Talk:Affiliations Committee/Call for Candidates 2013
Latest comment: 11 years ago by Abbasjnr
Hi,
Why should candidates email their application? Can't they just apply on-wiki (for transparency)? The Grant Advisory Committee did that in its call for candidates Abbasjnr (talk) 11:23, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
- Hi. I guess the main difference is that in the case of AffCom the number of places are limited, therefore the number of applications can exceed the number of open places (and even when it doesn't), the members of AffCom need to make a judgment call on each individual. Doing that in public would potentially cause embarrassment to the applicants; therefore, it is easier to receive the applications by e-mail and handle them on our private wiki.
- In the future we might consider changes to the process (it has been updated for this year and will continue to evolve). –Bence (talk) 12:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response, Bence. I partly agree with your argument. However, what I'm trying to advocate for is simply a transparent list of applicants. Whatever discussions that you have can (and should) be done in private. Coming to think of it, I don't know of any Wikimedia Committee or Board that doesn't publicize the list of applicants/nominees (even in the WMF Board [s]election (which has limited places, just like Affcom), the list of nominees is usually public, with sensitive discussions occurring in private lists (such as Chapters-l)). Abbasjnr (talk) 16:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
- The Ombudsman Commission seems to come to mind as an example and there might be others... Nevertheless, my personal opinion is that I don't see how a public list of people not selected to AffCom would be of any help. Especially as membership is not an honour but rather a demanding task and we have had to decline very good candidates in the past due to limited free places– I would certainly like them to reapply again, but I don't see what obligation would we have to make their list public (the person in question can of course tell anyone that they have not been selected for AffCom).
- Btw, have you considered applying for AffCom this year? – we do need people to challenge our practices from the inside in order to improve them! –Bence (talk) 16:49, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
- OK, thanks. I'm still contemplating on whether or not I should apply. Abbasjnr (talk) 17:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response, Bence. I partly agree with your argument. However, what I'm trying to advocate for is simply a transparent list of applicants. Whatever discussions that you have can (and should) be done in private. Coming to think of it, I don't know of any Wikimedia Committee or Board that doesn't publicize the list of applicants/nominees (even in the WMF Board [s]election (which has limited places, just like Affcom), the list of nominees is usually public, with sensitive discussions occurring in private lists (such as Chapters-l)). Abbasjnr (talk) 16:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)