Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2006/FAQ/en

2006 board elections
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General

What does it mean by project? Does that just mean edits done on Wikipedia, etc?

"Project" refers to any official Wikimedia project, as shown on the Complete list of Wikimedia projects. It does not include projects that utilize the MediaWiki software but are not associated with the Wikimedia Foundation, nor does it include proposed projects that have not been approved, or ones that are hosted by Wikimedia but are not official projects per the terms of their hosting. There are official projects that do not show up on the complete list of projects; any discrepancies will be ruled on by the Election Officials with assistance from the Foundation's Executive Director. A completely unofficial short-answer would be that if the Stewards can set rights for a project, it's a Wikimedia project, but that is completely unofficial.

Main namespace or all namespaces?

So, for being allowed to vote or run for the Election, I must have at least 400 edits. Do edits to other namespaces than main also count?

Definitely yes. There is no restriction of type of namespace. You can include all other namespaces, user namespace, image namespace, template namespace, or talk namespace(s) ... if they are edits on a Wikimedia project.

Will voting take place on Meta, or will there be opportunities to vote on each of the Wikimedia projects?

The voting will only take place on each of the Wikimedia projects; see next sub-section.

About the Boardvote approval voting software

From Talk:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2006/En#Questions about the Boardvote approval voting software

So, the election will run for three weeks starting September 1st. I have a few questions:

How will voters be autentified? One must have at least 400 edits in at least one Wikimedia project, so say I have 400 edits at the English Wikipedia. When I log in at Meta to vote, how can I prove I am the person with 400 edits at the English Wikipedia?
Will there be updates (say daily) on how may votes a candidate has, or there will be no data till the election is over?
Will it be possible to see which users voted for which candidates? (as the election is unfolding, or at the end?)
Will voters be allowed to add comments in addition to their votes? Will the comments be public?

To answer all of your questions:

- You have to vote on your own project, on which you have 400 edits. In your case, you'll have to vote on the English Wikipedia
- There will be no data, the results will be secret until we'll announce them (the timeline states when we'll do so)
- Once again, no, the vote is secret.
- No, voters can't add comments during the voting process. They can do so on wiki pages, if something important is to be said.

On candidacy

Who can run as a candidate for the Board of trustees?

If you can vote, then you can also be a candidate, unless you are now under eighteen. See Election notice for voters' qualification.

How many elected positions are being voted for?

One will be elected as replacement of Angela Beesley.

To what term will the new member(s) be elected ?

Since the new board member will be replacing Angela, who was a member for a year, will the new member be elected to a one year or to a two year term?

The elected replacement of Angela Beesley will serve as a Board member for the rest of her term, till July 2007.

How can someone nominate themselves?

See Election candidates 2006/En.

Will the current board members be standing for election? Do they have to?

Principally no, since the Board has two Community Representatives who were voted for serving till July 2007, and the community is going to vote for replacement of one of those representatives, Angela Beesley.

The rest of the Board members were not elected by the community (one is a life time member, other two were appointed), so none of them have to stand for election.

On voters

Who can vote?

See Election notice for voters' qualification.

Move is counted as "edit"?

According to Special:Usercontributions on my active project, I have 400 edits. All are in main namespace but one entry is a result of move. Some Wikipedians say my actual edits in main namespace should be counted 399 edits. They are right? In other words, can I vote or not?

Yes, you will be able to vote; the software counts these entries as edits, so you should not be disqualified.

I have reached 400 edits in several projects. Can I vote from each of them ?

No, you can only vote once. If you fulfill voter qualifications in several projects, you will have to choose from which you want to vote.

On votes

Vote is public? Can I know who votes for whom?

Vote is not public. Only the Election Officials can know who votes for whom.

How many times can I vote?

You can vote only once. You can change your vote when you vote from the same wiki from which you voted once, but it doesn't mean you can vote twice. Your first vote will be canceled automatically. In case you vote from another wiki (Election Officials ask you not to do so intentionally though), your votes except one will be removed manually by the Election Officials.

What kind of information is open in public? And for Officials?

Your username and the wiki you voted from, the date and time you voted and your editcount on that wiki will be public per vote at List votes to date. In addition, the Election Officials will know some information including your IP address.

Can I see the details of my previous vote? I mean I want to see for whom I voted...

Sorry, no, you cannot see this kind of detail. You can only see what the others can get. However, you don't need to know for the purpose of changing your vote, since your next vote will supersede your previous one automatically.

Miscellanous

I have comments on this Election. Where can I input my ideas?

For general comments, We invite you to Talk:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2006/En. For add a question, Talk:Election FAQ 2006. Your comment on this FAQ, too. If you have a comment on a specific page, the talk page of each would be most appropriate in most cases.

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