Hello everyone, First of all, many thanks to everyone who has expressed interest in joining the Elections Committee. I really appreciate your willingness to contribute to a successful election and addressing some of the broader questions that have been identified. I'll get in touch with those who have emailed me shortly.
As a reminder, please let me know by January 19 if you are interested in participating in the Elections Committee. And thank you for your questions and feedback. I’ll respond inline to the questions I believe are still pending an answer. On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 22:31, Peter Southwood <peter.southw...@telkomsa.net> wrote: > Joe, What would "experience with advanced wikitext markup" mean in this > context? > Also "responsiveness to email outreach"? In this context, we are ideally looking for someone who is comfortable with things like translation tags, nested templates, and other "advanced" markup provided by MediaWiki. One of the tasks the committee has historically been involved with has been to set up and organise the pages for the election on Meta-Wiki, and this can get pretty complicated (as evidenced by the source code <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2017/Board_of_Trustees&action=edit>!). This is a nice-to-have rather than a must-have, since it's only one of the ways the committee supports these elections - but it's still very useful. As for responsiveness, the timelines for these elections have historically been tight, and so we really would like committee members who are able to respond to emails in a timely way so we can make committee decisions quickly. On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 10:14, Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> wrote: > - I can't find any evidence of the Elections Committee having met since the > conclusion of the 2017 elections - am I missing something? (The 'Minutes' > page seems to only refer to 2015 meetings, which is almost 5 years ago, so > hopefully this is a case of the meeting minutes being somewhere else on > Meta) > You are justifiably not finding minutes, as the Elections Committee has only met intermittently since the last election and maintained some of their discussions over email outside of meetings (to the best of my knowledge!). I am not able to offer extensive insights on the historical practice around the Elections Committee, but I can revisit the process for publishing minutes with the new committee. Supporting the committee was not in my purview until this cycle. I will however echo the disappointment about not having had the opportunity of meeting more frequently and share more updates with the community. I look forward to working more closely with the new committee once they are appointed. > - Also, part of the mandate of the Elections Committee was meant to have > been to do a review of the method of election to the Board of Trustees. I > haven't heard anything about this happening. Has either the Board or the > Elections Committee done anything about this? > The Elections Committee has had some initial conversation, and I expect this topic will be at the top of the Election Committee's agenda once they begin. > - Your email says we're looking for 2-3 new members. Does that imply that > all the existing members are all continuing? (Who in fact are the existing > members? Is the April 2017 list still valid?) > All but four of the existing committee members have indicated they are interested in continuing their membership. I and the rest of the Foundation staff supporting this work are more than happy to continue working with them once the Election Committee is renewed by the Board Governance Committee. The list is currently valid and will be updated once we'd had the Board Governance Committee approve these new members. > - Has the Board, or the Board Governance Committee, done any assessment of > whether the Elections Committee is the right tool for the job? (Does the > Board actually review the performance of the committees it creates?) That'd be a question for the Board Governance Committee, but my personal understanding is that there hasn't been a need to change things for the moment. On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 at 23:16, Henry Wood <henry.wood.1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Secondly, the first meeting is to be held in > January, so you've given yourself less than another two weeks to have staff > vet the candidates, get the approval of the Board Governance Committee, and > then hold the first meeting. Why give yourself and your propsective > candidates so little time for a process which you have known will be coming > since this time last year? I understand that the timeline looks tight, and it is, I should however mention that it is already an improvement compared to election cycles past. Of course, there is room for improvement, and the Elections Committee will be collecting this kind of feedback at the end of the cycle to improve future elections. > Thirdly, there is some important information > missing (and very little time to disseminate it effectively). For example, > what are these meetings? Is personal attendance necessary? If so, and any > committee members need to get a US visa, it's already far too late, they > will have needed to apply back in November or early December. Again, and > especially if travel is required, will the Foundation reimburse the > out-of-pocket expenses of committee members? Failure to think through > these points may explain why certain groups continue to be > under-represented. > The meetings will be held remotely, likely over Google Hangouts. We've done them through Webex before, so we will consider which platform will best serve the purpose of the meeting before deciding. I apologise for any confusion caused on this; these meetings have historically always been held remotely and will likely continue to be so. I hope this clarification is useful for those considering joining the Elections Committee. Joe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
