[Foundation-l] Election results?

Tue Jun 15 08:36:21 UTC 2004

Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

--- Imran Ghory wrote:
> 
> Following discussion between me and Danny, we have decided to disclose the
> top canididates for each position where the candidates have given their
> approval to doing so.
> 
> The top 3 for contributing rep were:
> 
> Anthere 269
> Eloquence 258
> Maveric149 163
> 
> The top 2 for for volunteer rep:
> 
> Angela 345
> Maveric149 159

Wow - I thought that I would have done better than that. I guess its my fault
for deciding to run at the last minute. Oh well. 

But I do see that Erik and Florence were nearly in a dead heat when voting
stopped. Might I suggest to the elected trustees that they consider changing
the draft bylaws to allow for one more trustee and for Erik to fill that
position? I think this is important due to the fact that two of the current
trustees don't seem to be active Wikimedians (Tim Shell was at one time,
however). Although I do note that that is not a requirement for life,
sustaining, or corporate members. I'm just concerned about the level of
activity we can except from Tim Shell and Michael Davis and that most of the
trustee work will go to just three people. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav

 -------------------
-------------------

I think it best that I give my opinion on this.

I have been thinking about that for several days. My initial reaction was just as yours Mav. It is very much a reaction from the heart. An emotional reaction.
It is for a similar reason, that results were withheld, to avoid hurting people feelings. The last few days have been emotionnally very demanding on the candidates.

But after initial shock, one can realise that a good election process has to follow a couple of mandatory steps, which might be
* transparent,
* fair,
* credible.

Transparency has been mentionned a lot these past days.
I think elections where you change the rules after the vote, will be seen as not fair and not credible.

When elections rules are proposed, they should be kept the same, and they should not change after the elections, depending on the results. If we do that, we subvert the democratic process.
For example, when there is an election which requires candidates to get at least 50% of support, changing the rules after voting to make the threshold at 80%, is plain unfair to the candidate, and greatly damage the credibility of the voting procedure for those who voted. We should be very careful with this. And doubly careful with the Foundation itself.
Changing the bylaws *after* the elections, *due* to election results, is not good. People expected 2 people to be elected. They voted with this in mind. They could have voted differently if they had known there would be 3 people on the board. Plus, 6 people are likely to cause problem as far as voting goes.

Yes, that is painful on heart, but I think reason should prevail. We think that voters would not forgive that fairness and transparency are not respected, and that would damage the board credibility. This said, I will not strongly defend one option or another. I am ready to listen to people opinion on this (I already know Jimbo, Angela, Mav and Cimon ones). I just want to raise the issue of the long lasting impact on procedure respect, of us changing afterwards, voting rules of the first board.

------------

In case nothing is changed, I want to insist on something

Perhaps 2 weeks ago, Erik and I had an IRC talk. I remember we discussed of our respective vision of what a board member should be. Erik considered a board member had to be a leader of action, while I considered a board member should be mostly a communicator and an emulator (I hope that word exist :-)). The position Angela and I hold are called "representant", which has to have a meaning. We will try to listen to people, report what they think to the board, and give them if needed, the means to achieve success of their wishes.

I think most people who voted for Erik did so because of his great platform and for his energy dedicated to make things moving.
The fact many people voted for this platform is the first message Angela and I can hear. We hear that many people consider Erik ideas good and important. We are not deaf to this message :-)

I also note that Mav indicates 3 board members will never be able to do everything. I do not think it was *ever* in question, that board members would do *everything*. I think more that our job will be in particular to set up working teams to take care of department of activity. For each of these department, the board might either name a leader or name a committee. This leader or the committee may be responsible of the running of this department, and report for the board.

For example, we may name someone (such as Mav), leader of the budget department, and let it to him to gather people to help him (or suggest him names). Mav would be responsible in front of the board of the budget, but will have liberty to do the best he thinks is needed to manage this.

One may figure out a bunch of direction
* budget
* membership management and fees issues
* Funding : a person or a committee specially dedicated to funds harvest, wikishops (obviously, Erik had a lot of interest and good ideas in that direction, probably Tom as well)
* Legal perspective : a "legal" team to set up privacy rights, to help us defend the project or people in case of trials, to fix copyright issues (I guess Michael would help here, no ?)
* Tech : a developer or two, along with a team. The leader of this committee might have a certain freedom of action to take care of tech issues, such as having the right to buy servers...
* Communication : a great committee of people dedicated toward promotion of the project. There is already one french who was named porte-parole on behalf of the foundation. But this is written nowhere but on his curiculum vitae. It should be publicly visible.
* Publication : printing, CD... along with a partnership coordinator. Actually, I do think this position already exist, and that Erik already holds it.... But it is no where written officially. However, this will probably become a major department in the coming years.
* etc...

We mostly need to define which main issues are, how to work around them (naming a coordinator, calling for spontaneous candidacies, having a committee rather than a coordinator...), and to make all this MUCH more official.

I think that Erik would be great in at least 2 roles as a coordinator and will really make things proceed. I think it is exactly what official positions are for. At the same time, an opportunity to leadership, a role that may be highly visible, a role where a man of action may be really needed.

Just my opinion.

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