Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2005/FAQ/en

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2005 board elections (English frequently asked questions)

This page answered questions about the 2005 elections for the Board of Trustees (see other board elections or FAQs by year). For more information, see Board elections/2005.

Wikimedia Foundation Board Elections Election notice Candidates FAQ Final results Statistics Organization Election officials Translation: coordinators interface

Last Update: 07:06, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

This is the Election FAQ 2005 for the Board of the Trustees Election.

See Election FAQ 2004 for last year's Election FAQ. Please note that the answers given there might not apply to the 2005 elections. Put your question on talk, if any.

On elected people

What will be the structure of Board ?

There are five board members. Three are "permanent" and can be replaced by being elected by the board itself (see Article IV, section 2.1), Two are elected by Wikimedia Foundation members, that is, editors of Wikimedia projects, and represent them.

How many members will be elected?

The elections will only be for two seats.

Will the former elected/designated members stay ?

The former elected members will have to run again.

Isn't the election against the bylaws?

Article IV, section 2 of the bylaws says "The initial Trustees shall be elected by a majority vote of the Trustees and shall serve until their successors are elected and qualified.(...)". Article V, section 1 says "The Board of Trustees shall elect from among its members a Chair, Vice Chair, Executive Secretary and Treasurer.(...)". That means the Board is at least 4 persons. Why are we electing only two persons?

There are 5 board members. 3 are "permanent" (until we change the structure, which is very likely to happen soon, and we have budgeted $3000 to pay for legal advice about the right way to do it), and 2 are elected. Successors to the 3 permanent members are replaced by being elected by the board itself (see Article IV, section 2.1), the 2 elected members are by election.

On voters

At least 400 edits - where?

Election notice says 400 edits in total is necessary for right to vote. On the other hand Election candidates 2005/En says " you must have more than 400 edits on one of the Wikimedia projects". Is it inconsistent?

Currently there is no distinction in the qualifications required of candidates and voters. For technical reasons, a user is required to have at least 400 edits on one of the Wikimedia projects.

An anonymous editor can't vote, and why?

Anonymous or non-logged-in editors can't vote as is. The vote eligibility is given to the person who have "active membership", either volunteer or contributing, according to the Foundation Bylaws Art. III, 1. As for contributing active membership the Foundation has currently no contributing member. As for volunteer active membership, III. 1. B. says "the creation of a user account on some Wikimedia project" is qualification for this membership.

What about non-logged-in edits (from IP addresses associated with some user account)?

Those non-logged-in edits are treated as anonymous edits and not counted by the Election Officials.

I have more than 400 edits on one project, but I can't vote. What goes wrong?

Please make it sure you need to vote from the project you are actually active. Example: you have been active on German Wikipedia since last year and submitted more than 400 edits. You come to meta to read this FAQ (thank you!) and try to vote soon after you finish. You get a message "you are not qualified"; then please try again from the project you are active (in this case German Wikipedia).

In the case above, we have found however some editors not enabled to vote regretfully. If you are just one of those editors, We are very sorry for inconvinience, and ask you to contact one of us, the Election Officials with information the below:

• Your user name
• Your project
• Link to your contributions on the project above, if possible.

Can I vote from the multiple projects?

Sorry, no. One person may have one and only one vote. If you vote from two or more projects, all your votes except the latest one will be stricken by one of the Election Officials.

Can I withdraw my vote?

Yes. If you vote again from the same project where you voted, your former vote will be withdrawn automatically. If you change your mind and decide not to vote for anyone, please contact one of the Election Officials.

On interface

I think some parts of messages are unclear. How can they fixed?

Due to change of Election rules, some parts of interface messages have been changed from the one used in the last year. If your project localized those interface messages in the last year, it might be necessary for your project to update them. Please ask administrators on your local project to update (and translated) the MediaWiki messages on the below:

• MediaWiki:boardvote_intro
• MediaWiki:boardvote_notloggedin
• boardvote_notqualified

Also, we modified a bit other two messages: MediaWiki:boardvote_entry and MediaWiki:boardvote_intro_change. Updating those five files will be helpful. Latest version is available at Election UI text 2005.

On schedule

What does 24:00 stand for on the Election schedule?

Please replace it with 23:59.