Hi,
The ongoing board election is a sham, as noted by several editors here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2025_update
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has become breathtakingly corrupt. I'm unsure how it's not fraud for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to be advertising these "community consultations" as elections when they are demonstrably not. This is clearly deceptive and malicious behavior toward the editing community and it's unethical and unacceptable.
The answer, of course, is not to change the naming but to hold free and fair elections.
The board structure is already heavily weighted against the editing community, but even tilting the scale so far in one direction was not enough.
Longtime community members will recall that Matt Halprin bought a board seat for $2 million in 2009: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/wikipedia-gets-millions-changes-rules-jw/2088511/
James Heilman was elected to the board in 2015 and was removed the same year after pushing for greater transparency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Heilman#Tenure_on_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees
"Still, [Cameroon's 92-year-old president Paul] Biya is likely to prevail in the election, especially after his strongest rival, Maurice Kamto, was barred from running in August and the opposition remains divided."
"[Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina] Machado, who turned 58 this week, was set to run against Maduro in last year’s presidential election, but the government disqualified her."
We easily recognize corruption around the world when candidates are unfairly disqualified from running in elections.
Finally, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2025_update was an incredibly cowardly post. It requires Kremlinology to even understand what the board is doing because they are deliberately being oblique. Nowhere did the board have the courtesy to say "we disqualified two candidates", much less provide detailed rationales for their inexcusable conduct. Absolutely shameful.
MZMcBride
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