Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2015

The election ended 31 May 2015. No more votes will be accepted.
The results were announced on 5 June 2015. Please consider submitting any feedback regarding the 2015 election on the election's post mortem page.

The 2015 elections to the Board of Trustees will be held 17 to 31 May 2015. Members of the Wikimedia community have the opportunity to elect three candidates to a two-year term which will expire in 2017. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons.

The Election Committee will announce the results on or before 5 June 2015. Detailed results will be available.

Information for voters

How to vote

If you are eligible to vote:

Read the candidate presentations and decide which candidates you will support.
Go to the SecurePoll voting page.
Follow the instructions.

Still having trouble voting? Check here.

Requirements

Editors

You may vote from any one registered account you own on a Wikimedia wiki. You may only vote once, regardless of how many accounts you own. To qualify, this one account must:

not be blocked on more than one project;

and not be a bot;

and have made at least 300 edits before 15 April 2015 across Wikimedia wikis (edits on several wikis can be combined if your accounts are unified into a global account);

and have made at least 20 edits between 15 October 2014 and 15 April 2015.

The AccountEligibility tool can be used to quickly verify basic editor voting eligibility.

Developers

Developers qualify to vote if they:

Are Wikimedia server administrators with shell access;

Or have commit access and have made at least one merged commits in git to Wikimedia Foundation utilized repos between 15 October 2014 and 15 April 2015.

Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors

Current Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors qualify to vote if they have been employed by the Foundation as of 15 April 2015.

Wikimedia Foundation board members, Advisory board members, FDC committee members

Current and former members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board and the Funds Dissemination Committee are qualified to vote.

Information for Nominators

The board is looking for an especially diverse candidate pool and knows that the community itself is most likely to know who would be a good fit. Do you know someone who you think would be a good candidate for the Board of Trustees? If so, you can nominate them for the position!

How to nominate someone else

If you think that the candidate is eligible, you can ask the election committee to reach out to them, provide information about the position and invite them to apply or ask questions. If you want to do this, you should write an email to [email protected] with:

The username of the user you want to nominate.
What position(s) you think they would be a good fit for.
Are you ok with your name or username being provided as the nominator?
A short description of why you think they would be a good fit for the position and what they could offer the movement.

What will happen next

After receiving a nomination, the elections committee or their WMF advisors will reach out to the nominee to provide information about the position and it's requirements and to see if they are interested in running. If they are interested, they will be provided with instructions on how to submit their candidacy and, as always, will be able to ask questions about the process or the position.

Information for candidates

The selection of new board members must comply with the WMF Board's duty of care. The Board must act in a reasonable, diligent, and informed manner, and with the care that an ordinarily prudent person would use in similar circumstances. This duty of care, for example, applies to the careful selection of qualified individuals to serve on the Board who would not bring disrepute to that body.

Those who are considering a candidacy are urged to read the Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook prior to submitting their candidacy.

Roles and responsibilities as member of the Board

The Board of Trustees is responsible for oversight of the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. Good board members enable good management by the Executive Director and staff. They do not manage the organization themselves or interfere in its day-to-day operations. The Board's oversight role includes decision-making, monitoring and leadership.

These responsibility include:

Making decisions on vision, strategy, goals, and high level policies for the organization;
Monitoring the Wikimedia Foundation's performance, risks, finances, and compliance;
Advising the Executive Director and senior staff, drawing on the Board member's relevant expertise and experiences; and
Articulating and communicating the Wikimedia Foundation's goals to the Wikimedia community and general public.

Board members should maintain the legal and ethical integrity of the organization, recruit and orient new Board members, and cultivate diversity on the Board.

Learn more about the role of the Board of Trustees in the Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook.

Prerequisites to candidacy

To be eligible, candidates must be willing and able to fulfill the duties of board and committee service, including expending the time and energy required to conduct due inquiry into relevant issues, to make informed decisions in good faith, and to attend board meetings regularly. The eligibility requirements for candidates are the same as for voters (see voter requirements), with the following additional requirements:

You must not have been convicted of a serious crime or any crime involving dishonesty or deception; and
You must not have been removed from a position at a non-profit organization or other company because of mismanagement or misconduct; and
At the time of nomination or election, you may not be banned or blocked from any Wikimedia project for a period of 30 days or longer; and
You must publicly disclose your real name in your candidate presentation (because the identities of Board members are a matter of public record, it is not possible to hold a position on the Board of Trustees anonymously or under a pseudonym); and
Be at least 18 years old and of legal age in your home country; and
Submit proof of your identity to the Wikimedia Foundation (see below).

How to submit your candidacy

If you are eligible, you can submit your candidacy by doing the following:

Write a brief summary of no more than 1200 characters (excluding spaces) stating how you hope to enrich the entire Board, and describe your related opinions and experience, and anything else you think is relevant. An additional summary of no more than 400 characters (excluding spaces) will be displayed on the voting page. You may not use your candidate summaries to link to lists of endorsements or other platform pages, and may not run on a slate with other candidates.
Submit your summaries between 00:00, April 20, 2015 (UTC) and 23:59, May 5 2015 (UTC). Your statement may only be changed in the 3 days after submission, or up to May 5, except for minor corrections (for instance, spelling correction) or translation. Any additions or changes to content submitted after this deadline will be time-stamped and presented separately from the original summary, and will only be presented to voters if they get translated into all of the same languages as the original summary. You should note that earlier submissions allow time for translation into more languages, and that submissions provided on the due date or just before may not be as widely translated.
Please note: To allow voters to engage with candidates quickly statements will be sent for professional translation within 48 hours of submission. While the first translation will be on a 24 hour turn around future updates will be grouped together and may take longer.
Submit proof of your identity to the Wikimedia Foundation before 23:59, May 5 (UTC). You will be privately contacted by a member of the Election Committee with further information about meeting this requirement when you list yourself as a candidate.

Candidates who fail to comply with the above requirements and deadlines will be disqualified.

Submitting proof of identity to the Wikimedia Foundation

Candidates for this position must submit proof of identity and evidence of age of majority as a condition of candidacy. This proof may be provided in one of the following manners:

Copy or scan of driver's license.
Copy or scan of passport.
Copy or scan of other official documentation indicating real name and age.

This may be provided to the WMF in one of the following means:

via email to secure-info wikimedia.org
via facsimile to +1 (415) 882-0495 (if you do this please email secure-info wikimedia.org to warn them that the fax is incoming).
via post (snail mail) to:

Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

ATTN: JAMES ALEXANDER

149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94106

USA

Note that post is not recommended. Exceptions will not be made if a candidate's documentation has not arrived at the WMF offices by the deadline of 23:59 UTC, 5 May 2015.

Organization

Timeline

5 May: Deadline for candidate submissions and Identification verification
5–16 May: Questions and discussion between candidates and community
17–31 May: Voting
1–5 June: Vote-checking
5 June: Goal for announcement of results