Hi Itzik, If I understand you correctly, you are asking about whether WMF and thematic organization bylaws should allow employees to vote in trustee elections for their own orgs.
I can see how this could create interesting conflict-of-interest problems. However, in all non-autocratic republics that I know about, government employees can vote as any other citizens can. I'm also of the view that WMF operates like a university, and a modest amount of staff involvement in selecting their supervisors in that environment is ok. Pine On Oct 5, 2014 12:41 AM, "Itzik - Wikimedia Israel" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey, > > Don't worry, we indeed have a lot of time till the next elections, but as > this issue had been raised during the last elections - and we decided that > we can't change the rules few weeks before the elections, now I want to > raise the discussion enough time before. > > According to the current rules [1], in order to influence and vote in the > elections, you need to be active editor, developer or WMF staff/contractor. > > Last year this issue concern some of us. The foundation is not small > organizations as it been before, and by comparison, the number of people > participating in the elections every year is not high. > > For example, last elections there were 1809 valid votes. By comparison, the > number of WMF staff this days is 218, what makes there voting power 12% of > the total voters last year. This consider to be a great amount of power > when we are talking about elections (In the last election you would have > around 650 votes in order to be elected...) > > Wikimedia thematic organizations staff and contractors for example don't > have the same privilege to vote only because they are employees of the > movement, only if they are editors as well. The question - what make the > WMF staff different, and if this is not a little bit problematic that the > staff have such power to decide on their direct board, but in general - the > board of the whole movement. > > Do we need to give the same privilege also to all the staff in our > movement? > Should we limited the elections to staff (both WMF and chapters) that are > active editors or developers as additional to their work in the movement? > > I'll be happy to hear yours input. > > [1] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Vote_Questions > > [2] > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Results > > > > *Regards,Itzik Edri* > Chairperson, Wikimedia Israel > +972-(0)-54-5878078 | http://www.wikimedia.org.il > Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the > sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment! > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
