[Foundation-l] Information about 2009 Board of Trustees election

Wed May 27 08:41:56 UTC 2009

Information concerning the election rules, candidacy, and suffrage/ 
voting requirements for the 2009 election to the Board of Trustees is  
now posted at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_elections/2009/en.   
I have copied it below, but for the wiki-links to work, you will - of  
course - need to be on meta.

For the election committee,
Philippe

________________________

The 2009 elections to the Board of Trustees will be held between  
August 3rd and August 10th 2009. Members of the Wikimedia community  
have the opportunity to elect one candidate to a two-year term which  
will expire in 2011. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing  
authority of the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit  
organization registered in the United States. The Wikimedia Foundation  
manages many diverse projects such as Wikipedia and Commons.
The elections will be held securely on servers belonging to an  
independent third party (to be confirmed). Votes are secret and are  
only visible to the select few persons who audit and tally the  
election. Voters will submit ranked preferences by numbering  
candidates. The votes will be tallied using the Schulze methodto rank  
candidates based on the number of voters who prefer that candidate  
over other candidates.
The Election Committee intends to announce the results on or before  
August 12th. Detailed results will be available. All times on this  
page are 00:00 (midnight) UTC.
Contents [hide]
1 Information for voters
1.1 Requirements
1.2 How to vote
2 Information for candidates
2.1 Responsibilities as member of the Board
2.2 Prerequisites to candidacy
2.3 How to submit your candidacy
3 Organization
3.1 Time line
3.2 Translators
[edit]Information for voters

[edit]Requirements
You may vote from any one registered account you own on a Wikimedia  
wiki (you may only vote once, regardless of how many accounts you  
own). To qualify, this one account must:
not be blocked; and
not be a bot; and
have made at least 600 edits before 01 June 2009 across across  
Wikimedia wikis (edits on several wikis can be combined if your  
accounts are unified into a global account); and
have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 1 July 2009.
Special exceptions: the following may vote regardless of the above  
requirements:
Wikimedia server administrators with shell access;
paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation who started working at the  
office before 01 March 2009;
current or former members of the Board of Trustees.
[edit]How to vote
If you are eligible to vote:
Read the candidate presentations and decide which candidates you will  
support.
Go to the wiki page "Special:Securepoll" on one wiki you qualify to  
vote from. For example, if you are most active on the wiki  
meta.wikimedia.org/, go to meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Securepoll.
Follow the instructions on that page.
[edit]Information for candidates

A detailed description of the responsibilities of a member of the  
Board can be found at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_member.
[edit]Responsibilities as member of the Board
Being a Board member of a small organization like the Wikimedia  
Foundation, which faces immense challenges, can be time-consuming. The  
position is voluntary and unpaid. While board members are not expected  
to bring personal money to the organisation, they are welcome to help  
raise funds.
Board members are expected to attend at least 3–4 meetings per year in  
person, attend Wikimania (our annual conference), and attend other  
scheduled online meetings and votes. The Board communicates  
intensively via e-mail, wiki, and IRC. Individual trustees sometimes  
participate in strategic meetings with other organizations and  
companies, relaying results back to Board and staff.
Individual board members are expected to be involved in certain  
activities (such as fundraising, Wikimania, or auditing) and to help  
draft policies, charters and resolutions on such topics.
Because Board members owe duties by virtue of their position,  
candidates who currently hold paid positions with the Wikimedia  
Foundation must resign from those position before they can be  
appointed to the Board of Trustees. This is to avoid potential  
conflicts of interests.
[edit]Prerequisites to candidacy
To be eligible as a candidate, you must:
have made at least 600 edits before 01 March 2009 on any one  
registered account (edits on several wikis can be combined if your  
accounts are unified into a global account); and
have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 01 July 2009; and
publicly disclose your real name in your candidate presentation  
(because the identities of Board members are a matter of public  
record, it is not possible to hold a position on the Board of Trustees  
anonymously or under a pseudonym); and
be at least 18 years old and of legal age in your home country.
Special exceptions: current members of the Board of Trustees may be  
candidates regardless of the above requirements.
[edit]How to submit your candidacy
If you are eligible, you can submit your candidacy by doing the  
following:
Write a brief summary of no more than 1200 characters stating what you  
would do if you were elected to the Board of Trustees, your relevant  
opinions and experience, and anything else you think is relevant. You  
may not use your candidate summary to link to lists of endorsements or  
other platform pages, and may not run on a slate with other candidates.
Submit your summary between 00:00, 06 July 2009 (UTC) and 23:59, 20  
July 2009 (UTC). After July 20, it cannot be changed except for minor  
corrections or translation. Any additions submitted after this  
deadline will be time-stamped and presented separately from the  
original summary, and will only be presented to voters if they get  
translated into all of the same languages as the original summary.
Submit proof of your identity to Cary Bass (Volunteer Coordinator)  
before 20 July 2009. You will be privately contacted by a member of  
the Election Committee with further information about meeting this  
requirement when you list yourself as a candidate.
Candidates who fail to comply with the above requirements and  
deadlines will be disqualified.
[edit]Organization

[edit]Time line
01–30 June 2009: primary translation phase; subcommittee actively  
coordinates and promotes translation.
06–20 July 2009: candidate submissions.
20 July 2009: deadline to send proof of identity (late or missing  
submissions will be disqualified).
03–10 August 2009: elections.
10–12 August 2009: vote-checking.
12 August 2009: publication of results.
[edit]Translators
To ensure that a representative cross-section of the Wikimedia  
community takes part in this election, it is important to translate  
election notices and candidate statements into as many languages as  
possible. To help translate, please see the translation page.