[Foundation-l] elections

Mon Apr 9 13:11:35 UTC 2007

I agree with Lodewijk in this.  If smaller projects
want to form caucuses and vote together, they can do
so naturally.  Not by someone assigning "alliances"
from above.  It was already suggested at the last
election that the Wikisoures vote together, and I
imagine it will be a more mature idea this time
around.  Certainly I expect there will be some sort of
caucus-type discussion involving at least people from
the english, french and ws.org.  And the effort might
end up being more widely organized.

BirgitteSB

--- effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have hard feelings for this proposal. I am afraigh
> that it will only
> mek the gap between the english Wikipedia and the
> rest of Wikimedia
> bigger. In the current board, there is only one
> native english speaker
> on the elected seats, one french, one german and one
> dutch. I think
> "alliences" would only create a schism, and would
> also enlarge the
> idea that the other communities are evil, as it is
> for instance the
> "Dutch candidate" vs the "Frensh candidate", which
> is ridiculous.
> Further it is not that we want a Boltzmann
> distribution over the
> languages, but we want the best candidates. If the
> best candidates are
> all in the French Wikipedia, well, they shoulc be
> elected. And if they
> are mostly in the english, so be it. I think we
> should prevent that a
> boardmember from for instance the Finnish Wikipedia
> should only feel
> him/herself a representative for that single
> project. With this type
> of elections that idea is stringthened.
> 
> Of course you can not and want not to prevent that a
> user is mostly
> supported by the people of his/her own project.
> Those are the people
> who know him/her the best, and are easier able to
> make a good
> decision. But I think it is very important that we
> are not
> discriminating in the election rules on whatever
> quality, not even
> language ability or home project. Please leave that
> up to the
> community that is willing to vote.
> 
> So: decreasing the number of candidates: great.
> Selecting on origin: Please not.
> 
> Greetings, Lodewijk
> 
> 2007/4/7, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>:
> > > It is maybe not good idea, but we could create 2
> level elections in such a way:
> > > *First level - candidate has to win local
> election on one of the
> > > projects - the rules for this local elections
> should be similar on all
> > > projects, the number of candidates per projects
> might depend on the
> > > size of the project. Smaller projects may create
> an "alliance" to be
> > > able to propose a candidate.
> > > *Second level - 7-10 days elections on meta of
> the candidates
> > > preselected on projects.
> >
> > I like this idea (and was going to suggest it
> myself before reading
> > your email). If done correctly, it should give
> candidates from smaller
> > projects a more reasonable chance of winning. In
> the previous
> > elections, there were too many candidates, so I
> think knowing lots of
> > people (ie. being from a big project) was an
> unfair advantage, since
> > people just voted for who they knew. If we reduce
> the number of
> > candidates, while still ensuring that there are
> candidates from
> > smaller projects (which is exactly what this idea
> does) should allow
> > people to make informed decisions about such
> candidates.
> >
> > The hardest part of this idea is working out the
> alliances - there are
> > too many projects to give each project a candidate
> of their own, so
> > some kind of alliance system is essential. I would
> suggest grouping
> > smaller projects first by language (so the
> wikipedia and the
> > wikitionary in a medium sized language would get
> one candidate between
> > them) and then by language groups (so all the
> projects in native
> > american languages [that's a random example, I'm
> guessing there are
> > lots of small projects in such languages] would
> get one candidate
> > between them). Determining alliances by language
> reduces the need for
> > translating candidate statements for the
> pre-elections.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >
>
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> 
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