr links to 2007 candidates, same for nl and de) but have updated instructions at Special:Boardvote/vote. /Ö 08:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is also happening with el (greek). Local language should be automatically used, when someone comes from a non-english project. It should not be presumed that all wikimedia users speak english, or know how to change the language manually for every page. Geraki ^T_L 16:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The reason for this occurring, if I understand things correctly, is that some of the translations haven't yet been committed (probably none of them have, I'm not sure). I was told this will be taken care of in shortest time possible, so it's up to us to be patient :) Cheers --Кале 16:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is waiting the translations to be done. We have over 200 languages waiting if so. :) ~REX^{••talk••} 17:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No, greek translation (el) is ready and working but only by touching the url (https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote/vote?uselang=el). — Geraki ^T_L 20:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

We're working on the problem, and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Sorry for the inconvenience. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:28:33, 02 June 2008 (UTC)

Localisation should be working now. KTC 17:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem with voter list?

The following discussion is closed: Bug fixed.

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As I wrote to User:Pathoschild, I know of at least three users on hewiki, he:User:ברי"א, he:User:ברוקולי and he:User:חגי אדלר who cannot vote although they meet all the requirements. Apparently they are listed as blocked indefinitely, which they are not at all. I wonder if this problem is local to hewiki only?! Harel 10:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This problem seems (cannot prove yet...) to be common to all usernames on hewiki written Hebrew characters. Pretty major fault... Harel 10:18, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

HI Harel, I'll send this to the election committee mailing list and see if we can track it down... Philippe 13:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Also Sterkebak@nlwiki seems to have problems, although he should meet the requirements easily. Effeietsanders 14:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

More problem users are for example he:User:נינצ'ה, he:User:Leia, he:User:Omergold, he:User:Atbannett, he:User:ליאור. As you can see, most of hewiki users who tried to vote (and are eligible), were not allowed to vote. Harel 15:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

This is most likely the problem. Everyone on hewiki was considered indefblocked and hence disqualified because the script used to generate the list of voters by Tim gave everyones IP as localhost, and that IP was blocked. This seems to be the same problem which is causing similar problems at nlwiki, with the same blocking administrator. Daniel (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It may possibly be fixed now - we just heard back from SPI. Daniel (talk) 15:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the trouble. For some yet unknown reason this very special IP got in my open proxy database. IP's are stored as longs and the db is pretty big, so it not that easy discovered during intermediate inspections and debugging (as was e.g. the case with 0.0.0.0).

Btw, also strange that the election software apparently does not take the real IP of a voter to check whether or not the IP has been blocked for some reason. - RonaldB 16:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The software do not check whether an IP is blocked or not, but whether an account that the user is voting from/with is blocked or not, as it's the account the grant someone voting eligibility, not the IP where they are voting from. KTC 23:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

If that would be the case, how do you explain the fact that so many people from nlwiki and hewiki were unable to vote until this IP was unblocked? :) Effeietsanders 13:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Because the software works off a list of eligible voters generated by sysadmins prior to the election. That list was generated locally on WMF servers. One of the thing the list contains is whether an user otherwise eligible by edit counts is indefblocked or not. As localhost was blocked on he.wp & nl.wp, the listed generated thus end up listing most (though strangely not all) account from it as indefblocked. The initial list sent to SPI have all account listed as indefblocked removed. To save regeneration of the list, which take a good few hours, the current list in use simply have all the indefblocked flagged account re-added, and rely on the voting system real time check via BotQuery whether an account is blocked or not to allow or disallow voting from an otherwise eligible account. You can view the BoardVote codes yourself via SVN. KTC 14:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Security

The following discussion is closed: Certificates need to be arranged by the board of trustees, not the election committee.

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Hi,

I am unable to vote I am afraid. I dont get through, invalid security certificate, and I can't get around it, or add it as an exception... I am sorry that this year we chose again to get an invalid security cert :( Effeietsanders 14:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you have the ability to use another web browser? That might make it possible for you... Philippe 17:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Now it works for me, but it involved quite some warning-ignoring, and seems to me to lead to a systemic bias. People who are not as technological advanced will be driven away by this then the more advanced. I do not think this is the intention. Effeietsanders 18:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

What's the deal with the invalid certificate, anyway? We shouldn't be training Wikipedians to ignore security warnings.

Those who are familiar with older web browsers may think of the "this certificate is invalid" dialog as something you just click OK on to make it go away. Firefox 3's behavior warns people away from the page much more strongly (because protecting users from phishing is a priority for web browsers now.) So if you go to the election with Firefox 3, you get an error page saying that the page could not be displayed. You have to actually read the fine print to determine that the error was an invalid security certificate (which you can click a few buttons to ignore) instead of the page being missing.

This is the correct behavior in general. When a site claims to be secure but its security credentials are totally fake, you shouldn't be going there. So what happened to Wikimedia's credentials, and can they be fixed? Rspeer 23:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

We've had separate issues with SSL certificate. The SSL certificate used on secure.wikimedia.org isn't liked by certain version of cURL on certain platforms, which caused the initial issue we had with voting. The issue you're thinking of, is that the certificate on SPI site is signed by a CA (CAert that's not trusted by most OS / browsers. A possible solution to this is being looked into. KTC 02:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Signed certificates are incredibly inexpensive--$20 for chained ones in some places. Why did we use an unsigned? rootology (T) 23:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The certificate on SPI's site is signed. The issue is the CA is not in the default set of root CA trusted by a large number of OS / browsers. And cert. by a widely default trusted CA will costs more than $20. Anyhow, a solution is being looked into. KTC 02:56, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Number of eligable users

The following discussion is closed: Statistics available at User:Pathoschild/Board elections statistics.

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Hi,

as I understand there is a list of eligable users. How many entries are on this list? Thx. --80.187.109.2 20:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There are around 29,000 eligable accounts, however this number includes cases where one person may be eligable with accounts on two individual wikis (obviously they could only vote with one), or people who can't vote due to non-technical reasons. It also includes possibly-blocked users on hewiki and nlwiki - due to the problem with the generated list and the blocking of localhost, we added all nl and he Wikipedians who were eligable to vote excluding the fact that they were listed to vote, as eligable to vote, and the Election Committee will check every account from these two wikis to ensure they weren't actually blocked originally. That's the reason why I can't give you an exact number, sorry :( Daniel (talk) 02:40, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Comprehensive statistics are now available at User:Pathoschild/Board elections statistics. To answer your question, there are 31900 user accounts meeting the edit requirements, of which ≈24251 accounts are eligible (neither indefblocked nor bot) and have an email address set, of which there are ≈21804 unique email addresses. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:47:55, 06 June 2008 (UTC)

Early polling data

The following discussion is closed: One can see who from what wiki has voted, but there will not be partial results

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Will there be partial polling data released during the election, or is everything held in a black box until the voting is complete? -- Thekohser 23:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

No, and yes. Daniel (talk) 00:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

What I assume Daniel means is that you can view who (and from what wiki) voted here. However, the actual votes from the election will not be released beforehand. It is not even accessible by the Election Committee, only by SPI (they have the key to the encrypted data). Cbrown1023 talk 00:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. The Election Committee will not seek any partial voting results at any stage during the election; the only planned release of voting results is at the end of the election, with the formal announcement. Daniel (talk) 02:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Disappointing language arrangement

The following discussion is closed: Bug fixed.

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Many volunteers have participated to help translating the interface in Board elections/2008/Translation. However, in the voting page, it only displays in English. It does not switch to the selected language in the browser's setting automatically. There isn't any pull-down menu for voters to select their desired lanaguge either. -- Kevinhksouth 02:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

We're aware of the problem. It should select the correct language automatically, but we do not know why it doesn't at the moment. We'll have to ask Tim Starling once he's up. Cordially, 81.248.39.170 02:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC) That was me, by the way. Arria Belli | parlami 02:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The interface appears in English for Spanish talking voters. Is it the general problem or simply because it was translated too late? --Ascánder 17:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not because you translated it late, it's probably just due to the same technical problems. Cbrown1023 talk 20:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

We're working on the problem, and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Sorry for the inconvenience. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:53:32, 02 June 2008 (UTC)

Localisation should be working now. KTC 17:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sincere protest

Imho, this whole voting is a farce. It is set up to be biased, be it intentionally, or not.

• The voting has started, and at best 10% of the required translations have been made.
• Although some translation have been made, english texts appear at some places.
• The voting has never been announced at most places.
• Hardly any community has been asked for candidacies.
• Even a person active in various wikis, active at translatewiki, being a most active admin in his home wiki, being the only registered translator for his language at several major wikis, only learned about the voting by chance, few hours before it started, and several days after candidates were not accepted any more.

So, summarising one could say, candidates have not been properly sought, candidacies were almost available to insiders only; the voting is only made known to a selection of users; the voting process is sincerely hindered for most smaller communities, less active, and especially non-english-reading users.

I believe that, the whole process of preparation needs to be completely restructured, and further votings must (should) not be begun (by accepting candidates!) until it has been made sure that preparations are complete, and all required announcements have been made everywhere for sufficient amounts of time. --Purodha Blissenbach 11:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• What are the "required translations"? There's been large amount of attempt at seeking translators by the election committee. There's only going to be as much translation as are provided by volunteers. ca, cs, de, el, en, es, fr, id, it, oc, ru, sr, zh-yue, zh-hant, zh-hans doesn't look "at best 10%", especially when a few of the others are only missing pieces rather than say most of the texts. If you don't feel that there's enough translation, you are of course more than welcomed submit yourself and to encourage others from submitting more translations.
• This is a technical issue that is being continually worked upon.
• Voting has been announced with site_notice in some places, and as announced to foundation-l, an email will be going out to all eligible voters in the next few days. An extra few days to, you know, see if there's going to be extra translation into native languages.
• That's just utter rubbish. The committee posted a notice to as many site announcement page (VP / Water cooler / ...) as it could, plus announcement on meta and to the usual mailing list like foundation-l. It is unreasonable to argue a committee of a few volunteer are required to specifically seek out candidacies from a particular community that might be on your mind when those potential candidates should ideally be involve at least to some level in the wider community or at least paying attention to their own community announcement portal where announcements were made.

Of course things can be improved. However, to say candidacies are available to insiders only when it only take a quick look at some of the candidates that are standing to know that's not true. I would like to ask you what are a sufficient amount of time? Let's look at those wiki VP/WC/... announcement, end of April, more than a week before candidates were accepted, and a month before the close of candidate acceptance, with the period of acceptance a week longer than last year; the period of voting being 3 weeks, nearly 2 weeks longer than last year. Maybe you're thinking an announcement should be made a year before, with voting taking place for 6 months? KTC 12:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't care less. But I was surprised to read in wiki pages that they... ask me to vote?? For what??? Stop nonsenses, I was reached by no adverts about the candidation but I was so easily reached by the request of voting. This is not disputable. I simply put down facts.83.103.38.68 09:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Excuse my rigor in these points. A voting is biased already if it has enough potential for bias. Unequal chances are inevitably creating bias.

• "required translations" were about 250 sets, 40 (i.e. 16%) of which, were listed at Board elections/2008/Translation; where ~11 were marked all done, i.e less than 5%; and taking the half-done ones into account, I computed about 9.9x% done, assuming those not listed were not done at all.
  • This has been the situation the day after the voting started. Even if it had been the situation about a month earlier, when the official call for candidate statements started, it had already been too late, and thus invalidating the entire voting. You cannot search candidates in the "secrecy" of some language communities but not all. That is unfair.
  • You cannot expect candidates to run for an undescribed position.
• The point is not that people are working on it. The point is that, such issues need to be solved before a voting can be held, if you want to have fair chances.
• the voting has been announced:
  • with site_notice in some places, — some are not enough. Some other were thus deprieved and treated unfair.
  • announced to foundation-l — undoubtedly an in-group, so this supports that candidates were not properly sought.
  • an email will be going out to all eligible voters in the next few days. — too late for all potential candidates and their supporters from the formerly uninformed places.
  • An extra few days to, you know, see if there's going to be extra translation into native languages. — Too late. Potential candidates and their supporters need to have all required information before they can make good, well informed, decisions, they need some time to make decisions, too. So this is exactly, what one calls a farce election.

Suggestions to make things better next time:

• Include a listing of the remaing/leaving board members, and pointers to their election statements, with the call for candidates (so as to give voters a better chance to "balance" characters and interests)
• Make sure that all wikis receive equal treatment from the very beginnig (call for translators/translations) of preparations for the voting.
• Make having translations and voting infrastructure ready a hard requirement of the start of candidate search.
  • Do actively contact translators, if known volunteers fail to get started on their own.
• Make sure, candidates are sought from all wikis.
• Allow more time between the candidate statement deadline, and voting start, so as to get more/better translations of candidate statements. Unfortunately, I would not presently suggest to wait for every candidate statement to be translated to every language before starting to collect votes, since it is imho better to have a set time for it which can be announced from the very beginning. --Purodha Blissenbach 01:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Eligibility

The following discussion is closed: Suggestions for 2009 elections are welcome on Talk:Board elections/2009.

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So I have more then 600 edits on en.wikisource and more then 50 recent edits on www.mediawiki.org but not both on one wiki. So I can't vote? That's pretty dumb. --Cneubauer 17:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't complain... I have about 6000 edits on en.wikipedia, 48 recent edits there (yes, I don't bother to log in just to fix somebody's typos) -- and I have been disenfranchised as well. But "Wikipedia is not a democracy", as we all know... Marcika 20:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

These criteria were announced before the elections for community discussion. It's unfortunately too late to change them this year, but what criteria would you suggest for the 2009 elections? —{admin} Pathoschild 23:59:18, 02 June 2008 (UTC)

Those criteria were too unfair to exist. The system says I have edits less than required. Since I'm no bot, wiki-ogre and vandal either I feel discriminated against.

Well now that we have SUL, we definitely need to count edits across all wikis. But you might also get more feedback on these community discussions if you put them up in the site notice where you put the Vote link. --Cneubauer 17:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Every time I try to log in I am told no such user name exists and I have to create a new account. An interesting technique to keep down my editing and contribution score. john N. Lupia 4 June 2008 (EST)

No, it is becoming a dictatorship of the anal retentive. I don't aspire to the Board, and if you wanted me, I wouldn't want to be a member. The eligibility requirements are BS. One person that makes 60 good edits is better than another that makes 600 garbage edits. But people want quantity not quality. And as to Pathoschild following comment, most users simply don't care. They want a good resource - nothing more, nothing less 124.171.52.29 12:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

No one would disagree quality is better than quantity. If you can come up with a method of automatically deciding what's counted as a good edits rather than a garbage edits, then please do propose it. What's the point of saying most users simply don't care? There's people that obviously do care expressing their view point here, Pathoschild say it's too late for this year, but please express your view for what's best for next year, and you're saying it's a waste of time and yet complaining about it? Get over yourself. Don't complain about things if you have no desire to see it get better, never mind help it get better. KTC 13:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it's a great idea for the ElecCom to be telling people offering criticism of the system to say "get over yourself". Just a thought....Swatjester 06:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Cneubauer is annoyed? How about me (and who knows how many others)?? Every article I read or edited today had this GO VOTE notice at the top of the screen. So I finally take a break and go there. But I have to be re-directed and wait for that. Then I had to wait while it looked up my "permanent record" on wiki [what is this, high school?!? :-) ]. Then I get this non-apologetic note:

Welcome JimScott@enwiki!

You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made at least 600 contributions before 00:00, 1 March 2008, and have made at least 50 contributions between 00:00, 1 January 2008 and 00:00, 29 May 2008.

What? We couldn't put that little gem in the original "GO VOTE" note, or even better look it up on the fly and omit it from we disenfranchised user's pages, and save us the time and trouble of wandering over to "vote" in the first place, eh!! 72.73.13.29 22:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Link to Q&A in How to vote

The following discussion is closed: Already prominently linked.

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In the Board_elections/2008/en#How_to_vote section, it tells people to read the candidates' presentations, but it doesn't tell people that the candidates have also given answers to a raft of submitted questions. I suggest adding a link to Board elections/2008/Candidates/Questions in the How to vote section, instruction #1. --Gronky 22:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It's already linked in the sidebar listed on all election pages and at the top of the candidate presentation's page... and adding it where you suggest would require large-scale (and possibly unnecessary) translation updates. Cbrown1023 talk 22:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

No female candidates (from /it talk page)

The following discussion is closed.

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manco una donna?There are not women... --79.35.221.246 02:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately not, despite the current chair of the board encouraging women to participate. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:56:15, 03 June 2008 (UTC)

No blacks or Hispanics, either. It's like a Dungeons & Dragons marathon. - Thekohser 01:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sidebar

Well, the sidebar is not yet entirely in local language. "Main Page" is, but the others are not: "election rules", "how to vote", "election committee", -- "candidates", and "questions". ~REX^{••talk••} 02:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Rex. That is an unfortunate accident; we thought to translate the entire interface except the sidebar links. However, the relevant links are available and translated on the first page voters see, so this should not affect accessibility for non-English users. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:20:31, 07 June 2008 (UTC)

Instead of a complaint...

The following discussion is closed.

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...some kudos for nicely making the page resort the canidates each time. Good practice to ensure the first guy (alphabetically or whatever) doesn't get more votes than he would based on his appeal... Ingolfson 06:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

My name starts with an S, and I approve this message. Sarcasticidealist 06:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think it is a travesty of justice! -- AaA-AAA#1-alphaThekohser 19:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Annoying when you read some of them, close your browser, and come back intending to start where you left off.  :) — Omegatron (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Bring some balance to the board

The following discussion is closed.

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Where did all the females go?

• Yep. There's more white men here than at a G8 summit meeting. Why do you suppose that is? Morganfitzp 06:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• I guess women are more practical, and have better things to do ;O)

We can't select someone to run. Women have to put themselves forward as candidates... you are not the only one who would like to see some female candidates! Cbrown1023 talk 20:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

broken template

The following discussion is closed: Fixed

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"[{{fullurl:Board elections/2008/{{{expansion depth limit exceeded}}}|uselang=zh-hans}}" Effeietsanders 06:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem solved by restoring the correction I had made in one template and that was reverted without mesuring the consequence (this template used too many embedded {{#if:...}},and caused the total template argument sizes to explode, as well as exceeding the maximum depth level). The embedding was not even needed for performance (because template parameters are all fully evaluated and expanded recursively, at all levels starting from the inner level, even if the parameters are used conditionnally and dropped in an outer level).

Anyway, even if MediaWiki uses a "lazy" expansion of its parameters for "#if:" and "#switch:" special functions, or even for all other templates, it will remain a limit on the embedding level. So it was a bad idea to embed up to 35 or 40 #if's in a recursive chain of parameters (it is only good if the factorization avoids repeating the same conditions, but here all the tested conditions are independant of each other).

Verdy P 20:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There still remains a bug to be fixed in MediaWiki, so that #if and #switch will not be counted the same way as the use of templates (because they never cause the resulting text size to increase, but can only cause it to decrease; using lazy evaluation of parameters of parser functions (and possibly also of normal templates as well) could save lots of ressources on the server, avoiding allocating lots of intermediate buffers with growing sizes for their parameters...

This is a call or enhancement with lots of positive effects on the server ressources.

And then only, factorizing chains of dependant #if may become a possible improvement (but not very readable and simple to edit due to the need to manually count and reverify the number of embedded {} levels); but before this enhancement ever happens, don't use this non-working trick in any template! Verdy P 22:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I will not be voting

The following discussion is closed: Voting is secure and confidential.

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It is nice that the community is having a vote, but given that I have been repeatedly threatened or attacked for votes in various polls on Wikipedia [3], I think it is best that I do not. I would like the community to make it clear that it discourages

• threats
• revenge
• attacks

and similar negative behavior, clearly intended to harass and intimidate and coerce participants in polls like these 2008 Wikimedia Foundation Board Elections. I am sort of shocked that this is permitted and even condoned. What sort of community are we building here?--Filll 15:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Filll. Your ballot in the board elections is highly confidential, hosted on a remote server by a neutral non-profit organization with strong encryption, with the cryptographic key only held by a select few people in that organization. Your vote will never be known to anyone except you. You have no need to fear any coercion, since there is no way for any other person to know whether or not you voted as they want you to. If you have any other suggestions, or know of particular cases of coercion regarding this election, please feel free to let us know. —{admin} Pathoschild 17:04:12, 06 June 2008 (UTC)

Filll, indeed, the vote is encrypted, and is kept secure. While I don't have much hope that you'd vote for me, given that we haven't always interacted smoothly in the past, I'd encourage you to at least vote for someone, so you can take action to show that the community won't stand for threats, revenge and attacks. Find the candidate you think best represents that and vote for them. (Or alternatively, find the ones that you think don't represent that and vote for everyone else.) And as well, if you have time, I'd like to hear your story about RFA threats and such. (I think I know the gist of it, but I'd like to hear your side). -note- obviously, by that, I don't mean here, either my talk page here on meta or on en.wp would be a more appropriate place. Swatjester 06:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Not voting either

The following discussion is closed: Candidates aren't selected, nothing we can do about it.

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Quite frankly these men bore me and whilst trying to have a little look at some of their edit histories, they were either surpisingly vauge or the bulk was in another language I dont speak. I also had a look at the questions people are posing to them and they suck; none are really relevant like the politicizing of Wikipedia in particular, admins throwing their weight around; megalomaniacs with delusions of grandeur who (alot of the time) get into cliques and make people feel like feudal serfs...Im tired ranting. Get better candidates from a wider political and ethnic spectrum next time please. wikipedia:User:Terrasidius (20:46 GMT, June 6)

The candidates aren't selected to run. They put themselves forward. If you think there should be better candidates in your view, you are of course encouraged to encourage those potential candidates to stand next time round, or even to stand for election yourself. As to the questions, if you are eligible to vote as you implied, then you are welcomed to pose some questions yourself. KTC 22:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

What!? Do they bore you? Are they responsible for your feelings! Nope, go out and have some party, if you're bored. Take a break, eat some nice food, take a walk around in the local town and greet your neighbors and their pets! As for megalomaniacs and grandeur, most of them looks like serious to me, kind of. Best way to ascertain no megalomaniacs and no grandeur is the voters making an evaluation about possible such weaknesses. Personally I'm trying to understand what they wish to do, and whether that is a good thing according to my experience. Mostly it is, I think. rursus 12:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

All _{(except one)}, seem to be very serious candidates. rursus 14:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

imho there are at least three reasons why there are no candidates from the female half of mankind and from most ethnic groups:

• the vast majority of Wiki*-project participants is male and white.
• the smaller communities were not, or hardly, informed when candidates were sought.
• as a board member you must have enough spare time and ressources to fincance your work as a board member yourself. If your are not whealthy in the "white" world, or rich in many other places, or super-rich in the poor world, you would e.g. not be able to travel to board meetings.

--Purodha Blissenbach 01:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

wrong mw text? (ja)

The following discussion is closed: Fixed

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When I entered the vote page in Ja-lang preference of ja-wikipedia, the text says "2008年度の選挙は終了しました。より詳細な情報はこちらをご覧ください(that means - boardvote_closed. For further information, see here)" instead of "boardvote_intro" text. How can it be fixed? Please take care of this bug, or else ja people cannot know even how to vote. Thank you.--Miya 11:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That is I found a "boardvote_closed" like text instead of "boardvote_intro" in voting page. (cf.voting interface )--Miya 11:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It's because the translation was incorrect. It has since been fixed over at Betawiki. It will take time for the changes to propagate. KTC 13:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Struck votes and notifications

The following discussion is closed.

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If someone has their vote struck or discounted, is that person notified? rootology (T) 17:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. KTC 22:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

No female candidates (again)!!

The following discussion is closed: Candidates aren't selected, nothing we can do about it.

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Is not good – everybody knows that a group of men without any balancing woman (and the other way around) is unbalanced and risk to either attain a culture of consensus with no development, or to become the cooky young careerists civil war arena of attack and defence of self esteem. Anyone knows that the other sex moderates the language and expression. There was one old guy among the candidates. It might balance the group if he (or some other experienced one) is chosen. rursus 11:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Everyone knows? I'm sorry but I find that view to be both sexist and stereotypical. A group of men can get along just fine without any "balancing" by women. Not to mention, there are two women currently on the board, and one who just left. Swatjester

well i was both surprised and not surprised to see no women; it's still a man's world out there afer all. regardless of whether or not a group of men can get along just fine, it is certainly worth asking why no women are standing & whether that is something that should be addressed. Frock

asking whom?--Yaroslav Blanter 05:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this some kind of fishing?

The following discussion is closed: SPI is the company that is administering the election

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Russian vote page invites to vote on this site: https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/Special:Boardvote

How is this site concerned with wikimedia?

I noticed that wikis on several other languages use something like http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Boardvote.

Which is correct?! 195.98.164.10 17:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Special:Boardvote will take you to the spi-inc website. SPI is the company that is administering the election. Swatjester 19:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Vote rejected

The following discussion is closed: No response before elections ended.

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Something is definitely not working. I have tried many times to understand why my vote has been rejected. I have even activated the SUL. So my question, why to set-up so complex vote process if they are not working Laurent Bouvier

(comment moved from "User_talk:82.123.237.173" on the vote wiki.)

Please be more specific. At what stage is your vote rejected? Do you see the list of candidates with the boxes beside their name? Did you visit wikt:Special:Boardvote or fr:wikt:Special:Boardvote, and not the vote wiki directly? —{admin} Pathoschild 03:44:52, 09 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't vote

The following discussion is closed: Can't combine edits from multiple accounts.

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Mhm.. my edits are split across accounts on the same wiki - my edits pre-January are on KamrynMatika and KamrynMatika2 and my edits since January are on this one. Seems sorta strange I can't vote since I have around 4000 edits combined. Is there any way to get around this? No big deal, just wondering. Naerii 04:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. :( Philippe 21:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I use firefox and cant vote! Only with konqueror. - Is this only for windows xp users?

The following discussion is closed: No response from user.

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I try to vote with firefox, but it doesnt work. Only can with konqueror (kde).—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 190.53.81.209 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC).

I'm not sure what the problem is, anyone from any browser/operating system who meets the requirements is allowed to vote and should be. Were you able to vote using konqueror? Cbrown1023 talk 21:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist notification message

The following discussion is closed: Not technically possible, please place suggestions on Talk:Board elections/2009.

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I guess it's too late now, but maybe something for the 2009 election: It would have been nice if the watchlist notification message ("Voting for the 2008 Wikimedia Board of Trustees election has begun! All Wikipedians who are eligible are invited to vote.") were displayed only for those who actually are eligible to vote.

It would save the majority of users the trouble of having to look up and check the criteria for something they won't be able to join anyway. 91.96.40.177 21:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

People who were qualified to vote received an e-mail telling them they qualified. It might be a little difficult to do a selective, global watchlist notification message. Good point about them having to check the criteria and find out they aren't able to, though.

Cbrown1023 talk 21:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

That isn't currently possible, but a script was available to check whether an account met the requirements. This could be expanded and linked to from a watchlist message in 2009. (If you have any suggestions, please place them on Talk:Board elections/2009.)

—{admin} Pathoschild 12:26:00, 04 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to vote too

The following discussion is closed: No response from user, please place suggestions on Talk:Board elections/2009.

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Some of us like to read wiki all the time and have a lot of knowledge to put to use but are kind of scared off by the infighting and the sarcasm of editors and people who come on just to fight. I've been wanting to put something on here for quite a while but I am not that computer/grammar proper. You scare me. But the fact that I am a member and I can't vote when tons of vandals have done 600 or more edits so they can is just wrong. I read through every person, I looked through all the question and answers. This project is huge to me. And it's not fair that abundance can overcome judgement in the voting process. Just because I am shy to edit or I happen to read good articles shouldn't take away that right. 67.8.19.11 06:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)Sarah51167.8.19.11 06:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi... regretfully, my best advice would be to register an account and make the required number of edits before the next elections. Allowing some IPs to vote would create too much of a (dangerous) slipperly slope. giggy _(:O) 06:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I am registered but my log in is not being picked up right and if I register again I'll lose the two edits I have. Do you see though what I'm saying? How many articles have you read that random people edit and now they have 600 edits to their name for bad reasons? anyone can pick up an edit and alot do it for nothing. I really regret that waiting to edit or start something has hindered my voting. No matter what I don't think that is fair and I don't think the random IP's think enough to vote. You all need to get off such a self centered track and then maybe more of us would write things. I just want this project to be better. I don't think the scavengers will really bother to vote. maybe you should relax the rules a little. 67.8.19.11 09:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)Sarah51167.8.19.11 09:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I made a new account anyway. I still totally believe that it's bullshit that random vandals can influence something but studious participants can't...maybe your next election will address that aspect..or maybe you will wake up in time to let the rest of us vote...don't neglect the silent factor. the factor that then goes to the library just because we are nerds enough to do so. sorry but you shouldn't have picked this fight. you picked vandals over night time scholars. bad choice. Sarah511 10:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)Sarah511

OK, so make a suggestion. :-) How do we distinguish the IPs who are 'night-time scholars' from the vandal IPs? How would you suggest that we compile that voter list? I'm open to ideas. Philippe 21:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Can't vote in good conscience because of security failure

The following discussion is closed: Certificate purchase is up to the Board of Trustees, too late for 2008 elections.

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The message given before the certificate failure error is this:

For improved security and transparency, we are running the vote on an external, independently controlled server. […] A security warning about an unsigned certificate may be displayed.

(Emphasis mine.) It seems to me that either the Board of Trustees doesn't consider this election to be worth buying a proper certificate (or paying the host to get one), or the Election Committee failed to make the case that this is necessary to avoid being manifestly hypocritical about "security". Either way, I can't in good conscience participate in this election because of the blatant contradiction. I sincerely hope the Election Committee will do it right the next time. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

A signed certificate has no effect on the security of the elections, it only indicates that security to voters. We did explain the problem and its solution to the Board and our SPI contacts, and put them in contact with each other, but the committee itself cannot draw on Wikimedia funds to buy a certificate (it would cost about US$400 for the cheapest VeriSign certificate). We're always open to suggestion; I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by refusing to vote, but that is of course your right. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:12:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

So we know that the election is protected, but we aren't? I hope you can understand why people who are exposed every day to every manner of clever phishing scheme might take exception to this attitude. Just because Wikimedia isn't a bank or a porn site doesn't mean users should be encouraged to ignore security warnings from a site that talks about "improved security", which only undermines users' attention in more serious security situations. As the saying goes, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. (Or something like that. ☺) Security is confusing enough for most without sending apparently self-contradicting messages.

I know my protest means almost nothing in the grand scheme, but I hope that it will induce the next committee and then-current board to consider that allaying the legitimate security concerns of web users (which is the entire audience of this project and election) is an important consideration when trying to encourage election participation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Should have gone with a hunger strike, with daily photos of you on a bathroom scale. - Thekohser 04:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Am I not eligible?

The following discussion is closed: Not eligible.

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I'm Fogster on enwiki, where I have never been blocked, nor am I bot.

Per Interiot's tool, I have almost 1,000 mainspace edits there, and a review of my Contributions page leads me to believe that I hit 600 before March '08. (And I definitely met the 50 in '08 criteria.) And yet I get "Welcome Fogster@enwiki! You are not qualified to vote in this election. You need to have made at least 600 contributions before 00:00, 1 March 2008, and have made at least 50 contributions between 00:00, 1 January 2008 and 00:00, 29 May 2008." Am I misinterpreting the rules? Fogster 03:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

According to Interiot's tool, your total by the beginning of March 2008 was 350, so you don't seem to meet the requirements. Please note that I am not an Elections Committee member. Sarcasticidealist 04:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Confirmed by my eligibility analysis script:

Validating input...

User id is 510405...

Verifying requirements...

User not blocked...

user does not have a bot flag...

Not eligible: user does not have 600 edits before 01 March 2008 (has 350).

—{admin} Pathoschild 05:40:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

May I leave out rank numbers?

The following discussion is closed: Ordinal (not value) ranking, so "1,2,3,16" equivalent to "1,2,3,4".

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On [4] it reads that I may use the same number for different candidates, or leave out some candidates. The question is: Is it formally possible to leave out certain numbers? For example, could I leave out the number "1", and give number 2 to the first candidate in the list, number 3 to the second, and so on, and number 16 to the last candidate? --Rosenkohl 11:32, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You mat assign any numbers you like so long as they are in the right order (smallest to your favourite candidate).--Poetlister 11:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Nevertheless, when I just filled in the form to submitt a vote, it seemed to be only possible to insert at most two chracters in each entry. Practically, this would restrict the numbers to the range between 1 and 99.

--Rosenkohl 12:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The election is over, but yes, it was restricted to 2 digit numbers. The election committee explained it somewhere. In the end, the actual number doesn't seem to matter at all, but rather the ranking order.

Swatjester 17:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

You're assigning an ordinal rank: #1 is your favourite candidate, #2 is your second-favourite, and so forth, so "1,2,3,16" is equivalent to "1,2,3,4". Candidates you don't rank are considered as lower than worms in your preference: they're automatically given a preference of 100, which is one point beyond the worst possible ranking (99). Your preferences are then compared to every other voter's preferences using a complex system of pairwise comparisons, which I won't really go into unless you're really curious.

Maybe we could make the displayed results more human-readable next year, so the voters are shown how the script views their vote. One might have a table like this:

Your vote (click here to change):
Favourite (1): Billy Joe
2^nd choice (30): Joey Bill
2^nd choice (30): Bob Apple
3^rd choice (99): Jane Apple
 
Don't want at all: Other Guy
Don't want at all: That Guy

I posted a suggestion to this effect on Talk:Board elections/2009.

—{admin} Pathoschild 12:36:47, 04 July 2008 (UTC)

Tens of thousands of edits, but still can't vote

The following discussion is closed: Solved.

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I can't vote because the bot incorrectly saus that I don't have enough edits. That's plain wrong!

My main account is "verdy_p" (lowercase p) on ***French*** Wikipedia, and it is the name I use everywhere since ever (except on English Wikipedia)

I also had an account named "verdy_p" on english Wikipedia in 2004, that was garbled (no more access to it) with just a dozen edits registered on a single article. Because I could not use it, I had created an alternative account "Verdy_P" (with a capital P) that already has the appropriate number of edits. I have asked this old inaccessible "verdy_p" account on English Wikipedia to be renamed to verdy_p2004 so that my existing working account in En.WP "Verdy_P" cound also be renamed "verdy_p". Only the first step was done, but the admin forgot to process the second step, so SUL recreated another account named again "verdy_p" on En.WP. Now this new acount that I did not want to create has not enough edits.

Anyway, this "verdy_p" account on En.WP is definitely NOT my main wiki under SUL, wich is registered on Fr.Wp since years, with several tens of thousands edits.

The bot processing eligibility rejects my intent to vote because apparently it is using the edits on En.WP despite it is NOT my main account (and it has never been!). If the admin on En.WP had correctly done his job, he would have renamed my En.WP account "Verdy_P" to "verdy_p" like on all other wikis where I participate (that's what i had asked him in the SAME request, he performed just the first of the two steps needed to unify my accounts).

I DO FULLFILL ALL the conditions. The bot for voting is getting wrong in all case. It should not use the broken "verdy_p"@en.wp account. I do think this is a bug: it does not use the SUL data correctly and ignores the correct setting in SUL that says that the French Wikipedia is my home wiki under this name. Apparently it is using the number of edits in some other wikis where I have participated occasionally. Verdy P 21:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... Problem solved (for the vote only, not for the bogous account on En.WP), I purged my web browser cache to clear the existing session cookie that pointed to the wrong wiki, even though I was going there through a click from the link displayed at top the FR.WP pages... Verdy P 21:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Results

Might be nice to get some preliminary statistics on the number of eligible voters, the number who voted, number who overwrote their votes, counts from each project, etc. -- Thekohser 03:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you have not seen this? ..--Cometstyles 03:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Statistics are available at User:Pathoschild/Board elections 2008 statistics, including many not provided by my script Cometstyles linked to. These might be added to the results page. —{admin} Pathoschild 03:30:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I had seen that, thank you. When I posted my question here, it hadn't been updated. So, last year there were 4170 valid votes, and this year we had closer to 2500? How might we explain a nearly 40% drop in votes, despite supposedly healthy growth in editor counts? I assume that the voting eligibility requirements were toughened? - Thekohser 19:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

That is interesting - surely with the global log-in it should have been easier (in terms of the actual practicality of voting) for editors to vote? DuncanHill 12:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I (unfortunately) had computer issues and missed out on voting in the elections. (sigh)

That said, I'm interested in the information Pathoschild has listed on those sub-pages. Considering the relative newness of global login, and that admins had the ability before others, I would be interested in determining how many (of each of those lines) were admins. (Noting, of course, that it's possible that someone may be an admin on one project, but having voted from another project.)

Also, the "unique email" listings were interesting. Have there been any instances of "voter fraud"? - Jc37 00:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Non-voting by key stakeholders

There was an interesting thread recently at Wikipedia Review (currently crashed, thanks to a malicious hacker attack -- probably launched by some evil, Wikimedia project troll) which showed that four current members of the current WMF Board, including Jimmy Wales, failed to vote in this election. Also, Executive Director Sue Gardner failed to cast a vote. I wonder whether there was a particular motivation for not voting, or whether it was simply careless neglect? -- Thekohser 14:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Or a conflict of interest in voting. If I were paid staff, I wouldn't feel comfortable voting for the board who have oversight over my salary. Swatjester 04:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Exit polling

For those interested in early results, both SarcasticIdealist and Thekohser have failed to win the Board seat. We don't have any other details about the winner, or the ranked finishing order of the candidates. I want to thank everyone who expressed their support to me and, of course, for ranking me toward the top of their ballots. We'll get 'em next time! -- Thekohser 17:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep fighting the good fight, Greg. :-) Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:30, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Ranking -- Avi 18:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I have much authority to fight any more, Ali'i, given that I came in dead last. I do estimate, though, that perhaps 8% to 14% of voters put me in their Top Three. But there's no way of knowing unless the actual polling data is opened up for review. Anybody know if they will be doing that (of course, anonymizing the identity of the voters)? -- Thekohser 18:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

KTC indicated they probably would. It might be a few days before it happens, though. Ral315 (talk) 18:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

unprotect to allow for updates?

I was gonna helpfully note that the winner had been announced, and fix some of the tense errors now on the page.. but I can't 'cos it's protected (understandably...) - I reckon it's safe to unprotect (for a week or two?) - to allow the updating process in a wiki fashion... either that or you good folk at the election commission have just a few loose ends to tie up, and another job to do! cheers, Privatemusings 22:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

We have updated the tense in the lead, noted the winner, and then "archive"d the other information as a historical note of the operations of the election. Thanks for the prompting. Daniel (talk) 02:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, my preference is to keep it protected for a while longer. Then, I have no issue with unprotecting it. Philippe 17:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

question

i've always wondered the purpose of these so called 'boards'

what are they, and is there more to the bureaucracy and strict authority that i have come to observe over the course of the years?

Well, in the board is vested all legal authority to direct the WMF. The WMF owns the various Wikimedia trademarks as well as the server space from which all Wikimedia projects operate. These two facts combined make it fairly important. Sarcasticidealist 08:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

a conversation with Ting Chen

(crossed posted from en/wiki) ..as many (if not all) will now know, Ting Chen was recently elected to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation - I had a brief chat with him over the weekend, and you can hear some thoughts, reflections and one or two thank yous here. cheers...

I'd be very happy were this audio file to be added to the election pages in some way, if the committee felt it appropriate - you could also throw this one in 'for the record' if you'd like.... cheers, Privatemusings 23:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Detailed and/or raw election data

Anybody have any idea if and when more raw-form election data will be released? I am keenly interested in learning how many people voted me higher than anyone else on their ballot; how many had me in the top 2 spots; top 3; etc. Selfish, yes. But, I think this info is needed, even on a meta level to quality assure the Committee's work. (Not that I suspect any wrongdoing whatsoever.) I'd ask Kwan Ting Chan about it on his English Wikipedia page, but I don't want to give away one of my current sockpuppets. -- Thekohser 04:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Is Board elections/2008/Votes/en what you were looking for? A statistical analysis is available here. Daniel (talk) 05:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Word up. I knew I wasn't the worst candidate, if only they had used a more rational voting system. Thanks. -- Thekohser 14:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Details on Gregory Kohs' election bid are found here on Wikipedia Review. Thank you to the 400 voters who ranked me #1, #2, or #3 on their ballots. -- Thekohser 15:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Proportional Representation

In my series of papers, I also propose a proportional ranking method. A "proportional ranking" is a complete ranking of all candidates such that, for every possible number M, the first M candidates of this ranking represent the different parts of the electorate as proportionally as possible. Proportional rankings are used e.g. (1) to generate an ordered party list or (2) to circumvent the Alabama paradox of traditional single transferable vote methods without having to sacrifice proportionality.

I have applied my proportional ranking method to the ballot data of this election to see whether Kohs would have performed better under proportional representation. The result of this proportional ranking is:

1. Ting Chen
2. Alex Bakharev
3. Samuel Klein
4. Harel Cain
5. Ryan Postlethwaite
6. Ad Huikeshoven
7. Steve Smith
8. Ray Saintonge
9. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
10. Kurt M. Weber
11. Dan Rosenthal
12. Gregory Kohs
13. Craig Spurrier
14. Matthew Bisanz
15. Paul Williams

[That means that, if the Board of Trustees consisted of (say) 7 members who are elected by the single transferable vote, then the winners were Chen, Bakharev, Klein, Cain, Postlethwaite, Huikeshoven, and Smith.] Markus Schulze 18:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Mr. Schulze. I wish I could have invited each of my 400 strong supporters to play a round of golf where I played 18 holes today. And, no, that's not a painting; it's the real deal. Poor Wikimedians don't know what they're missing out here in the real world! -- Thekohser 02:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)