Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Election Compass/Answers

Statement by number	Candidate	Candidate's position	Reasoning/Explanation
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Michał Buczyński	Support	Transparency is an important value in our Movement, and certainly the WMF should be more open regarding its plans, budgets, activities, SMART goals and their fulfillment, major decisions. Nevertheless, transparency comes at cost. Writing reports, distributing insight, ensuring clarity and legal safety takes staff and volunteers' time. From my experience I know a balance is needed, otherwise "absolute transparency" would mean an organisation focused on talking on itself instead of doing things.
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Strong support	I am supportive of being transparent when it is possible. Important to stress that as in the parenthasis, there are issues relating to safety, security, or legal, where transparency is not possible.
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Support	I believe the Wikimedia Foundation has been transparent in conducting this activities and I absolutely encourage this excluding where it would cause security issues.
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Kunal Mehta	Support	The WMF should operate with a posture of transparency by default. As you note not everything can be public, but as much as possible should be. This is an important issue to me and something I regularly advocated for while a WMF staff member (e.g. wiki pages not Google Docs, IRC not Slack). If you have time, I would encourage watching the talk I gave at the HOPE conference about how Wikimedia thrives because of transparency.
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Strong support	As a proponent of open knowledge, it only makes sense for the Wikimedia Foundation to promote openness and transparency, and to lead by example and conduct its activities transparently (with the exceptions of cases that could cause legal/privacy/security issues)
#1: The Wikimedia Foundation should conduct all of its activities with absolute transparency (excluding where this would cause legal/privacy/security issues)	Mike Peel	Strong support	The Wikimedia movement works transparently by default, and this is something we should also expect of the WMF. Transparency brings a lot of benefits in terms of engaging with the community, and double-checking approaches. It is analogous to using open source software, which enables anyone to help with code review and development.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Michał Buczyński	Strong support	The question's background was Community Wishlist run by Community Tech team. This is a well-received programme of solving smaller issues prioritized by communities. Despite its successes, the programme faced a number of delays and limitations in problems taken to solve in a year. As initiatives like the Wishlist equip volunteers with better tools making their work easier and more effective. and the needs remain high, increase of the funding is crucial.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Support	I am actually very supportive, but reduced it to supportive, just since I realize we cannot do everything we may want to do. See videos, where I elaborate more on that.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I support this but instead of the Wikimedia Foundation creating or developing the tools themselves based on assumptions, I would suggest and encourage that the community get involved in tools development as they know what tools are important to them. Furthermore, whatever tool aimed to be developed should also be DEI centered.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Kunal Mehta	Strong support	Specifically, "more" should be about using community-led bottom up prioritization to devote technical resources, not necessarily increasing headcount. Having a single Community Tech team is not sustainable. Fundamentally, ALL the WMF tech teams should be working in service of the community's needs, not just one.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	The Wikimedia Foundation provides the infrastructure on which the Wikimedia projects run, and provides support for existing products and innovates new products to help the community. The way in which the WMF prioritizes technical support issues does not always align with the expectations of the community, and this needs to change.
#2: The Wikimedia Foundation should provide more technical support to meet the demand of the community	Mike Peel	Strong support	Tech support for the community has been minimal for a very long time. The Community Wishlist process helps, but they can only handle a small number of the requests that come in, and need significant more capacity to handle more requests.
#3: 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	Michał Buczyński	Neutral	Question is personal, and in my communities there is no visible progress of the WMF taking over control since quiet, and then formal introduction of the oversight role and an effective voice of distrust to regular administrators. UCoC has been debated properly. However, I remain concerned as some thinking shows lack of focus on existing volunteers and their independence, and our distributed leadership is rarely seen as a value.
#3: 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	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	While this may have been the case in the past, I do not believe WMF is operating in that manner anymore. The organization is now oriented toward service to the community. The main issue here is unclear definitions of roles & responsibilites. I am hopeful the Movement Charter, and future Global Council, will help improve that, as well as current work of WMF to make its scope clearer.
#3: 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	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I do not support the WMF assigning itself unilateral authority in making decisions on projects which affects the community. I've always been a believer of democracy and the Wikimedia Movement being a practical example of one should encourage equity in decision making. We're not running a unilateral system but rather a democratic one and we can come together to make win - win decisions.
#3: 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	Kunal Mehta	Support	I am hopeful that a representative Global Council can officially take this decision making responsibility while respecting wiki self-governance.
#3: 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	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	Decision-making by the WMF should be transparent and take into account input from the communities that will be affected by any decisions.
#3: 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	Mike Peel	Support	I know this has happened at various unfortunate times in the past. I am not convinced that this is increasing, however I am generally uncomfortable about any unilateral decisions. Wikimedia works by consensus, not by authority.
#4: 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	Michał Buczyński	Support	Our Movement Charter is not written yet, but our strategy assumes decentralization and subsidiarity. This for me means a larger number of strong entities, as well as delegating actions and resources and leaving room for community leadership. This would also allow more robustness and room for experiments, possibly more equity and maintaining our spirit of volunteerism.
#4: 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	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	Agree with the first part (reducing scope, clarifying roles & responsibilities), but disagree with the second (community of volunteers can manage the rest). I believe formal structures are needed, such as existing / future affiliates, including hubs / Global Council, to undertake work WMF is not doing. Not everything could be done by volunteers if we want accountability & equity.
#4: 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	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Neutral	I'm neutral about this. In as much as I do not encourage the WMF to keep expanding it's responsibilities but rather focus on the ones already being handled, I do not encourage too much responsibilities being left on the Communities as well; because just as the question says, it's volunteer capacity and I wouldn't want Communities to be over burdened.
#4: 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	Kunal Mehta	Support	I support this in principle and am excited to see how the decentralization plank of the movement strategy pans out.
#4: 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	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Strong support	A decentralized Wikimedia movement is a model we're striving for. Any responsibilties that can be taken on by the communities should be in the hands of the communities, with the Foundation playing a supporting role rather than a driving one.
#4: 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	Mike Peel	Support	WMF needs to make sure that its activities are appropriately focused, and to enable other parts of the Wikimedia movement to take on tasks that they are better suited for (e.g., affiliates working in different countries and contexts). Continuously seeking to reduce tasks helps with that - although it needs to be balanced with being open to new opportunities, and avoiding unilateral reduction or expansion.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Michał Buczyński	Support	This question combines a few substatements and assumptions. Firstly, the WMF should have more assets than ever, but I don't believe its fundraising is too high - it is rather that investments made in e.g. software are too low. On the other hand, our fundraising, while efficient, is stressing to much server's maintainance, and should boast with other areas of activity more: from technical work to e.g. fight with misinformation.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Oppose	WMF is indeed richer than ever, but still needs money, especially considering we our ambitious vision for 2030, and thinking about the sustainability of our projects for posterities. It is not easy and money is needed. I do feel that the online campaign can be improved. See videos for more.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Oppose	The Wikimedia Foundation is funded primarily through donations, institutional grants and gifts as well as the small revenue earned through the Wikimedia Enterprise. I feel there's nothing wrong with the approach as no one is forced to make donations. (People see value in what we do and hence do not see anything deceitful about its fundraising. As a large organization with large number of projects, it needs funds to stay afloat.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Kunal Mehta	Support	The current fundraising approach is based on the WMF constantly growing. The board and upper management set aggressive growth targets and then the fundraising team needs to resort to more and more extreme measures to reach them, which end up being percieved as deceptive. I would like to see the WMF stop growing and stabilize at it's current size.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Oppose	I am against this characterization of the state of fundraising by the WMF. The Foundation could always use more funds to support the community in promoting free knowledge.
#5: WMF fundraising is deceptive: it creates a false appearance that the WMF is short of money while it is in fact richer than ever	Mike Peel	Strong support	I agree with the statement, and this needs to be fixed. However, it needs to be done in a way that does not stop the flow of money to open source and freely licensed work, since having funding for such work is very important. Involving affiliates in fundraising would help a lot with this, particularly with improving donor relations, and showcasing local activities to the donor community.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Michał Buczyński	Support	Primary activity of the WMF is "empowering and engaging people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." Funding efforts empowers and engages people, and when communities properly map and prioritize needs and efforts is a good way to go. Nevertheless, in particular areas community proposals may be not optimal, and this is one of the tasks of the WMF leadership to identify weak spots.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	That depends how you define "Community efforts". To me that is very vague. Does that include taking care of the platforms, servers, etc? Because a significant part of the annual budget goes toward that, and various other tech/product efforts.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Oppose	I do not agree with this. In my opinion, the primary responsibility of the WMF is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. This can be done in several ways not restricted to funding Communities.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Kunal Mehta	Support	I'm not exactly sure about the wording here, but the primary function of the WMF is to serve the projects.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Oppose	While the Foundation should continue to fund the community's efforts, that is not the primary function of the Foundation. Funding technology that maintains the infrastructure on which all the community's efforts are based is the main function.
#6: The primary activity of the Wikimedia Foundation should be funding the Wikimedia community's efforts.	Mike Peel	Support	The core activity of the movement is the community's work. However, there are related activities (at least on the technical side of things!) that need significant activity, while not directly relating to the community.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Michał Buczyński	Neutral	*If* well managed, goals of the WMF should be well-aligned with the goals of the Movement. And in terms of ideas and leadership I believe that 1) community is our fantastic pool of leaders and experts 2) the WMF should hire dedicated experts, and ideas coming from them are very much expected. Ideas should be implemented when they are great and regardless of the source; this is a point of decentralisation. Certainly, "mission creep" or negligence can harm both the WMF and the communities.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	Not sure I fully understand this statement. WMF is now aligned with Movement Strategy. That was a community-driven effort. Everything we all do should stem from that and work toward that. I do not believe in any extremes. Professional advice should be considered. Also, it is not "us vs. them", but rather everyone working together toward shared goals, and having mechanisms to exchange ideas and reach conclusions together.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I totally agree with this. There should be equity in decision making and not just imposition of decisions. This plays out especially in the area of tools and technology development. The community knows what suits them most hence, community -vetted ideas should be encouraged.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Kunal Mehta	Strong support	This is fundamentally the concept of bottom-up prioritization that I will advocate for on the board. We've seen time and time again, especially on technical issues, that the board and WMF upper management are out of touch with issues and problems that editors and staff on the ground are facing. We should be soliciting ideas out of those groups of people first, rather than getting them solely from the top.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	The WMF should support community-vetted ideas, rather than push its own ideas. Communities know best what they need, and if deemd viable, they should be pursued by the WMF.
#7: The WMF should generally opt for community-vetted ideas, rather than internal ideas, as the basis for its organizational roadmap	Mike Peel	Support	As a general rule, this is good, and community ideas should be very much supported. However, WMF staff are still part of the community, and 'internal' ideas are important - particularly since they come from a different perspective. They need to be balanced.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Michał Buczyński	Strong support	UCoC responds to the needs of community members voiced in the strategic process. It elevates common standards in terms of safety and inclusion - and even as details are still being discussed, and we still need to watch carefully the enforcability in practice, global standards were a step in the right direction.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Strong support	The UCoC is a critical step toward implementing any other of the strategic recommendations, and part of a larger effort for a healthier, safer, more inclusive Movement.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I support the UCoC as it helps Wikimedians to operate at a basic level while respecting one another.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Kunal Mehta	Support	Civility policies exist on many projects, a global version seems useful as the projects grow closer together. The devil is in the details and we should be prepared to edit and fix problems in the UCoC as it is rolled out.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Strong support	The UCoC is a document that contains univrersal values that should be followed by all.
#8: The Universal Code of Conduct is a net positive addition to the Wikimedia movement	Mike Peel	Support	While not perfect, the UCoC significantly helps the movement by ensuring better community health. Its positives outweigh the negatives.
#9: 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	Michał Buczyński	Support	Both physical persons (members of the communities) and the affiliates deserve their representation as currently the WMF still plays a major role and affects their life. Generally these seats don't need to be merged, and separate elections can give both groups a better representation (or at least a its better perception).
#9: 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	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Strong opposition	Unclear statement. Does it refer to current community-affiliates seats, or to all seats, suggesting that there should not be any seats that the Board itself appoints? If the former, thanaffiliates should also be involved. If the latter, then I oppose completely, as the Board must have some flexibility to appoint people with professional expertise, that might not be elected by the community, in order to be in complience.
#9: 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	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Neutral	I'm indifferent about this. I'm someone who encourages diversity. As long as they have the passion and enthusiasm for the mission, I don't have a problem with it.
#9: 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	Kunal Mehta	Support	I am glad to see that the Board decided to move to a mostly community vote for what traditionally would've been affiliate-selected seats. In this election, the use of affiliates as a primary wasn't effective, as the analysis committee consumed more time than the value it provided. Ultimately, we should aim to keep the official process as simple and straightforward as possible.
#9: 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	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Neutral	Contributors' votes on all nominees are important, but affiliates votes are just as important. They current hybrid system tries to balance the two.
#9: 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	Mike Peel	Support	It is crucial that community seats are filled by community processes, and contributors are a huge and important part of that. However, the community goes beyond just contributions by editors and developers: those working on the organisational side of Wikimedia (e.g., organising in-person events) are providing valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement that aren't counted by edits, and should also be able to vote in WMF board elections.
#10: 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	Michał Buczyński	Support	I am afraid by a lack of focus, not only in the WMF but in general Wikimedia Movement, and temptations to try to solve all the world's problems, which leads to mission creep". Some of the new or strengthened activities are very well aligned with what we do (e.g. general free speech defense), some of them less so (Knowledge Equity Fund, environmental impact). BoT needs to prioritize the most pressing issues so the Movement keeps core values and remains relevant technologically and socially.
#10: 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	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	I agree with the first part -- I do believe that under previous management, WMF has grown too fast. That said, we have new management, and the focus now is on stopping that growth and stablizing the organization. As for the second part -- I do not agree with it. To my knowlegde, WMF is *not* doing anything that is not directly related to our core mission. On the contrary, we don't seem to be able to do all that needs to be done / or wanted by the community.
#10: 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	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Support	I support this. I feel the WMF should stop hiring and try working with existing staff to better and effectively carry out the mission.
#10: 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	Kunal Mehta	Strong support	I am uncomfortable with this as I believe we have not seen a proportional increase in output for the increase in headcount.
#10: 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	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Strong opposition	I am in fact pretty comfortable at the WMF taking on tasks that are related to the core mission of the Movement, even if they are not directly related to a Wikimedia project.
#10: 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	Mike Peel	Strong support	I am uncomfortable with the huge increase in the WMF's budget over the years. I want to see this rationalised (and I have been trying to push towards this for a long time, e.g., through recommendations by the Funds Dissemination Committee). However, there are important issues that the WMF needs to work on that don't directly affect the community. Copyright extensions are a particularly relevant example here: we should ensure that works enter the public domain on reasonable timescales.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Michał Buczyński	Support	Firstly, future role and shape of the WMF, as well as the composition of the whole Wikimedia Movement, may be pretty different after the Movement Charter. Considering current status of the WMF, there is a plenty of room for decentralisation and spinning off or delegating various activities run by other organisational entities. Decentralisation combined with diversity, equity and seeking efficiacy, should mean larger entities, located beyond California.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Oppose	This is unclear. Too great compared to what? For whom? What would be a good way to judge that? What would be a satisfying number? To me, it is not about the numbers, but rather a continous effort to be fair to all employees. We have staff in over 50 countries. It is extremely complex, and as we're incorporated in the US, we indeed have a large group of staff (and senior staff) in the US. That influence how the pie is divided. But is that the right measure for equity and inclusion? Not sure.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Neutral	I'm neutral about this and hence my encouraging the WMF to stop hiring.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Kunal Mehta	Neutral	I don't have enough information to verify this. I would like to see WMF engage in salary transparency. A more diverse staff is always a good thing, but there are way more tenants to diversity than just where someone lives today.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	The Wikimedia Foundation should strive for inclusivity in its hiring practices. While the Foundation is US based, its projects are global in nature.
#11: Well over 50 percent of Wikimedia Foundation expenses is spent on salaries in the US; that percentage is too great	Mike Peel	Oppose	The WMF is a US-based organisation. It is natural to expect that it spends most of its money on salaries in the US. This is why we have affiliates that work across the globe: we should instead be spending more movement money through affiliates, rather than the WMF.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Michał Buczyński	Support	Good governance requires a certain level of direct accountability from the Election Committee, and the process involving volunteers is an interesting way for new community leaders. Nevertheless, per current bylaws choosing new BoT members is the WMF's manner, and their requirements are vital. Also we want to avoid an overly amount of influence which could e.g. distort the results by a few dedicated persons.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	I would rather not comment on the election committee during the elections themselves. I find it weird and a bad practice. I am already on record agreeing that some aspects of the election process could be improved, that includes the election committee, but not only them. But in any case, candidates commenting on it further during the elections they are part of seems in poor taste and not the right process to change things.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Support	I agree with this. The committee should equally be accountable to the community for better alignment and synergy.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Kunal Mehta	Strong support	Those running community elections should be accountable to the community. The 2021 and 2022 board elections have shown that the goals of a standing election committee have not been realized. We should re-evaluate the committee's charter and structure as whole immediately after this election concludes.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	The community should oversee the functioning of the Election Committee and hold it accountable.
#12: The Election Committee must be made actively accountable to and selected or elected by the community	Mike Peel	Strong support	I am concerned by the way that the Election Committee is appointed, since it does not seem to include community involvement in that process. I am also concerned about how responsive it is to questions during the elections, and I think it needs to do a lot more planning work before elections start, to make sure that the process is clearly set out before the elections start.
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Michał Buczyński	Support	As noted above, separate elections for volunteer communities and affiliates should offer a better representation (or at least a its better perception) and more understanding, in return offering more participation.
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Strong support	(n/a)
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I can't agree less. People are not encouraged to run because of the hectic process.
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Kunal Mehta	Strong support	Elections work best when voters fully understand and engage with the process. This election process has done the exact opposite.
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	User engagement and attention-span are limited. In the current election cycle, the Election Committee has tried to greatly simplify the process. There are still steps that could be taken to further simplify it.
#13: Simplify the Board of Trustees Election Process to keep Community Members interested and engaged	Mike Peel	Strong support	This is the second time I have been through this process, and both times it has been very complex - but in different ways. A straightforward process, with rules and processes clearly shared in advance (and discussed with the community), would help a lot here.
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Michał Buczyński	Neutral	I think the wording of this question is not very fortunate. There are many good examples of smaller things e.g. improving the quality of life and productivity of the volunteers Considering rationale for the statement, perhapse it should ask "The software development should be planned strategically and for the long-term, building both foundations and features."
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	This statement is a bit too vague for me to comment on. I agree with parts of it, and disagree with others. I'll have to better understand what was meant here to properly comment.
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Strong support	I totally agree. That's why Apps in an app store are regularly updated. We should focus on tools that are sustainable and can be updated rather than short term tools that phase out
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Kunal Mehta	Oppose	We need both. We need a solid platform team to maintain core features, but also teams that can develop new features that we lack. Lately we have done too much new feature development and not enough maintainance. I want to also stress that technical development must be a collaboration between volunteers and staff.
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Neutral	Core feature development is just as important as implementing new features. I wouldn't defund one to focus on the other.
#14: The software development should be focused on constant development and core features instead of short projects and new features.	Mike Peel	Support	We have a huge backlog of technical requests and bugfixes from the community, which need to be resolved. We also have a lot of core features that need significant development and improvement. However, we do also need new features developing (such as a properly scalable user interface that works well on both large and small devices!). There needs to be a better balance here, which needs to be done in consultation with the community.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Michał Buczyński	Support	Carefully support as the ambigous wording may reflect various concepts. Firstly, such processes exist, including grant committees and Wishlist Survey. Secondly, the level of participation needs to be reasonable for all the sides - e.g. a discussion of the whole budget with entire community might be competely unattainable to everyone - however deep assessment from representatives (e.g. the FDC) or larger wishlist budget and opportunities for the wider community are praiseworthy.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Shani Evenstein Sigalov	Neutral	WMF should allow feedback on the Annual Planning Process, which has already been implemented. I don't think we can run a budget in a completely participatory manner. Can't imagine how such a process will work, practically, in a sustainable & timely manner. Also, the role of the Board is to oversee the budget and operations. The community selects the majority of Trustees. Have confience in your elected to do their job. Finally, if there's a practical proposal for such a process, do send it to the Community Affairs Committee for consideration.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Tobechukwu Precious Friday	Neutral	I'm indifferent about this.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Kunal Mehta	Support	I would like to see more specifics on how this would work in practice, but I am Support of processes that are bottom-up.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Farah Jack Mustaklem	Support	Out of the principle of opennes and paricipatory inclusion, the community should have a say in fund allocation.
#15: The WMF should initiate a participatory budgeting process, in which the editor community participates in the allocation of funds	Mike Peel	Support	I have been involved in participatory Wikimedia grant committees for the last decade, and they work very well at bringing in different viewpoints and experiences to help improve annual plans. Participatory budget processes would be a big step forward - although I think the first step is to move towards participatory reviews of the WMF's annual plan.