Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Meetings/Candidates meet with community July 28/Rules

Following rules were created using the feedback from the candidates and after internal talks within the Movement Strategy and Governance team.

These rules are adapted and similar to ones used by the Democratic National Committee during their presidential primaries and by the European Broadcasting Union during the debates for the President of the European Commission before the 2019 EU elections

1. Meeting will be facilitated by the WMF facilitators, with technical and language support from the affiliated organizations (WMPL, WMIT, WMCH) and volunteers. The list of offered interpretations is updated regularly on Meta.
2. Web software will be used to determine random order.
3. Each not-present candidate will have their bio shown on screen and read aloud by the facilitator at the beginning of the meeting.
4. The debate will feature 4–6 questions selected randomly.
   1. Questions are submitted:
      1. via the chat before the meeting starts
      2. via the Google form in the days before the meeting
      3. on the discussion page of the meeting on Meta
      4. privately to the meeting facilitators
   2. Similar questions will be combined by the facilitator
5. At the beginning of the meeting rules will be explained to all participants.
6. After presenting the rules and before the debate starts, the list of all questions will be shown on screen and shared on the chat.
7. After asking each question, the facilitator will ask which candidates want to answer this particular question.
   1. Candidates show their interest by using the “raise hand” function on zoom.
   2. After all candidates have raised their hand, the facilitator will ask the candidates to start answering the questions.
   3. Candidates will answer the question in a random order as called by the facilitator.
8. Each candidate gets 6 minutes of speaking time for the duration of the entire meeting.
   1. Each candidate decides how many questions they answer and how long they want to spend answering each question, provided they are within their allotted time.
   2. Candidates are encouraged to use the whole amount of time offered to them as any unused time will be treated as forfeited by the candidate.
   3. This time might get shortened/extended if the number of candidates differs from the number of candidates who confirmed their attendance (15).
9. The time used/remaining for each candidate will be shown after each round of answers
   1. Time will be tracked by the facilitator using web software.
10. After the question list is exhausted, each candidate will have additional 60 seconds to present their own statement, regardless of the amount of time that they have left after the previous part of the meeting.
    1. This time might get shortened/extended if the number of candidates differs from the number of candidates who confirmed their attendance (15).