The Board selfappoints ALL its members. This has always been the case
and still is.
They want some of the members to have competence of and relation to the
communities, but a concept of an election of Board members by and from
the communities is and has always been a hallucination.
If we, the communities, want something different, we must by our self
and independent (also financially) create a body, truly elected, and
demand from the board a process that utilize this body to fill seats
that represent the community
It is no use we kick and scream around a reality that does not exist
Anders
Den 2025-10-10 kl. 08:14, skrev effe iets anders:
Aside from all process concerns I have: If we want our leadership to
be part of public conversations - heck, if we want *potential* future
leaders to be part of critical debate inside and outside of Wikimedia,
it is a very dangerous precedent to set that candidates are removed
from consideration for posts in the past. This is a dangerous risk in
regular politics as well as Wikimedia.
I don't know yet what the right solution would be. If these candidates
would pose insurmountable legal risks (I haven't seen the full
information available to the board, and I'm sure it was accompanied by
a legal analysis of sorts) - we could push back as a community.
However, I also realize that the board has a tremendous
responsibility. Their duty is to ensure the continued existence of the
Wikimedia Foundation forever. And I don't envy their responsibility
right now, given the developing political, legal (and financial!)
landscape in the United States.
I really appreciate Clovermoss' broader approach to think about
solutions. I'm not convinced that the right approach is to push
through candidates. I'm really sad for both R. and L.*, who have
amazing qualities both, who I admire as a Wikimedian and colleague.
Let us acknowledge at least briefly that this must be at the least a
bit of a personal drama for them - they did not deserve this. At this
time, I'm also not convinced the WMF is doing the right thing to move
forward with the election - but honestly, I haven't heard many great
alternatives either.
What I do think we really have to ask ourselves in the coming year, is
whether our current structure with a WMF board that has both the legal
responsibility for everything, and in some way is the only
strategy-setting body that we have as a movement, is perhaps placing a
bit too much responsibility to place on a single body. I recall that
one of the main outcomes of the movement charter process was to
address this - and while the specifics of that solution were maybe not
perfect, this drama does reinforce to me that the principal idea of
moving away to a more balanced system may be more important than ever.
Lodewijk
*(just abbreviating their names here because I don't like that our
discussions on this will be the results of search queries for eternity)
On Thu, Oct 9, 2025 at 5:06 PM Hannah Clover
<[email protected]> wrote:
Oops, I said that already. Sorry, carry on 😅.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2025, 10:58 a.m. Hannah Clover
<[email protected]> wrote:
I also wanted to say that I welcome other people's voices on
the discussion page on my reform petition. My story is just
one of many and our collective voices matter.
On Thu, Oct 9, 2025, 10:44 a.m. Owen Blacker
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Victoria,
Thank you for at least presenting your personal
perspective on the disqualification of these 2 candidates.
I have to say, though, this seems to me like the least
charitable possible view anyone could have taken from both
candidates' statements.
I'm sure this is not what you intended, but what I read
from your message is that:
1️⃣ A bad-faith smear campaign from Israel will be enough
to rule out any candidate who posts pro-Palestine,
anti-Zionist messages, and disenfranchise voters who would
support a candidate who opposes Israel's genocide of the
Palestinians.
2️⃣ A single Board member having expressed anti-Israel
comments on social media is more likely to bring the WMF
into disrepute than rumours of the Foundation being
careful to appease the ADL, a propagandist organisation
that disseminates disinformation, that conflates any
criticism of Israel with antisemitism and that denies that
a genocide is currently occurring in territories under
Israeli control.
3️⃣ A candidate who is looking to increase transparency
and help the community better understand the work of the
Board is immediately assumed to be incapable of
recognising a need for privacy around any of those areas —
even despite that candidate already being trusted by 2
different Affiliates with equivalently sensitive
Board-level information.
If the vetting process is immediately assuming
pro-Palestinian viewpoints and pro-transparency viewpoints
to be incompatible with Board membership, then the vetting
process is not fit for purpose.
I am finding it increasingly difficult to trust the
judgement of a Board who thinks these 2 candidates are so
dangerous that they cannot be voted on or trusted to be
onboarded appropriately. This is exacerbated when the most
recent other activities I have seen from the Board are
replacing a queer woman of colour from a non Free
nation-state of the Global South with a white financier
from New York City (who I am sure is very competent) and
publishing a policy that seems solely designed to stop the
Arabic-language Wikipedia from displaying a flag on its
logo because it makes some people who are currently
supporting a genocide feel uncomfortable.
The Board seems to think the extremist viewpoints of the
news media of a country that is being condemned by a
substantial proportion of the planet are more important to
its reputation than representing the wider community and
its diversity. Given that the Foundation is hosted and
staffed predominantly from a country that is currently
falling to anti-democratic extremism, it is hard to have
trust and hope that the Foundation is willing and able to
fight for knowledge and diversity in the face of rising
hate and disinformation.
(To be clear, I too am writing as an individual, not as a
representative of any organisation I am a part of.)
--
Owen Blacker, Cardiff GB, he/him
User:OwenBlacker
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