Affiliate-selected Board seats/2019/notes/2019-04-19 Agenda and minutes for fifth facilitators' call

2019-04-19 Agenda and minutes for fifth facilitators' call

Attendees

1. Ad
2. Jeffrey
3. Alex
4. Neal
5. Abhinav
6. Erica
7. Lane

Agenda

1. Opening
2. Trust & Safety
3. Translations
4. Endorsements
5. Next meeting
6. Closing

Notes

1. Opening
   
2. Trust & Safety

   Ad and Abhinav talked with Jan Eissfeldt of WMF Trust and Safety on Wednesday, 17th April. WMF Trust and Safety committed to monitor discussion pages twice daily and to post a template that the pages are monitored. Jeffrey asks: what is the cause of seeking support from T&S? Ad: there is a custom of using T&S to patrol the WMF's calls for grants. There is a history of civility issues around WMF grants. To prevent problems, we have their offer of that patrol process for this election, and María suggested to involve them. No existing problems identified with this election, no reason to believe problems are coming. This is a precautionary measure to keep the election on schedule and friendl

3. Translations

   Erica reports that there are four languages, which are key for translation: Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish. Many other languages matter, but these languages have an existing user base, which requests translation and has a history of demonstrating that they use the translated content.

   1. The goal of translation is to convey an understanding of who the candidates are so that they can discuss the profiles internally with their communities.
   2. Every other language translation is welcome from volunteers.
   3. Erica contacted 50 people who in 2016 translated the ASBS election pages. She also contacted 100 people who in the past 6 months have been active on Meta-wiki in translation.
   4. The WMF makes a policy of using paid translation as a last resort. There is a ready budget for paid translation.
   5. Because paid translation is expensive and because community volunteer translation is a scarce commodity, there is a 500-word limit on candidate statements.
   6. Erica wishes that candidates could all understand that their profiles should be concise and that after they post them, they should not do wiki-style changing of them because of the difficulty for translators in changing statements after translation.
   7. Questions - is there an easy way to see word count? No, we have to use an external tool
   8. If we hear any translators that they are having trouble saving translations then direct them to the workaround on the translations page

      https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2019/Translations#Known_issues

4. Endorsements    

   Formal rules of the endorsement process. The only rules are each candidate needs two (and only two) endorsements given on behalf of two affiliates, and affiliates can give only two endorsements.

   A) Since endorsements come from organizations, who is allowed to endorse on behalf of an organization?
   

   1. easy - official voter or named head of organization
   2. more challenging but still easy - someone who issues the endorsement then reports back on the organization's talk page that they made the endorsement
      

   B) There is conversation off wiki in Telegram and others, discussing many hypothetical problems, which might happen. On wiki there is almost zero discussion. If anyone wants answers, they should discuss on wiki, first addressed to the wiki community, and as a last resort to sort with the facilitators.

   C) When are endorsements required?

   1. The resolution states: “Endorsements may be posted until the time that nominations are finalized and the ballot is prepared, April 30th.”
   2. Erica reports that probably the Qualtrics ballot will likely be set up on May 6 or 7, with voting beginning the next day.
5. Next meeting

   Facilitators check each other’s availability for the next meeting

6. Closing