Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Candidates/CandidateQ&A

Question Selection

Is there a discussion anywhere of how the Election Committee selected these questions? I'll note that only one of the four questions that had 5 or more endorsements made it to the list, and that question was changed before it's being posted. By contrast, multiple of the questions chosen didn't have any endorsements, and several weren't even from the community.

It's a bit concerning how this process seems to be taken over by WMF staff, when it is an important community check on the WMF. TomDotGov (talk) 00:00, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I would like to support this, the question selections seem distinctly odd. Though as an additional point, it's beyond me why any vetting of GF questions is allowed at all, for that matter - let Trustee candidates choose not to answer or prioritise as they see fit - that is itself a decision-making grounds to work off. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:33, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

As an additional note to the above, (pinging @Mehman (WMF):), several questions were asked a week ago on the original question asking talk page and not merely weren't answered before the 29th concluded, but aren't answered now...and given that the WMF is on general leave this week, that's an unacceptable moving of time towards BOT election date before qs are likely to be answered. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I am also concerned by this selection. It does not represent community support on the relevant page, ie the issues the community found important. Some of them just seem to be softballs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Ahh, interestingly the election committee is appointed by the BoT, not elected by the community. (see Wikimedia Foundation elections committee.) Perhaps we need a meta RFC to look into this? Or if it's outside the domain of meta consensus, maybe we can add a question to the trustees to ask how they'd feel about making the committee elected by the community (like on enwiki). Can some election commission members advise on the way forward please. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:43, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Meta RFC has no power per se, but it can certainly bring a lot of scrutiny if widely advertised. --Rschen7754 20:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: I see. I must admit I have little faith in the scrutiny approach after seeing the non-existent response from the WMF to your Ombuds RfC. (But it was nice to see current Ombuds interacting there at least.) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:24, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I have the same question too... Leaderboard (talk) 06:51, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I have the same concern, I wish the elections committee had selected the questions which received the most community endorsements and not just handpicked the questions they preferred.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:31, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

+1 --Andreas JN466 18:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

• For my part, I'm going to ask the questions that I have to ask anyway, and I'm not voting for any candidate that doesn't answer the questions that I think are important. The WMF cannot (and will not) control or limit my communications with candidates. It's up to the candidates individually to engage with the community, or not, as they see fit. It's up to the community to perform its due diligence and vote, or not, as it see fits. Levivich (talk) 14:52, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Thinking about it further, everyone, including the candidates, can see the original list of questions here. Nothing is stopping candidates from responding to those questions, even in their answers to the WMF-approved questions (or elsewhere). Granted, 60 questions is too many, but frankly anyone who wants to be a trustee of a $300-million international nonprofit should be able to discern and address the concerns raised in those questions. Seeing how the candidates respond to this is not a bad way to determine how these candidates for community-elected trustee positions are able to hear and respond to community concerns. Levivich (talk) 17:00, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
    • That's a good point. Alternatively, we could propose renaming this "List of Community Questions" to "List of questions selected by the WMF". There is still time to compile a separate list of questions which are actually asked and selected by the community. Certes (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

      @Levivich and Certes: How about I create Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Candidates/Community Questions and add the original 60 questions? Leaderboard (talk) 18:18, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

      I think that would be useful. Levivich (talk) 19:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

      That could be helpful. No one should be expected to answer all 60, but there is much duplication and a few strong themes which aren't reflected in the officially sanctioned questions. Certes (talk) 19:56, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

      @Levivich and Certes: Done at Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Candidates/Community_Questions Leaderboard (talk) 20:33, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

      @Leaderboard: and all: it would be good if you could demonstrate how you would like candidates to reply (on the question page below each question somewhere, or on a separate page, or what?). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:53, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

      @Mike Peel: I've created a template for answering, does that help? Leaderboard (talk) 08:11, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

      @Leaderboard: Thanks, I ended up using a slightly different format to answer them. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:15, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Pinging the Election Committee (@AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, KTC, Mardetanha, Masssly, Matanya, and Ruslik0:) to see if we can get a response to the substantial concerns above, and ideally get this remedied soon. For example, why have several questions with zero support been chosen, but questions that actually matter (such as "How should the Foundation treat foundation-run projects that incur a high amount of on-wiki opposition?") been omitted? Questions like funding on technical issues and staff welfare were also removed. These are candidates for the board of a multi-million dollar non-profit; I feel they should be able to handle a couple of tough questions (certainly less tough than the average admin candidate on enwiki gets). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:35, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I will go farther than that. All of the questions should be included here. Candidates may then choose to answer or not, and if they choose not to, people can take from that what they will. This is a community process, so any good-faith question (and all the ones present are, at least from my view, asked in good faith) be put to the candidates to answer. Seraphimblade (talk) 14:30, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I have boldly added a link to the list of all of the community questions to the 2021 board elections template, feel free to change the wording for clarity.Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think I made a mistake when trying to add a link to the list to the navigation template, could somebody please fix it so that it transcludes with the link to the community questions added.Jackattack1597 (talk) 18:58, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Update: A WMF person fixed the template, kept my addition of "elections committee selected" to describe the official questions, and moved the link to the community questions to the documentation section of the template.Jackattack1597 (talk) 01:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    I created a new 'Questions' section, as the community questions are in no way appropriate for the documentation section. TomDotGov (talk) 02:49, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    That looks great, TomDotGov, but your version is not the one marked for translation. See e.g. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Board_Elections_2021_Nav/de In fact, I can't even manage to get your version to come up on any English page, even after purging. It's always the penultimate version, i.e. the one marked for translation, that shows, e.g. on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Candidates Cheers, --Andreas JN466 18:05, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    @Jayen466 and TomDotGov: I have poked a meta admin to do that. Leaderboard (talk) 18:15, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    And done. Leaderboard (talk) 18:19, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

    • • I should mention that EC is aware of this issue, and we are having a discussion about it Mardetanha (talk) 09:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

        • Mardetanha, thanks for letting us know. When should we expect to hear about the results of that discussion? Seraphimblade (talk) 22:47, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the best place to put this, but reading the discussion about this here, on the mailing list, and elsewhere, makes me want to remind everyone what the movement hierarchy looks like:

1. Readers (the "consumers" of Wikimedia)
2. Editors (the "producers" of Wikimedia)
3. Community- and affiliate-selected trustees
4. Appointed trustees, selected by #3
5. WMF officers, selected by #3 and #4
6. WMF staff, hired by #5

Every level in this chain answers to the level above it. Everyone in #2-4 are volunteers; #5 and #6 are paid. #2 volunteers more time than the lower levels. There is nobody between levels #2 and 3. This is what our org chart looks like. Levivich (talk) 14:57, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I would very much agree with this. Even though we can't really know, in the end, what "readers" want (as soon as they tell us, they become editors), we can certainly get an idea of it from how enduringly popular the Wikimedia projects have been. I think that people have a great desire for a project that at least aspires to neutrality and objectivity, even if not everything on it always hits that goal. Perhaps that is even more necessary when we keep hearing "But there is no such thing as neutrality and objectivity and you can't do that!". Well...keep telling us we can't do it, while we keep doing it. Seraphimblade (talk) 07:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Order of questions in navigation template

This edit, by User:DBarthel (WMF), reversed the order of questions, putting the committee selection first and the community questions second. I haven't seen a related discussion anywhere (though perhaps I missed it), so I want to make sure people are aware of it. Cheers, --Andreas JN466 18:43, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

The meaning of these edits is clear: that the full list is effectively for documentation purposes, and the selected list is for official purposes, which is true I suppose. Perhaps the Election Commission will get a move on and figure out an amicable resolution to this issue (I have little faith TBH, but who knows). Otherwise, I'll just say that for my part (assuming the voting system doesn't force me to) I won't vote for any candidate that doesn't answer at least one of the questions on the community list. IMO it just shows contempt to ignore them, especially in light of this dubious question selection process that (despite multiple requests, here and on the mailing list) the Election Commission refuses to elaborate upon (or is simply procrastinating?) -- it's been a week. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:56, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

I would like to point out, that the Election Committee is not only aware of that, but is already discussing this matter (see Matanyas Mardetanhas note above). DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 05:57, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

What note from Matanya above? Am I missing something? Seraphimblade (talk) 07:37, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The general selection process, that was discussed a wee bit further up this page. At 09:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC) Mohsen wrote, that the EC is discussing those issues. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:34, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, that's why I didn't find it; I was searching for "Matanya". (For reference for anyone else looking for it, the actual username in the signature for the comment is "Mardetanha".) Seraphimblade (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the fault :) DBarthel (WMF) (talk) 11:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Overview of the process for community questions

Hi all! Thanks for having this discussion. I am catching up after being out of the office the past week. I did read the discussion happening on Wikimedia-l about this as well.

I was the facilitator working on this process so I'll share the details of the question selection here for transparency:

• June 9: The Call for Candidates and community question submissions were opened.
• June 29: The Call for Candidates and community question submissions were closed.
• July 2: Questions selected by the Elections Committee posted for candidates.

Some factors:

• The Elections Committee asked for one week to review the questions. That means one week before the July 2 deadline was June 25.
• I created a Google Document for the Elections Committee to mark their choices of questions. It was 38 questions long when I sent the document on June 25. On June 28 I sent the Elections Committee notice of the new questions that were submitted with the link to the full list of community questions on Meta.
• Current and former Board members suggested the list of questions be around ten. Asking all of the questions was not encouraged. Doing so could unduly influence the election because some people might have more time to answer questions than others.

When I created the page for the question submissions, I added some questions received in the Board selection Telegram channel from community members and questions received from community members when facilitators asked what community members wanted to know about candidates. No one on the facilitation team or at the Wikimedia Foundation in a staff capacity authored any questions.

The Elections Committee selected 15 questions in total. Eleven were selected by the time I left the office on July 2. I posted those questions. Four were marked after I left the office. I asked the Elections Committee on July 3 if they wished to include the four additional questions. I am awaiting their direction.

A member of the Elections Committee will have to share their committee process for selecting questions.

Conclusion
Was this the best process? No. Will this be something we can improve on for 2022? Absolutely.

This is the first time a team of facilitators is dedicated to supporting the Board of Trustees election. We are learning from historical documentation and are trying to be responsive to the community. Unfortunately, not all of the community agrees all the time so we are having to adapt and be flexible.

I have personally been reflecting this past week about what sort of processes might be helpful to document for the 2022 Board of Trustees election. (Like knowing beforehand the Elections Committee needs a week to review questions, and factoring that into the timeline.) The whole facilitation team welcomes constructive feedback. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF): Thank you for reaching out, I realise it was a fair amount to catch up on over the last week. You say it was noted that it would unfairly balance towards candidates with more time, but does that not functionally read as "rather than have a more informed knowledge for at least some of the candidates, it was viewed that an equal amount of known perspective information was preferable?". If current/former BOT members were indicating the amount of questions to be asked, why was that done privately? The proposed question amount could have been noted on here before it closed so the Community could raise concerns with it then. Discounting duplicates, there were about 55 questions - about 13 hours worth if every question had significant challenge (I imagine for most Q7 original list would have been quick etc). The first questions were there for a month now, so that seems no more than 20 minutes a day by the time of the election.

It would be fantastic if you could poke Electcom directly and ask them to provide that committee process for selecting questions as well as the notes taken for why individual specific questions were selected and others not, since I can't see any reason why that should be private and clearly it's core to the whole process.

Finally, a lessons log is always good - the en-wiki ARBCOM election runs a change every year and 5-8 proposals are usually specifically answering points on the lessons log kept. Since concerns are on number of questions and the reasoning for low question-answering is time, would it not make sense to start multiple weeks earlier to allow dedicated question-answering time? Nosebagbear (talk) 20:59, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Nosebagbear, Thanks for your response. Regarding "rather than have a more informed knowledge for at least some of the candidates, it was viewed that an equal amount of known perspective information was preferable?" I am not sure that is the case. I am sorry you feel that is the situation. The Board of Trustees is interested in diversity of candidates.

Regarding the number of questions be discussed, I don't think it was intentional that it was done privately. Historically the facilitation team looked at the number of questions used in 2017 Board elections and used that as a base to start discussions. I have made note for us to be more clear in the process for next year.

Adapting the Board election timeline is something the facilitation team is seeing as useful and might be a recommendation of our Post-Analysis. Expanding the timeline could benefit the question process as well as the campaign event process. This is a certainly a learning year and we are certainly learning a lot. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:33, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF): A major problem with this is that the process you indicate here isn't the one that had been posted at Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Apply to be a Candidate. At the time you closed the call for candidates, the relevant section read:

From 9 June to 29 June 2021, members of the Wikimedia movement may submit questions via this page to candidates for the Board of Trustees. You can ask your question in any language; the Elections Committee will make an effort to translate.

In addition to submitting a question, you may also endorse or comment on questions submitted by others.

On 30 June 2021, the Elections Committee will then collate the questions for the candidates to respond to beginning on 30 June.

That doesn't include any mention of a selection process, just collating them, putting them in a logical sequence. One thing I'd like to figure out is where and when the idea of selection originated - was it with the election committee or with the staff? It certainly didn't seem to be there at the end of the question period, when it was assumed that it would take a short amount of time to collate the questions. Current and past board members opinions shouldn't be used to change a process that has already begun.

The questions, endorsements, and comments on questions were all written with the assumption that all questions submitted by the deadline would be asked, perhaps with some removal of duplicates. There are comments like "This is a good question in itself, but I consider #8 + #41 better.", that take this into account. If the community had known a limited number of questions would be asked, there would have been more debate as to which were more important.

This does seem like a correctable error, given that we still have plenty of time until the end of the election. I'd suggest merging this list with a collated version of the Community Questions, using Template:WMF elections 2021/Questions to organize the responses. Barring that, I'd suggest deprecating this page in favor of the community questions. I think people have made cogent arguments that the question load isn't higher than any other functionary position, and so it makes sense to follow the process that was set out. TomDotGov (talk) 23:10, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi TomDotGov, Thanks for reaching out about this. The practice of the Elections Committee selecting questions is not new. In 2017, the list of questions from the community included forty-five questions. The list of questions the candidates answered was 10.

As I noted above in a response to Nosebagbear, historically the facilitation team looked at the number of questions used in 2017 Board elections and used that as a base to start discussions. I have made note for us to be more clear in the process for next year and adjust the timeline of the question submission period to be cognizant of the time the Elections Committee needs to review the questions.

You may have already seen, but a page was already created with all of the community questions. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I can see that in 2017, the reduction of questions from 45 to 10, and the selection of questions in an "intransparent" process, were raised as concerns, e.g. at Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2017/Board of Trustees#Collate. Levivich (talk) 01:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and linked the candidate answers from this page, so we can direct interested parties to the candidate's full answers. Hopefully the post analysis will mention that the limitation of questions is a mistake, just like it was in 2017. TomDotGov (talk) 14:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Translation

I am not sure how this works, but could someone please mark answers for translation. Thanks. --Joalpe (talk) 14:40, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, Joalpe! You may have already seen but they are marked for translation. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:46, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Der Abschnitt, der mit Candidates beginnt, ist in den übersetzten Seiten nicht vorhanden, bitte dringend entsprechend anpassen! Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:01, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Ich habe versucht, da einen Übersetzungs-Marker hinzusetzen, bekam aber nur eine Fehlermeldung. Warum können das die Profis nicht einfach gleich selber richtig machen? Ist das so schwer, daran zu denken, dass nicht jedeR anglophon ist? Typisch (WMF), nix zu Ende denken, Englisch hat für die ungewaschenen Massen zu reichen. Ich übersetze das hier aus Prinzip nicht nach Englisch, ich erwarte von der WMF, dass sie multilingual ist und sich überall entsprechend verhält, besonders bei solchen explizit internationalen Themen, in denen Englisch nur eine Randnotiz sein dürfte. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF): Vor über 13 h lieblos hingeklatscht, und noch immer nicht übersetzbar, das ist so nicht akzeptabel. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:26, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@Sänger: Leider werde ich nicht auf Kommentare oder Fragen antworten, die mir und meinen Kollegen respektlos sind. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Nichtübersetzbares 15 Stunden stehen lassen ohne sich drum zu kümmern ist gegenüber denjenigen, die alle (WMF)er bezahlen, nämlich der Community, sehr respektlos, leider sind mir solche Verzerrungen der Wahrnehmung von Respekt seitens der (WMF)er schon des öfteren aufgefallen. Die WMF ist eine Serviceorganisation für die Communities, alle (WMF)er arbeiten für die Communities, die WMF ist nichts, absolut nichts, aus sich alleine heraus. Sämtliches Geld gehört den Communities und wird nur treuhänderisch verwaltet, auch das Gehalt der Profis. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:31, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Gerade gesehen: Passiert ist noch immer nichts, noch immer divergieren die wichtigen internationalen Seiten von den unwichtigen, weil sowieso schon völlig überrepräsentierten, Englischsprachigen. Wird das noch was heute? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:35, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF) and TomDotGov: This is an international community, without the possibility of immediate translations nothing should be changed anywhere, much less on such pages as this one. It's a sign of utter disrespect to non-anglophone members to simply change something without the possibility for translation. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:54, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

The community questions page is probably best thought of as a noticeboard page. Everything on that is the work of a single author, the questions, endorsements, and answers. Noticeboard pages tend to operate by different rules than content pages, much closer to talk pages. On a noticeboard page, it's not acceptable for me to edit your comment, while on a content page, it's acceptable to edit content. Since it wouldn't be acceptable for me to edit a candidate's answer, that's noticeboard rules. I believe it's acceptable to answer in any language on a noticeboard, and leave it up to the reader to translate. Certainly, that's how I've consumed a lot of your comments over the past year and a half or so.

Now, I do think that the facilitation team should take care of formatting the candidate answers in a way that can be translated, and taking care of the translations - I think that all 61 questions, save for a few duplicates, should be treated the same. But that's been seemingly rejected by the WMF, and I think treating the complete answers as if they were sections of a noticeboard is a better approach than delinking answers to important questions. TomDotGov (talk) 16:17, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I have nothing against your change as such, it was just exclusive for anglophones, it didn't even show up on Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Candidates/CandidateQ&A/de. I expect the WMF, with all it vast amount of money and personal, all there to serve the communities, to do this extreme international project of board election in a professional way, that is with immediate translation possibilities and such. At least everything has to show up on the other language pages, even if not yet translated. They should care more about the community instead of vanity projects like rebranding or FLOW. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:27, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Just ping a Meta admin or translation admin? Leaderboard (talk) 16:45, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I pinged a (WMF)er, they get paid to do such stuff. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 16:48, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I've pinged a TA for you. Leaderboard (talk) 16:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

That's the job of those (WMF)ers, who write anything over there, it's crucial for such important pages like this ones, and they just seem to care about the communities.

BTW: If it's not translatable in max 30min. I'll revert it again. Those arrogant monolinguist don't seem t care and listen without some kind of stick. It's their job, full stop. They have staffers rights, so probably as well every necessary right for doing it themself. The election of the community members of the board is the most important thing nor happening in the Wikiverse, so they should put some resources in it. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Been there, done that, thank you. But as I said: Those, who get our money for doing this, i.e. (WMF)ers, should do so asap on their own, it's their duty. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:14, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Is it possible for somebody to mark the answers to the community questions for translation, that doesn't appear to have been done? Three candidates have already answered them.Jackattack1597 (talk) 19:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Ich denke, da sollte auf den "richtigen" Seiten alles schön multilingual bleiben, ohne dazwischen gequetschte Übersetzungen ins Englische, und unabhängig davon eine Seite mit /en angelegt werden, auf der dann eben nur die englischen Versionen stehen. Aktuell wurden die Übersetzungen ins Englische teilweise von anderen Leuten als den Kandidierenden in deren Anwortkästchen geschrieben, das finde ich nicht gut.

I think, on the "proper" pages everything should be left as answered by the candidates, without any English translations squeezed in between, and a new page with /en should be created for only English texts. Currently some translation in English are written by people who are not the candidates in their answer areas, I don't think that that's appropriate. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Ich hätte wohl Oscar . (WMF) gleich anpingen sollen, der das bestimmt gut gemeint hat, aber gut gemeint...

I should have pinged Oscar . (WMF), as he's the one who did it, with probably best intentions. But well meant is not... Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:30, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sänger. I hear your suggestion, but I would ask the candidates that desired to use their language here first. In my opinion if we are striving to give equal opportunity it is important to have that translations in this page and not somewhat buried in another place, --Oscar . (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Meiner Meinung nach ist as hier eine multilinguale Angelegenheit, und die monolingualen Anglophonen sollten sich wenigstens hier in diesem explizit internationalen Ding der Kuratoriumswahl ein einziges Mal auch mit anderen Sprachen konfrontiert werden, Englisch ist halt nicht der Nabel der Welt sondern nur eine Sprache unter vielen. "Equal opportunity" muss bedeuten, weniger Englisch.

Volgens mij is het hier an internationaal zaak, de monolinguale anglophones hoeven tenminste voor een keer in deze expliciet internationaal zaak van board verkiezingen geconfronteerd worden met ander talen. Engels is niet de navel van de wereld, maar alleen een taal van de velen. "Equal opportunity" betekent minder Engels.

Imho this her is a multilingual venue, the monolingual anglophones should at least here in this explicit international thing of board elections for once be confronted with other languages, English is by far not the navel of the world, it's just one language amongst many. "Equal opportunity" has to mean less English. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:44, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Anderer Vorschlag (allerdings jetzt eher zu spät): Alle Antworten müssen in mindestens zwei verschiedenen Sprachen erfolgen, wer das nicht hinbekommt, taugt sowieso nicht für das Kuratorium. Zweisprachigkeit ist eine Mindestanforderung an KuratorInnen, besser Drei- oder Mehrsprachigkeit.

Another possibility (probably too late yet): All answers have to be given by the candidates in at least two different languages. Those, who can't do this are not suitable as board members anyway. Two languages, better three or more, are a minimum qualification for board members. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 21:02, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Another line added, Mehman (or anybody else, is there a general ping for all translator-admins?), could you please amrk it for translation, so that it shows up in all languages? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 08:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

ElectCom query

Pinging every member of ElectCom to answer questions, since if they have been passed a note as requested, they're not acting on it:

@AbhiSuryawanshi, Carlojoseph14, HakanIST, KTC, Mardetanha, Masssly, Matanya, and Ruslik0: as well as two members of the WMF advisory team @Slaporte (WMF) and GVarnum-WMF:.

There are various questions related to Electcom's actions above, please have a read and answer.

Specifically, this includes:

1. Please provide the general criteria both used for drawing the questions and for determining what a reasonable number of questions was.
2. Please provide the specific reasoning for every question on the list, as to why it was included, or excluded (uploading a detailed copy of the notes to Commons is fine here, for practicality).
3. Could you cover why so few heavily endorsed questions made the list?

Nosebagbear (talk) 12:19, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

*sound of crickets* ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:57, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

There's a bit of explanation here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Candidates/CandidateQ%26A#Overview_of_the_process_for_community_questions Carlojoseph14 (talk) 05:57, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Carlojoseph14: - that is the summary by the facilitator of their side of the process. I find it monumentally depressing that not a single member of the group that is supposed to oversee our elections appears to care about transparency and explaining themselves to the Community. @JKoerner (WMF): can you confirm that you notified ElectCom of the requests by the Community to explain their reasoning and provide detailed feedback? Nosebagbear (talk) 08:51, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: Thanks for reaching out. I believe they are pinged here on this Talk page. I am working with them to coordinate this 2021 Board of Trustees election but it is not in my remit to notify them of on-wiki mentions and ensure they follow up. If you have any questions about their process they will need to provide that information because I am afraid I do not know any additional knowledge about this. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

JKoerner (WMF) I also would like to see a response to Nosebagbear's request. I find it unbelievable that there is no substantive response here. (I have read the section #Overview_of_the_process_for_community_questions, which did not impress me as community driven at all.)

What I also find troubling is that I am only just discovering this election when I stumbled across an email from Wikipedia mentioning it. I rarely check that email account. I see nothing on my talk page here on Wikimedia Meta or Wikipedia saying anything about this extremely important election. How can that be? I came here expecting the process was just beginning, and that I could submit questions. Instead I see that the question submission process was extremely short and already expired. I can't believe this is not more like ArbCom elections and that it does not have longer time periods for editor involvement. Very disappointed. David Tornheim (talk) 08:20, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi @David Tornheim: Thanks for reaching out. As noted above, the response that Nosebagbear is looking for will come from the Elections Committee. While I did engage with them about election processes, it is not in my remit to ensure they respond to inquiries.

Regarding the election process, we have shared notices about the Board election throughout the process in many channels: mailing lists, social media, user group talk pages, CentralNotice banners, village pumps, posts on Diff, and more. Perhaps if you are using an email account you rarely check, you might want to update that in your account preferences. If you have a suggestion about another communication channel, I'm glad to hear it. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

1. @JKoerner (WMF): to quote you "the response that Nosebagbear is looking for *will* come from the Elections Committee" [my asterisks] - does this mean you are specifically aware that a response is coming?
2. Other than waiting to the next ElectCom selection process, what methodology would you suggest I utilise that has not been utilised, without success?
3. You also make a completely incorrect statement (though not deliberately) by "it is not in my remit to ensure they respond to inquiries". Per this section of the voting criteria you have the same right to vote in the BOT elections that I do. That means you have the same right that I do to demand ElectCom reply to inquiries. If you say you don't, then that means you're saying that I don't have that right? Is that the case? Nosebagbear (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey there, @Nosebagbear: I'll follow your same format in answering:

1. I am not aware of any response. What I am saying is a response will have to come from them as I do not have any more information about this. The Elections Committee has been pinged on this topic on this page.
2. I'm confused about what you mean. About receiving a response from the Elections Committee?
3. When I say it is not in my remit, I mean it is not within my professional capacity to ensure the Elections Committee responds to questions. If you have a question, which you noted above, I am suggesting you connect with the Elections Committee regarding this. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

1. @JKoerner (WMF): ah, I had assumed since it was a clear "will come from" rather than "if it comes" or "will have to come from" etc, you aware of some pending answer.
2. Yes - you're aware, heavily because you keep being pinged about it, but also because I note I've done things like emailing the group and emailing the individual electcom members, JUST WHAT CAN ANYONE DO to actually get an answer, other than wait out their terms and try to get alternates selected. You, not unreasonably, want ElectCom, not you, to answer these questions - (something the timeline to make relevant shrinks by the day, though I at least will continue demanding an answer post-election). But you aren't saying how I can exercise that option. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Hey @Nosebagbear: I unfortunately do not have a new solution for you. The only suggestions I have for reaching out are ways you have already reached out. I know this is not a perfect solution, but maybe asking them after the election is not a bad idea. I imagine they are being pinged on the mailing list and are pretty busy with vote requests. I do not know for sure, but I can only imagine. The next Board election is in 2022. They have yet to set the timeline, so perhaps asking about development of clearer processes around question selection would not be unreasonable before that election. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@JKoerner (WMF) would " imagine they are being pinged on the mailing list and are pretty busy with vote requests" not be pretty dubious as a reason given that they received their first queries on this issue 10 weeks ago, and their first follow-up (right at the top of this section), 2 months ago? Nosebagbear (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I know I cannot give you the solution you are seeking. I hear you are frustrated. The Elections Committee is who you will need to reach to receive the clarification you seek. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi all, here is a response from the Elections Committee. This message was a collaboration between the Movement Strategy and Governance facilitators and the Elections Committee as we all had parts in the process. Thank you for your patience in receiving this response. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 22:21, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks everyone who submitted questions during the 2021 Board of Trustees election. We received a total of 61 questions. This is a clear sign of the passion and commitment that the community holds for the Movement. We noted some concerns about the selection of the community questions. Concerns focused on selected questions and the number of questions candidates should answer. The Elections Committee wants to provide some background and clarity about the process.

Over the years, the Movement has established a great tradition that allows community members to submit questions during Board elections. It allows the community an opportunity to understand their stance on various matters. This enriches the conversation during the Board elections.

Usually, the community submits questions during the Call for Candidates. The Elections Committee reviews and selects a part of those questions. Once the selection concludes, the candidates answer the questions. The number of questions selected by the Elections Committee varies from year to year. This community process does not have structured documentation. The facilitation team hopes to resolve this before the next Board election to address some of the community concerns.

The Elections Committee is a volunteer committee. We asked for a one-week review period. The facilitation team sent the questions received to us one week before the selected questions were to be posted on Meta-wiki. The committee began reviewing the 38 questions based on the note provided by the Board of Trustees, “Focus on Diversity.” A few days after we began this review, the facilitation team brought the remaining 23 questions to our attention. The facilitation team did suggest questions that spoke to their communities’ interests. We agreed with 7 of their 10 suggestions. It is at this point that the Elections Committee settled on a total of 11 questions. This number ensured that the candidates answered them comprehensively.

As a Committee, we have heard you. We understand that everyone would have wanted their question answered. However, this would not have been possible. While making our decision we considered the impact on our entire community:

• the resilience of candidates to answer the questions;
• language and diverse backgrounds;
• and the burden of community members reading a large number of answers.

Also, the facilitation team wanted to translate the candidates’ answers into as many languages as possible. They could accommodate translations of about 10 questions and their answers. With a total of twenty candidates this election, this meant translation of 200 answers of about 300 words each. It was crucial for the Elections Committee to work to make the election process inclusive.

The questions we selected covered a broad range of topics. As a Committee, we ensured that the 11 questions we selected were diverse and inclusive at this critical time in our Movement. Unfortunately, we did not select questions focused on specific situations. These questions were more personalized rather than diverse, global and inclusive.

As a Committee we are grateful for receiving all the questions and for your patience waiting for this response. It is only now as the voting has concluded, and we completed our vote review, that we are able to provide you with this important clarification. We also appreciate those who have thanked us and encouraged us as we continue to volunteer in this role. For us, serving on the Elections Committee means taking part in all areas of the election process as we volunteer our time, effort and expertise.

Best regards,

The Elections Committee

Simplify my answers translations

Hi, when I've written my answer, I didn't know that someone will translate it. So, I've answered both in French and English. Now French texts are displaying on each page including other languages translated page while it's not necessary until a French version exist and is accessible from the link situated on the top of each page. Is someone can fix this inconvenient ? I'm not very familiar with the translation tool, and I'm afraid of making mistakes... Best, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 11:35, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

By the way I updated this front page adding two candidate in the list of personne that reply to all question, but I seems that the translation is not possible now. Maybe I made a mistake... Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 15:11, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

You've got to ping some translation admin or such, as those answers only are translatable after someone marked them as such. @JKoerner (WMF), Ата, Ameisenigel, and JSutherland (WMF): Just some random pings for help. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 20:40, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the page. Yes, a translation administrator is needed to make translations possible. Please abstain from adding any translation markup manually – it will then be added automatically anyway. Ата ^(talk) 20:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I have edited the pages of Questions 1 and 2, so that they contain only English text. It takes time, but I will come back to other pages.

@Lionel Scheepmans I don't see your answer in English on Question 1 page. If you could overwrite your French paragraphs with English ones strictly within the translation markup, it will probably best solution for preserving current translations. Ата ^(talk) 21:17, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Done thanks to google. Ата. But now the other lanagages page of question are unfortunatelly all in French. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 22:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I was bold and removed all non-English content from the questions pages and marked them for translations. Ата ^(talk) 16:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

here

"Click here" (edit: google explains better. Search "click here")

The "here" link was in: "Candidates may choose to answer additional questions from that list here."

But I'm not sure how to rephrase the sentence so that the link text is better.

AltoStev (talk) 17:15, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

As that link really is just for the candidates, their answers are linked below that line, is this really that important? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 18:10, 21 August 2021 (UTC)