Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections committee

Congratulations to newly formed committee

The Wikipedia Foundation election committee was just formed. Congratulations! Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Access to SecurePoll

Does this committee control access to SecurePoll? I have some questions about the tool and am not sure where to ask. If anyone might help, please respond at Talk:SecurePoll#Questions_about_SecurePoll. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Names of elections

I posted a question some months ago at Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/Board_elections#Wrong_name_here_-_need_confirmation_that_this_should_move about confusion on the names of various elections. If the new committee has any comment then I would appreciate any reply. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:10, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Names of committee members

Is there a very pressing reason why members of this committee should be known by pseudonyms? Given their crucial role in overseeing the selection of candidates for the Board, it seems that transparency requires that the committee members identify to the Community. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

No issues disclosing my own name (already done in multiple places), but I think it should be optional for committee members. Ajraddatz (talk) 20:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Why so? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:03, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Because that would seem to be the standard for any positions on these sites. If you can be a steward, arbcom member, functionary, or admin without disclosing your name, there should be no need to here. Members of this committee can still be held accountable even if just their username is known. The combination of words that a person identifies themselves by doesn't change their actions or opinions. Ajraddatz (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

This Committee is functioning in the real world, putting forward real people for real positions on a real body which is responsible for real money. Transparency would benefit from their doing so under their real names. If a question of conflict of interest arises, for example, it would be all but impossible to resolve if the real identity of the individual in question were not availble for scrutiny. Even in the case of some of the posts you mention, identification to someone is required. In this case, identification to to Community would be the appropriate level. What would you impression be of an election to the board of governors of your local school if the people running the poll refused to say who they were? Is this less important? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:15, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I've worked government elections before, and was never required to disclose my name or identity (nor write a paragraph explaining who I was) to any of the electors. We aren't selecting people for the positions - we are just running the election. You still have failed to suggest any benefit from requiring this. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I feel like my comment on the mailing list last night didn't quite explain my position well. So I'll give this another shot:

• "This Committee is functioning in the real world, putting forward real people for real positions on a real body which is responsible for real money" No, we are performing the technical processes of conducting the election including verifying the eligibility of electors and creating on-wiki pages for it. The final tally is released by the software through the WMF staff. As such, the ElectCom role is far more comparable to a poll clerk or DRO than it is to a returning officer. Though I hate arguing over the real-world equivalent, and really don't think such comparisons are very useful, so feel free to ignore that metaphor if you'd like. If this were a committee selecting people for board positions then this might be different.
• "If a question of conflict of interest arises" - Given that there is no technical way for the committee members to manipulate the results, since we don't even make the tally of votes and have our vote-checking work confirmed by the other members of the committee, I'm not sure what conflict of interest there could be here. If candidate A was paying me off to support them, then there isn't much I could do about it. And having my very unimportant real name wouldn't allow you to figure out that conflict of interest any more than knowing my "anonymous" username would.
• "Even in the case of some of the posts you mention, identification to someone is required" - Yes, and because this role deals with CU data, all members of the committee are required to identify to the Foundation. And almost all or all of us were previously functionaries. There is even a de-facto strengthened identification requirement for the Committee, though I'm not sure that I can talk about it here. I'll leave that to the WMF if they want to comment.
• Giving a username is (IMO) a far more important revelation for wiki processes than a real name. You suggested on the list that ElectCom members could just reveal their real name instead of their wiki name, but I think that would severely cut into accountability. As it is, by providing my wiki username, you can check into every single comment I have made or interaction I have had with people. If my username was something less obviously connected to my real name, let's say Jaztaddar, then simply providing my real name would not give you any information about the useful conflicts of interest that I may have - such as, for example, a significant on-wiki conflict with one of the candidates.
• Finally, if we go back to the terrible real-world election metaphor, the returning officer here is probably a member of the SuSa team at the Foundation. This is the person who opens and closes the polls, and gets the results. These staff are fully identified to both the Foundation and the community under their real name. The members of this Committee are just volunteers - we don't require any other volunteer role on these sites to reveal their real name. In light of the lack of benefits as highlighted above, I'm not sure why we would arbitrarily change that requirement for this role.

Apologies if I was overly dismissive of your argument here. I was getting the impression that you were just bringing this up again as a dead horse, but looking back I don't think I provided an adequate response to you the first time, so hopefully this is a bit better. – Ajraddatz (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Terminology

Not done

Before it gets too strongly embedded can we please drop the misleading terminology of "election" for community nominated members of the Board? Selection rather than election would seem to be the mot juste. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 20:32, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

No, it's still an election, so election makes sense. Ajraddatz (talk) 20:57, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

To me it looks like a process in which the Community selects a list of nominees whom the Board may or may not appoint, as they see fit. That is not what I call an election. Maybe you are indifferent to the distinction, but that doesn't mean it is one. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:01, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the community selects their list in what we call an "election" in the English language. Probably not worth spending much time lawyering over the properness of the term, considering it clearly applies. Ajraddatz (talk) 21:04, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Ah, "I am right because I say I clearly am right". I think we can both agree it's not worth spending much time on that sort of argument. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

There is an election in the process. The WMF BoT is not bind by the result of that election doesn't conflict with the concept that the community is electing who they are putting forward to be appointed by the board. And regarding "before it gets too strongly embedded", that might have been back in 2007, not 2016. -- KTC (talk) 21:32, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

So, as I said, you agree that the process is not an election, since a part is not the whole. There is no such thing as might be suggested by the term "Board of Trustees elections". There is a selection process, part of which is an election to the position of person designated to be considered for possible appointment to the Board by the other Board members. The literary figure of naming the whole (selection) by the part (election) is called synecdoche, and it is a rhetorical device. In this case the rhetoric is intended to make the Community feel better about the process by believing that they have a stronger stake in it that they do in reality. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 06:34, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Sure. Or maybe you're just making a ridiculous point over something which clearly fits the general definition (from google) of "the selection by vote of a person or persons from among candidates for a position". This will be my last post on this topic, and I really would recommend that you find better windmills to tilt at than semantic naming issues - there are potential serious concerns with elections and how they are run that you could focus on, for example. Ajraddatz (talk) 06:40, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

The relationship between the Board and the Community, and the way the Community is, or is not, represented on the Board, and the way these issues are described do not seem to me to be ridiculous topics of discussion -- your opinion is clearly different. The sad story of the Board appointments and dis-appointments (see what I did there) over the last 12 months show that the Board at least does not view these selection processes in the same light as a representative democracy views its elections. In the wider political world the term "election" is co-opted in a number of cases because of the aura of legitimacy it casts over processes which do not always deserve it. If, for example, the Board were to commit to always seating the Community's preferred candidates, or not unseating them without cause except with the demonstrated approval of the Community, then it would be less objectionable to use the term "election". Will the Board make that commitment? Perhaps it is an issue that the Elections Committee might discuss with them.

If you do not have anything further to contribute to discussion of the rhetoric around the process, then perhaps you would like to open a discussion with the Community on the potential serious concerns with elections and how they are run that you refer to. It's important, indeed, somewhat alarming, that a member of the Elections Committee should take that view. I urge you to give more detail. After all, it is entirely possible that the Community, who after all are somewhat involved in this process, may be able to help you resolve those issues. But we do need you to tell us what those concerns are. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 16:11, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Public conversations will happen. I suppose I'm a bit alarmist calling them "serious" concerns, just perhaps more serious than petty semantics. Ajraddatz (talk) 17:34, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Glad to hear that conversations will happen. Are you in a position to inform the Community as to when, where and how those conversations will take place, or are we to await the Committee's pleasure? I hope that one of the topics of conversation will be the relationship between the Community's election of nominees, and the Board's appointment, or not, or removal of those nominees. You may regard this latter issueas petty semantics, but there are others who do not, indeed regard it as a serious concern. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think Ajraddatz has suggested that conversation on "the relationship between the Community's election of nominees, and the Board's appointment, or not, or removal of those nominees" is semantics, but rather arguments over the use of the word "election" is. Anyhow, no, no one is in a position to say when such and other conversations will take place since the committee haven't decided it yet. The members literally found out they are members only shortly before the public announcement (and that's assuming they checked their emails before the public announcement). I'm sure the community will be informed as soon as the committee has decided on what it's doing. -- KTC (talk) 21:08, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I read Ajraddatz's responses as implying that the whole issue is one of "petty semantics", and as not choosing to discuss it further. You and I, on the other hand, seem to be starting a sensible discussion about the nature of the selection process. Rather than dwell on the less than constructive responses of a third party, it would be of value not only to me, but, I venture to suggest, to the Community as a whole, if you felt able to say whether you were satisfied with the Board selection process and the relationship between the Board and the Community; whether you agree that there are serious concerns with the way the elections are run; what those might be, if any; whether you view them as issues to discuss with the Community; and what, where, when and how discussions might take place. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 10:38, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

The issue of elected board members being removed is indeed an important one, KTC is correct. But that issue won't be solved in one talk page conversation, and especially when indirectly introduced under some sort of wording issue. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:17, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

The issue of community-nominated Board members being removed a short way into their term of office is certainly a part, although not the whole of, the issue of the relationship between the Community selection and the Board nomination processes. I don't, and didn't claim, that a single conversation here will resolve all those issues. So I ask members of the Committee to say where when and how they propose to conduct the conversations and consultations with the Community that will help the Committee and the Community to drive forward the resolution of these issues. Telling us what you don't think works well is may be a small part of that but is hardly the whole of it. The ball is in the court of the Committee and its members. What are you going to do? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia itself states that "An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office." --Chealer (talk) 02:53, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

 Support

In the United States of America, the presidential candidates selected by primaries are called nominees. --Chealer (talk) 02:47, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

ElectComWiki

I assume this is for you guys? :p

A new wiki was created by reedy at Mon, 06 Nov 2017 19:54:05 GMT for a Wikimedia in English (en).
Once the wiki is fully set up, it'll be visible at https://electcom.wikimedia.org

☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:57, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I do not know who might have information about this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I inquired about it, and apparently it is for ElectCom. More information to come... – Ajraddatz (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, must have not posted my message yesterday. Yes, this wiki's for the election committee. Now that the committee is a standing committee (read: it exists for longer than just three months every two years), it made sense to have a wiki to discuss things in formats that don't make sense on a mailing list. It'll also allow us to more easily onboard new election committee members, as it'll be something of a historical record for these discussions. There was a lot of feedback from last cycle about various aspects that might have gone better, a lot of which were down to time pressure. This was preventable, and this new wiki should in theory allow us to work on that. Sorry for the seeming opaqueness :) There's a Phab task for this too, phab:T174370. Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

ASBS

Hi, I have been busy as Election Gacilitator with ASBS lately. Two people were nominated to the Board through that process. I just learned about this committee. I would like to have a chat to shate experiences. Could ASBS Election Facilitators get access to the election wiki? Greetings, Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 05:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Renewal and voting method

In light of recent discussions, it's clear that in a few months we'll have again an election process I (and many others) would complain about, with the same arguments as always. So, to be proactive, I'm open to volunteering on the committee, but before allocating my time to this effort I'd like to have confirmation from the board (or the chair of the board governance committee?) that the board is seriously interested in re-assessing the election method and that there will be a process to do so (including a streamlined committee and a dedicated agenda point on the relevant board and board committee meetings in due time). If so, I'll post a proposal and open a discussion before applying. JSutherland, can you relay this message to the appropriate channels? Nemo 09:26, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: You have my support as a candidate for this. I was on the election committee for Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016 and Affiliate-selected Board seats/2019 and I have appreciated your engagement in matters of Wikimedia governance. Of special interest to me is promoting transparency and accountability, and I trust that you share those as Wikimedia community values. I want the best election, but I also see the limited resources and constraints that we have. When there is wiki-style documentation then I can better accept the attempt and recommendations that an election committee can make. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: even if there's not time to change the election method this time, how about adding a question about whether the candidates would prefer your proposal (where is your proposal?) to Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2020/Questions? EllenCT (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

2020 Process update?

Could someone on the Committee update the Meta pages referring to this year's Board elections? Even if that is to add detail about the current timeline estimates (whatever the uncertainty). –SJ talk  02:30, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Especially after this post by Doc James I'm a bit confused, as it seems to say between the lines, that new board members for the community elected seats could be possible without an election on the next Wikimania. That's of course not possible, without an election there are no people to become board members. I think it's long overdue to start the next election, and Covid-19 has absolutely nothing to do with this, as everything is done online, and there are no restrictions for an online process due to Covid-19. Imho even the postponing in march had no real reason, as all election processes are done online. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:16, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

When will you start the overdue election process for the Board?

Currently the Board is not sufficiently vetted, it is in a self-proclaimed overtime. Elections of the members are long overdue. When will you finally start organising the elections? The current less valid board should not make such grave changes without some better legitimation beforehand, and the only legitimacy for the board comes from elections by the highest entity in the Wikiverse, the online community. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 05:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, Mardetanha, KTC, Masssly, Matanya, ProtoplasmaKid, and Ruslik0: Any answer, or will you continue to do absolutely nothing for the long overdue election, to get a properly valid board soon? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:20, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, once the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats will conclude we will know what is the route for the next elections, and will run it, based on the outcome of the call for feedback. Matanya (talk) 08:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

But what should a not properly vetted board decide? First they must regain their proper status, that is now just that of some interim, pure technical, board, without proper elections there will be no legitimate board to decide anything. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:01, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I understand your viewpoint, but this is not something in the mandate of the election committee to change. Matanya (talk) 10:58, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

You are the ones responsible for organising the overdue elections, so far you have not done anything in this regard despite the illegitimacy of the current board. You have thus worked against the communities here, when will you finally start doing your duty and organise the election? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:32, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

They don't really have the authority to do anything at this point. Unilaterally starting the process is unlikely to end well, and must be weighed against possible repercussions. They could make a statement of some sort, but I doubt it would influence the Board's plans. (Though IMO they should anyway.) --Yair rand (talk) 13:04, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll ping the paid staffers as well: @Slaporte (WMF), CRoslof (WMF), JSutherland (WMF), and GVarnum-WMF:, I can't ping Esra’a Al Shafei, as she has no pingable account. This withholding of the overdue election for the communities is no longer anything that can be just shoved away, it's becoming more and more malicious neglect of the highest entity in the Wikiverse, the online communities. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 13:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, the Wikimedia Foundation elections committee is a committee of the Wikimedia Foundation, appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee with members from the Wikimedia community. Its only powers are what the board gives it, and until the Board Governance Committee direct us to organise an election, we have no power to do so I'm afraid. -- KTC (talk) 17:20, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Upcoming elections

A board resolution has been published about upcoming elections Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/2021-04-15 Resolution about the upcoming Board elections. They proposed a timeline. Could the Elections Committee let us know if they are going to follow this timeline? The choice of voting method is up to the Elections Committee. Could you let us know whether you are going to adopt Single Transferable Vote, or not, please. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 08:17, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ad, we are actively working with foundation staff on building a timeline, an update will be shared once we have one. Sorry for the delay. Matanya (talk) 19:08, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Upcoming elections: Schulze STV

The board resolution leaves the choice of voting method to the Elections Committee. I would like to propose Schulze STV. It is a Condorcet STV method, similar to CPO-STV. As 4 seats have to be filled, Schulze STV systematically searches for candidates who win in every 5-seat STV count. These candidates then become the final winners. Schulze STV, therefore, satisfies a generalization of the Condorcet criterion to proportional representation by the single transferable vote. Compared to other STV methods, Schulze STV also has the advantage that voters can give the same preference to more than one candidate; they can even vote approval-style or Support/Neutral/Oppose-style. I can provide the source code for this election method. Markus Schulze (talk) 09:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Herr Schulze, dear Mark, thanks for pushing your method. In the last "community sourced" elections (see Affiliate-selected Board seats/Resolution 2019) single transferable vote with Droop quota was used. The software used allowed voters to give the same preference to more than one candidate. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 12:35, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Markus for providing some expert advice! There's a sore need for Wikimedia elections to not follow Australia's lead in considering maths optional.

Various choices are possible, but it's important to pick some sound and tested method. The Schulze STV has served us well and has proven resilient in a recent very controversial Debian vote.

Now that a complex set of criteria and preferences are sought by the WMF board, it's going to be all the more important to have a method that can fairly represent the voters' preferences. I hope WMF has budgeted enough time, software development resources etc. to adapt SecurePoll as needed. (Some fairly minimal interface changes would be enough to make the voting method more understandable for users, but they need to be tested and validated ahead of time. Last minute development is not advisable.) Nemo 18:29, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Sadly, STV is not entirely sufficient to "fairly represent the voters' preferences". I oppose all these candidates and should be able to cast a ballot to that effect. STV requires support for at least one candidate, creating the veneer of acceptability to this unacceptable slate of candidates. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:58, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Wahlberechtigung

Obwohl ich denke, dass Ihr hier sowieso mitlest, auch hier noch mal die Frage zur Wahlberechtigung. Der Satz, den ich da anspreche, ist sehr unklar, es ist nicht deutlich, was der Satz aussagen möchte. Es gibt zahlreiche Interpretationsmöglichkeiten, und die, die gerade von User:DBarthel (WMF) dort aufgezeigt wurde halte ich für a) zu restriktiv und b) zu manipulationsanfällig. Wenn jemand in zwei kleinen Projekten gesperrt wurde, weil er einem Admin dort auf die Füße getreten ist, dann wäre er trotz noch so gutem Standings in noch so vielen großen Projekten nicht wahlberechtigt. Und was ist überhaupt ein Projekt? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Questions about how questions were chosen

A question has been asked on the candidate questions page about how the 10 questions were chosen. If someone on behalf of the committee could address that it would be appreciated. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

What is the oversight set-up of this committee?

Hello there,

6 weeks ago, now, I pinged every member of ElectCom with regard to providing information that you must have, but need to make visible - you can see a link to it that another helpful editor provided directly above this topic. There are three questions there.

That, itself, was a follow-up request, after ElectCom were originally asked for additional details to be provided about a fortnight prior. Given the length of time, I now have three questions:

1) When will ElectCom answer those three questions?

2) Why has it taken so long (so long to not answer, at that)?

3) What oversight method does ElectCom utilise to ensure that communication and transparency obligations are met? The BOT can obviously handle things with regards on their side of things, but I've not had much involvement with ElectCom, so I don't know what Community members who are concerned by (in)action are supposed to do in the event of members not replying to queries? Nosebagbear (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Concerning the current election of Wikimedia foundation board 2021

Dear members of elections comity,

First, I would like to thank you for very good the work you are doing in the current elections. In an effort to make things maybe even better, I come up with two proposals.

The first proposal would be to allow the blank vote in the voting mechanism. This would allow for the collection of very valuable information that would allow for some analysis while offering a little more freedom to the actors. Indeed, if someone like disagrees with the use of an electoral system, a blank vote is a way to express it, but also to count the percentage of people who agree with these opinions or who do not find any candidate suitable for the position, which seems a much less likely position given the number of candidates. As a socio-anthropologist and supporter of direct democracy, knowing the percentage of blank votes would be of great interest to me and could also, I am sure, be useful information for the movement.

The second proposal is to remind in your regular messages to the voters that it is possible to change one's vote until the closing of the ballot on August 31 at 23:59. This information didn't appear for instance in the email send by the foundation, nor in the "central notice" banner, and honestly, I don't even remember where I got the information. If it doesn't appear in the next messages, It would be unfortunate if this were to be blamed later by unaware voters.

Kind regards to all of you, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 09:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It's in the Voting information, last bullet-point. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:23, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the info @Sänger. It's not really highlighted. But now I see that the information appears at the top of the voting page when you go back after already voting before. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{Fr-n, En-3, Pt-3 and sorry for my dysorthography} 13:43, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Ease protection on Template:WMF elections translations

Hi! I proposed to ease the protection of {{WMF elections translations}} at Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat#Ease protection on Template:WMF elections translations, since the translation system protects it sufficiently IMO. The discussion got stalled, could you probably weigh in over there? —Tacsipacsi (talk) 21:45, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I was asked to contact the committee

Community_Wishlist_Survey_2022/Archive/Stop_allowing_site_bans_to_render_editors_ineligible_to_vote_in_WMF_board_elections

Thanks. Tony (talk) 04:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

What specific alternative do you suggest -- should editors who only ever contributed to one site, and have been banned, be able to vote?

How many editors would this affect? –SJ talk  21:08, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I would say more generally that this should be considered alongside amending what counts as sufficient "good standing" to hole any position that the WMF has a say in. One page bans and TBANs are currently preventing individuals from running for any committee spots, and since those exist to reduce problems, including for that individual, that's problematic Nosebagbear (talk) 10:48, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed Nosebagbear, we should exclude those two narrow 'bans' for a start. Not what Tony was suggesting however; start a separate section for that? –SJ talk  04:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Edit request May 2022 - Right-to-left fixes in navbox

Please sync the navbox template from the sandbox (diff), and protect the TemplateStyles subpage beforehand. This change introduces proper right-to-left support (currently only the floating wants to support right-to-left—the clearance and the margin are always set according to left-to-right languages—, but even that’s broken), and uses {{pg}} instead of Special:MyLanguage, so that readers don’t get back to their UI language’s translation all the time, which is probably English even for many non-English-natives who don’t use Meta regularly. Thanks in advance! —Tacsipacsi (talk) 17:20, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Not done @Tacsipacsi: I'm not sure this is really needed, but don't think there is anything specifically wrong with it. I lowered the protection level to semi (and put semi on the styles) - so you can make these edits directly now. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thanks, I’ve done it now myself. The {{pg}} part is less important, it’s just an annoyance that one needs to switch languages all the time, but the right-to-left issue broke the layout on pages like Wikimedia Foundation elections committee/ar—the text started on the right, but not at the right margin, since there was a navbox there, so one had to start reading in the middle of the page, which is more exhausting (one needs to search for the start of the lines, as it’s in the middle of a sea of text) and looks less professional. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Notification about the problem on 2022 Wikimedia Foundation elections

Look You: User:Dušan_Kreheľ/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Community:Feedback#The_wrong_time_in_the_central_banner. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 12:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

vote counting question

I was going through the voting process and I ran into a severe concern.

My voting experience went as follows: Two candidates inspired hope. I set them as preferences 1 and 2. One candidate inspired dread, and I set them as preference 6. I found the other three candidates utterly uninspiring. I considered submitting my vote at this point, with my voting-intent being to leave the three unranked candidates tied for the three unfilled positions 3 4 and 5.

This resulted in a moment of panic as I realized it was likely the software would not accurately apply my intent. Would the software apply my vote as intended, with the three unranked candidates above the #6 candidate? Would the software elevate my 6th place vote as my 3rd ranked candidate?! Or would the software treat this as an error condition and ask me to fix my vote?

While I am writing I am begining to understand the issue more deeply. If there there is a single consecutive group of unfilled position, that could (perhaps should) reasonably be interpreted as treating the unranked candidates as tied for the unfilled positions. However a vote with nonconsecutive unfilled positions is fundamentally pathological. If someone filled slots 2 and 4 while leaving the others blank, there is no coherent way to apply such a vote.

Ultimately I filled all positions to be safe, but I would still like to know how the system handles the situations described above. Elevating a last-place ranked candidate would be very very bad. Alsee (talk) 15:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

You were wise to be explicit about ranking all the candidates for whom you had preferences. The details will depend on the implementation, and they do vary more than one might expect, but I've never seen a ranked-choice voting implementation that would interpret unranked candidates as being preferred to any ranked candidate. And it is often the case that the software interprets any skipped rankings as indicating some sort of voter error or confusion, so if you had skipped even one or two rankings, your ranking of the "#6" candidate might have been ignored, thus treating them equally to the other unranked candidates. Yes - this is confusing, and it should be explained carefully in the appropriate places. But ranked voting methods are well-known to have a variety of especially confusing and paradoxical properties, and even if a complete explanation was offered, most voters wouldn't likely take the time to read and understand it. I think rating methods like Approval voting and STAR voting are less susceptible to these problems, but it is well-known that there is no perfect method, and all social choice functions have some problems. At least we use a Proportional representation method here, which produces much better results than many traditional methods. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 15:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Local elections for Wikimedia affiliate roles and issues

I want to share some notes about organizing an election for Wikimedia LGBT+. I am sharing this because this committee may someday wish to be more involved in issues which affect Wikimedia movement affiliates globally.

The general situation now is that the Wikimedia Movement values democracy, elections, community consensus, community engagement, and diverse participation. Because of this many Wikimedia community organizations, both in the Wikimedia platform and off-wiki in community organizations, will host voting for leadership positions, adoption of policy positions, or to rally responses to Wikimedia Foundation calls for comment about things like Code of Conduct or Movement Charter. The problem is that even though lots of groups do this, we have few or no shared resources to support elections.

A team of us at Wikimedia LGBT+ designed an election process for us to appoint trustees to our organization, and which we hope to use in other kinds of decision-making processes as well. See the documentation here -

• Wikimedia LGBT+/Membership
• Wikimedia LGBT+/Elections
• Wikimedia LGBT+/Elections/2023

What you can see from this is that two of the tools which we needed were a membership process and an election process, and both of those require lots of parts including documentation, social user pathways, technology both on and off-wiki, and a lot of exploring to see whether what we need already exists or if we have to make it ourselves.

We have had many challenges. I will not describe them to be brief, but I will make a wishlist here of technology which we wish that we had:. I am posting this wishlist here because maybe someday, this election committee could advocate for a better election environment more broadly than just for Wikimedia Foundation trustee elections.

1. Private (non-visible) membership registry tool, with features including authenticating to registered Wikimedia accounts
2. Wikimedia account analysis tool to confirm edit counts, edit history, blocks, and other features. In the case of Wikimedia LGBT+, one of our membership criteria is evidence of having edited LGBT+ themed content
3. Better access to on-wiki mass mailing tools for our members
4. Better access to on-wiki notification boards, for giving announcements like membership notices and election notices
5. Actual election software. This year we are using the paid proprietary service electionbuddy.com to run the election. It is nice software but the wiki community does love free and open options.
6. Better translation infrastructure, as our entire election process currently favors English language even though our LGBT+ community is multinational

I am not expecting a reaction to this but I wanted to post here in hopes of establishing a communication channel about this if and when the time is right. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I posted notice of this post to the Wikimedia LGBT+ governance committee agenda at Wikimedia LGBT+/Governance/2023-10-13. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:49, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Risker's Opinion

"Sleyece, simply put, if you want the attention of the Election Committee, the best place to post is on Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections committee, not on the page of an individual Election Committee member. I am not sure why you believe that your concerns about one specific article on English Wikipedia is something that needs to be brought to their attention, but I accept that you believe this is the case. In the meantime, perhaps you might want to send the article to AFD. It only takes a minute or two, so it shouldn't have too negative an impact on your candidacy. I think you'd have a good argument that the mayor of a tiny village in the middle of Illinois isn't notable enough for an article, let alone the one that's there, that the article is largely built on BLP1E and thus should be deleted. It will certainly bring more eyes to the situation. Risker (talk) 03:18, 6 April 2024 (UTC)"

From @Der-Wir-Ing's talk. I request that the elections committee meet on the issue because I'm not going to send a notable person to AFD when the issue on their article is systemic and will affect the rest of en.wikipedia currently and in the future. Elections should at least have a standing opinion on this. -- Sleyece (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Risker already mentioned that Election committee is "a global body that has zero authority to affect content on any project that is unrelated to an election it is managing". You should follow the local dispute resolution to address the content dispute. Thanks. SCP-2000 05:06, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@SCP-2000 I requested that the committee have a meeting to determine an opinion on what the dispute resolution should be. OBVIOUSLY Wikipedia would have no requirement to follow your opinion as an order. Risker is right that the Elections Committee doesn't that Authority, but I'm going to need y'all to come up with a nonbinding decision with no powers since we should already have a U4C seated, but the deadlines are going to continue to be extended. -- Sleyece (talk) 12:42, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The committee doesn't have the responsibility and duty to decide what the dispute resolution should be. They are responsible for the election instead of the local content disputes resolution. Thanks. SCP-2000 14:35, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The committee saw your request. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:04, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Sleyece (talk) 18:00, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Just a note that I have given this user a final warning - I really appreciate the copious amounts of good faith being shown by others here, but enough is enough. – Ajraddatz (talk) 18:28, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

How many eligible voters are there?

How many eligible voters are there? Do you have data about election turnout of previous elections?

I am asking because of the Movement Charter ratification. I am aware that there is a separate Movement Charter Electoral Commission, but I wanted to ask here because this is a persistent committee while that one just formed for that election.

At Movement_Charter#Ratification a rule says, "The vote will only be valid if at least 50% of eligible affiliates and 2% of eligible individual voters participate."

What is typical or expected election turnout? Can you name an election where 2% of eligible voters participated? I want this information to think about how reasonable that rule is, and whether 2% is even possible.

The 2021 board election got 7000 votes and the 2022 board election got 6000 votes, but I do not know how many people were eligible. I am also unsure why 1000 people more voted in 2021. Thanks

Bluerasberry (talk) 15:40, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

There are 117275 eligible voters, so 2% of that is around ~2300. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 15:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Most global community votes that are not Board of Trustees elections have had more than 2% of eligible accounts participating. Eligibility for each of those votes has varied. Total number of votes of successful global community votes has usually been over 2000. As to the affiliate vote - the affiliates have had very extensive involvement in the development and drafting of the Movement Charter, including the last two Wikimedia Summits primarily focusing on the Charter and other strategy matters, and the last Summit (three months ago) being fully devoted to the Movement Charter. As a group, they have been heavily involved in this process since Day 1. There are 167 eligible affiliates; a quorum is 84. Risker (talk) 16:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I posted election in Signpost, two people raised issue

The controversial article is at

• en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-07-22/News_and_notes#Wikimedia_Foundation_Elections,_3-17_September_2024

The issue alerts are in the comments to that article from @Barkeep49 and Risker:

Can the election committee please review. Also, can the election committee somehow organize essential alerts and updates which can go out in official channels like The Signpost.

I tried to be neutral in drafting the article but there simply is no way that a candidate can be neutral anywhere in mentioning the election. If I can change anything, then please advise. If anyone on this committee would change anything, then please proceed without me and just do it. Thanks for consideration. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:28, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

My complaint was not with Lane but with the Signpost's editorial decision to let him be the one to write this item. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:40, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

What Barkeep49 said. A simple sentence of disclosure at the end of the report (e.g. "the author of this article is a candidate in the WMF trustees election") would have sufficed. I get that The Signpost seems to have a challenge in persuading people to create content for its use, and the article itself seemed pretty neutral to me. Risker (talk) 00:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation nomail list not working

I don't know where to post this to actually get something done, but my username is on the nomail list, and I have nonetheless received an email about the current election.

In fact, I had completely forgotten that my username was on the nomail list. I went to add it and found it already there.

It would appear, based on the talk page for the nomail list today (I don't know how to link to it), that I am not the only one experiencing this. Thanks! 1980fast (talk) 20:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

This is probably Wikimedia Foundation nomail list. Perhaps @JSutherland (WMF): could take a look at this. --Ameisenigel (talk) 07:23, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

@RamzyM (WMF) pinging you as well – there's also users not eligible to vote receiving mails [1]. Feels like a reoccurring issue with every board election, that the mailing list is not properly synched with the list of eligible voters and users on the nomail list. Johannnes89 (talk) 08:29, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Johannes. I believe Joe filed a bug report for this -- we'll monitor and see what we can improve accordingly. Best, RamzyM (WMF) (talk) 09:39, 8 September 2024 (UTC)