On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Thehelpfulone <thehelpfulonew...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On 19 February 2013 13:48, Bence Damokos <bdamo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > To be perfectly fair, all the nominations for the 2012 selection were > > public, so this was less of a problem than in 2010 when they were not > > published. > > > > > Whilst this is true, is there a good reason as to why much of the > discussion for chapter-elected board seats happens in private? Looking at > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapter-selected_Board_seats/2012/Processit > appears chapter discussion happens on a private chapters wiki and > chapters-l, a mailing list restricted to only current board members > of chapters, during which time candidates lose their access to that > wiki/mailing list but presumably gain access to it afterwards. Unless all > the discussions are deleted, what is the benefit of having these > discussions in private, especially if the candidates will see what was said > about them after the election? > > I understand why we use private voting through SecurePoll for the > "community" elections but please could someone explain what I'm missing > with regards to Chapter selected seats? > I believe the losing access to the mailing list is meant to ensure that the candidate has no undue advantage in the process by either influencing the discussion or knowing the other candidates' answers in advance (I believe those who "win" would not get re-added as they would become part of the WMF and have to give up their chapter board positions, while those who lose re-gain access once the process is over and there is no more a possibility to have this influence). As for the private vs. public aspect, there is a difficult balance to make between being transparent and being able to attract candidates who might not be comfortable in being publicly identified as unsuccessful. (The current search for an expert seat also has this guarantee of privacy, as I understand.) The result of this balancing was I believe (I might be mistaken) that in the end the chapters selected candidates could opt for publicity or the default privacy and all of them opted for the public option. This has actually resulted in the somewhat awkward need to duplicate everything between the private wiki and Meta. Furthermore, the process is meant to be consensual between the different boards involved, so there is a useful place for private discussions either on the closed mailing list or between individual board members. Adjusting this balance and making sure that people beyond the boards are informed (even if the final decision is still made by the boards) will be an important challenge for the next selection. Best regards, Bence _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
