Talk:Learning from events and reactions surrounding the removal of Lane Rasberry from the 2025 Board Elections candidate shortlist

Comments while reading

Some of my own thoughts on reasonable answers to these Qs, as I am reading them:

• Candidate privacy:
  • Work w/ electcom to clarify guidelines for candidacy and vetting criteria, including things like 'discretion' whose meaning varies significantly across contexts.
  • Have a standard for summarized transparency about vetting criteria and outcomes, when candidates request it.
  • Involve an independent group in oversight/sanity check for disqualifications that result from vetting (a subset of electcomm, or a single-purpose group of former trustees?). This should be an exceedingly rare occurrence, and when it happens it should be handled with more speed, clarity, trust, and thoroughness.

• Community and communication:
  • Simplify the process; make it easier to visualize up front. [selection / shortlist / vote].
  • Make any and all vetting part of the shortlist process.
  • Recommit to adhering to the outcome of the vote (the whole point of vetting as part of shortlisting).
  • Recommit to candidate selection embodying trust in the community to identify a balance of excellent trustees, and to that functioning as an important check on the operation of the Foundation.
  • Have a standard post-mortem run by the Electcomm to improve + correct specifics

• Election process and trust:
  • Commit to not changing the rules or process of a selection process after it begins
  • Capture any changes in the environment with implications for governance in the presentation, recruitment, and guidelines for the process.
  • Engage Electcomm in fixing this and many of the above issues this year, don't kick that can down the road.
  • Offer training to all shortlisted candidates.
  • The overall effect of the process must be to build capacity and trust within the movement. It must not be tone policing, or amplifying divisions within the movement as a result. Create mechanisms to foster, monitor, and revise process to preserve this trust- and capacity-building. It works both ways: a good election builds trust in individuals through service and in the foundation through shared oversight.

–SJ talk  18:27, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

All reasonable suggestions from Sj as always.

I'll add another comment on the question "What can be done to prevent the Board from removing candidates from the Shortlist without providing public justification?". I disagree with the question: this is not a need in itself, but one perceived solution to a need of the community. The need must be expressed clearly, otherwise the answer varies a lot. For example the underlying need could be "make sure exclusions are internally consistent and in the self-interest of the WMF" or "make sure the reason can be debated" or "make sure the reason aligns with the community's views" or "make sure that it's possible to vote for a candidate the WMF board doesn't like", and so on.

In my view the problem was the exact opposite, i.e. that we were provided with disparaging remarks and humiliating official reasons for the removal of the candidates. It's ok to remove candidates on a whim, as long as you don't pretend there is a reason.

Or in other words, I agree with the question only if you accept that the public justification might be "because we liked it so". Nemo 11:29, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree that these are reasonable suggestions and I encourage the Board to consider them. Hexatekin (talk) 22:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

+1 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:09, 14 November 2025 (UTC)