Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/October 2025 update

Value of an election where candidates are vetted for unanimity

I protest at the limitation of our electoral choices to candidates pre-selected for being "strongly unified". One of the purposes of a board of trustees of a charitable foundation—arguably its main purpose—is to provide a check on deviations from the purposes of the charity and from best practice. That is the reason for having a board rather than a single decision-maker. Outward-facing functions can be and are also performed by specialised staff; it is not the board's function to be a united front. Limiting choices in an election (before or after the vote) vitiates the entire election except for the exclusion of obviously unsuitable candidates (those unable to serve, of demonstrated moral turpitude or incompetence).

Please rescind this decision and let the community vote. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:34, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

The language of this letter suggests that this year's selection is unusual, and the Foundation wants the option to lean on a more active board with minimal time spent on internal conflict. That hopefully does not imply this is desired in most years; in which I agree the bar should be extremely high re: ability to serve/morality/incompetence. This exceptional difference should be made clear in some form of update, so that this decision does not set an unfortunate precedent. The world is not about to get any kinder to neutral free-knowledge projects, there will always be enemies pressing at our gates, and we must not let that weaken our commitment to self-governance. Else we will be easily captured by those enemies once they learn to use our own methods against us.

In the future, let's please ensure this sort of vetting is done as part of the election committee's work: before even announcing the shortlist, as part of identifying who is on it. If our process set a shortlist-size to 6, that should be the number of balloted candidates, not the number who can then be winnowed down by some opaque future review. That will also avoid what happened this year: wasted effort on campaigning, confusion and demotivation of both candidates and their supporters, and a Streisand effect, all net negatives for both community and foundation. –SJ talk  00:25, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir and @Sj, I fully endorse your comments. It has always been hoped by the editing communities that the Board would one day become the urgently needed bridge between the communities and the Foundation, but rather than enabling a road map towards such a function, this simply widens the gulf. The work of a Board of Trustees should be to provide checks and balances and not simply rubber-stamp the WMF's plans and intentions. The way this election is handled ensures as far as possible that only pro-WMF candidates are left in the running of what is a very short lineup.

The work of the volunteers is what generates the donations. Please introduce more transparency and democratic process and let the community vote for the community's candidates. Kudpung (talk) 01:09, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I fully agree with the above comments. The essence of any election lies in the community’s trust and its ability to choose the most suitable candidates, not in pre-filtering choices for the sake of “unity” or “alignment.” Such pre-selection undermines the democratic purpose of the election and weakens the relationship between the community and the Foundation. Transparency and diversity of perspectives are what truly build trust and accountability. It is essential to reconsider this approach and allow the community to exercise its full role in selection and participation. Mohammed Qays (talk) 08:22, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I completely agree with all the comments above. I would just like to add that we shouldn’t overlook the importance of including candidates who represent their local and regional communities. Participation in the voting process itself has a strong positive impact, it shows both new and long-standing members that they can aspire to take on such roles within the movement. Reducing the number of candidates to such a small pool risks undermining the transparency and representation that our movement strives for. As a wikimedian who works on community growth, I believe this recent decision to limit the number of candidates could negatively affect the trust our communities have in the process and in the inspiration we build for them to contribute to this movement. Alli Khalil (talk) 08:48, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I think the message Lane's removal sends damages an already tense relationship between the WMF and community. If people want that relationship to improve, this is really not the way to go about it. I'm not the only one who feels like there's no point in even voting in the election now. Clovermoss (talk) 20:13, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I find it really scary to read that candidates were possibly excluded because "the Foundation needs a strongly unified board committed to collective decision-making responsibilities". The strength of our movement is the diversity of opinion and being able to compromise without having the same opinions. In a world that's moving away from democracy, I'm saddened if we move the same direction. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

I was shocked by Lane’s not making it to the final ballot, as he’s the only one I’d vote for. Good luck, everybody: We’re gonna need it. Tuvalkin (talk) 19:30, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Given that a candidate with questionable behavior, violating the friendly policy, was left in (the election committee and T&S know who did what), I cannot imagine what those who were excluded were supposed to do. Lvova (talk) 08:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

You can save yourself the trouble of protesting like this. Nobody cares about that. A closed circle decides who can join them. The WMF board is an oligarchy. Anyone they don't like is ignored. You can always fabricate reasons for that. The WMF, in its structures and organs, is rotten through and through; democracy doesn't exist. On the contrary: people are afraid of democracy and of what those who truly make up Wikimedia—namely, we contributors—really want. Like the rest of the world, the WMF, and especially its board, are developing into a closed circle, subject to opaque processes and largely unconcerned about us, but only concerned with getting the best possible outcome for themselves. As a democrat, it is absolutely impossible to trust this organization even a cent. This part of the "movement" is also partly responsible for the fact that, after 20 years of very active authorship, I'm now mentally gone. Working on Wikimedia projects? Why? So that the inner circle can boast about the results of my volunteer work? For 15 years, I hoped for things to improve. I trusted that the system would eventually find its way. That's over. Marcus Cyron (talk) 08:35, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

If the Foundation believes that a candidate is ineligible to run in a Board election, the community should receive a report as to the reasoning behind why the candidate was prevented from participating in a fair election. Hexatekin (talk) 16:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we should also be posting comments to Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections committee. Hexatekin (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Be careful what you wish for. I have zero information on the reason for this particular decision by the Board of Trustees. I do know, however, that at least half of the reasons that a board of any non-profit or group turns down a candidate are ones that can cause harm to the reputation of the candidate. The people who self-selected as candidates in this and every other WMF Board selection process over the years are almost all outstanding volunteers who have brought a great deal to our global community. Sometimes those skills, while truly valuable to one or more aspects of the community, are not good matches for a trustee. Sometimes people have an element of personal history that makes them a poor fit for trusteeship, even though it would create no issue whatsoever in the broader community. The level of scrutiny that applies to the WMF Board of Trustees, especially external scrutiny, has increased exponentially in the last 5 years. While I think that the board is probably wise to provide information to the specific candidate on why their candidacy has been stopped, I do not believe that we should demand that the Board broadcast what it considers a weakness of one individual. In any other circumstance, we would consider such comments to be exceedingly unacceptable, and would be calling for heads to roll. Please do not demand this. It is wrong to insist that someone's personal reputation be harmed in some misguided notion of transparency. Risker (talk) 02:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Risker, Yes, valid arguments all. However, the way it was done just drives another wedge between the WMF and the volunteer communities - a relationship that has always been frail. One solution were if the BoT or its election committee were to provide the rejected candidates - including those on the first selection round - with some straight and plausible reasons. Maybe then the candidates could simple tell us if they are satisfied with the reasons.

It all seems a bit odd when the BoT patronisingly tells them to take a course on committee work and try again next time. For all its talk about 'Trust & Safety', the WMF can sometimes be exceedingly insensitive and lacking in respect as some volunteers have witnessed first-hand over the years. Superior attitudes over their volunteers who do all the work are entrenched in the management of many charities and NGOs. Kudpung (talk) 04:07, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Risker you are right, there may be things that are better not to disclose. However, the main reason here to exclude the only woman in the list seem to be geopolitical. And that's not only worrying, it needs an explanation to the community. Theklan (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I think there is an update that the reasons have been given to the candidate. They have been told that the board will keep them confidential, and that the board cannot comment either way on what the candidate chooses to disclose, either to confirm or deny. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:48, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Risker: Lane, at least, has overtly asked for "maximum transparency" precisely because his elimination at this late stage could be seen that way. Your overtly saying this here seems like a suggestion that he would not want the truth to come out. In the unlikely event that he has been fool enough to ask for maximum transparency when he would thereby be made the subject of scandal, he deserves the consequences of his own action. In the more likely event that there is no such scandal, he deserves a clear exoneration. - Jmabel (talk) 14:01, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I think perhaps I did not make my position entirely clear. I am saying that all of these candidates are human beings, with their individual strengths and weaknesses. It is patently wrong to use their personal reputations as leverage in some theoretical discussion about "rights" and "democracy". What about their right not to be used as a hockey puck in the middle of this debate? There are reasonable points that can be raised in discussion without invoking any one of the candidates. A recent email to Wikimedia-L was even trying to leverage this debate against the four remaining candidates.

Let's move this discussion entirely away from the six individuals who were shortlisted, all of whom deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Instead, focus on what practices and principles people think should be changed, and how they can be changed in the way that is most effective to the support of our primary function, which is the creation, improvement, and maintenance of systems designed to share knowledge with the entire world. Risker (talk) 23:45, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I was one of the 6 candidates rejected in the previous stage, when the chapters and similar groups in the community shortlisted 6 candidates from 12. I can't say I was entirely happy at that process, not just because I lost, but also because I don't know why I lost or by how much. However, there is a huge difference between being dropped in a process that was supposed to reduce the number of candidates to 6, and being dropped in a process that was supposed to check people's bonafides and filter out any unsuitable candidates. Especially when in one statement the WMF can encourage all 8 of us who have so far been rejected to apply for similar roles in the future, whilst also saying that these two have been rejected over "subjective criteria like a candidate’s judgment, discernment, discretion, and ability to engage in the duties and requirements of being a Trustee, some of which can be complex and difficult to measure". I've been involved in the requests for adminship process on one of the larger wikis in this movement for over fifteen years. I've been in both the support and oppose columns many many times as well as being an unsuccessful candidate, a successful candidate, a nominator of many candidates and more recently a bureaucrat. In that time I've learned that there are at least three types of unsuccessful candidate, those who are heading in the right direction but don't yet meet some of the criteria that matter to the !voters (eg x months tenure, y edits or to show some content you have added with inline cites to reliable sources), those who are valued members of the community but who would need a change of behaviour/values before getting more tools (eg more accurate deletion tagging, two years without a block etc), and once in a blue moon, a longterm abuser who has tried to return under a new account. My concern over this WMF intervention is that it sends a mixed message. It starts as if all the unsuccessful candidates were headed in the right direction and just need more experience. It then talks specifically about "judgment, discernment, discretion, and ability" all things that might preclude a member of the community from ever taking on this sort of role. I'd also add that it fails to soften the blow by restating that these are much valued members of the community who we want to continue in their current roles.

I stood partly because the WMF had identified that given the two trustees who were retiring, we needed replacements with experience in GLAM and not for profit governance. I'm not sure what those who were involved in the shortlisting process were looking for, but I can't fault them if their criteria were not the WMFs as they were from chapters and the like, not the WMF. However we now have two candidates vetoed by the WMF, Lane whose recent GLAM experience is stronger than mine and Ravan whose governance experience is within the movement, and who is that rare thing, a female Wikimedian. I could understand my not making the shortlist if those two had been elected. Looking at the last four, all have some governance experience and Michał at least has some GLAM involvement. But with Lane removed, I fear that we will have a board with less knowledge of the GLAM initiative than the current board has. Worse, in a similar manner to the Fram incident, we have an intervention by the WMF that looks arbitrary and capricious to those not in the cabal. Afterall, if Shani's departure leaves the board with a lack of GLAM outreach experience, Lane was as far as I can see the strongest GLAM related candidate in the race. So it seems odd to drop him, especially while simultaneously encouraging him to apply for similar roles in the future.

One further area of ambiguity in the WMF's message is in "the Board has unanimously decided that four candidates will be on the ballot for the 2025 elections:". This could be read in several different ways, either the board was unanimous in rejecting two candidates and putting four up for election, or the board agreed that there should be only four but there was dissension as to who the four should be, or the board was unanimous in supporting the final four candidates and no comment as to how the board split on the two who were rejected. I suspect the intent of this message was to state that the board were unanimous in support of the final four and whichever two the community elect the board will be happy. But saying this leaves a hostage to fortune, in future trustee elections people might ask why a similar statement hasn't been made. As for the implication that the board was unanimous in rejecting Lane and Ravan, even if true, there was no reason to say that. It would have been much better if the board had said, the board unanimously recommends these four candidates to the community, and all board members look forward to welcoming whichever two are elected by the community. WereSpielChequers (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Reactions from candidates removed

Special:Diff/29390482. Two candidates were removed: User:Bluerasberry and User:Ravan. --魔琴 (talk) 23:01, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Bluerasberry has posted his words on enwiki (user talk, Signpost talk). -- 魔琴 (talk) 11:08, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Ravan decided not to comment on this. -- 魔琴 (talk) 08:38, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

In the meantime Ravan has posted a statement drafted by several Wikimedians: #Smear Campaign Against Ravan, Wikimedia Foundation BoT Candidate Joe vom Titan (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Original title was "Diff." I don't know who edited it but I will keep it. --魔琴 (talk) 20:00, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

About timing

Why was this decision not made before the groups were handed over to the top 6 Candidates? Why did this process occur only after the Wikimania conference? What happened? And why is the message so clearly lacking in transparency?

It seems the Foundation could have taken this step earlier, which would have provided a broader window for selecting additional names. As noted above, four Candidates are not sufficient, and the current list lacks any meaningful diversity. Rotana🦋 (talk) 09:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Just don't expect any transparency from the WMF, and certainly not from the "board of dictators". There's never been anything like it there, and there never will be. We're supposed to know nothing. They want to make us stupid. The Wikimedia knowledge project ends where we do our volunteer work. For "those up there," to put it simply, this doesn't apply. They're above us; acting like rabble is just torture, and we idiots don't need to be told anything. We wouldn't understand it anyway, stupid as we are. Marcus Cyron (talk) 08:38, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

@Marcus Cyron lemme tell you something, after Wikimania, Ravan faced a wave of media criticism related to her political views, particularly her public support for Palestine. These reports also noted that she will join the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees election. Then, the Foundation launched a media review and postponed the election. This sequence has raised concerns within the community. We need transparency from the Foundation! was this is the reason? If not, then what was the reason? Given the sensitivity of the issue, any decision that affects Ravan’s position should be communicated clearly and openly to maintain trust and accountability. Just... no more! Rotana🦋 (talk) 09:28, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I read one of those report in the media when it was published while I was doing my own research on the candidates. It had a very click-bait headline and the contents were quite concerning and were supported by photo evidence. However, things on the Internet are not always trustworthy especially if they come from people who are racially biased - deep fake is very common nowadays. Even our own en.Wiki Arbcom will believe any so called evidence it's told by influential editors with an axe to grind. I took a neutral stance on it - I had already made up my mind how I would vote. If it were indeed the reason why she was expunged from the list, neither the WMF nor their Election Committee are going to divulge it. Kudpung (talk) 06:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Kudpung Yes, the headlines are attractive and clearly written from a biased perspective. As the other party, we could have responded by publishing our own headlines, articles, and more. But, we chose to respect the Foundation and leave the response up to them, especially since the name of the WF was clearly mentioned in the articles, But WF didn’t take actions, and now they removed Ravan without mention (Why!). Also, as you mentioned, not everything on the internet is truthful, and the political perspective in particular depends on the culture and beliefs of the region. They should respect! Rotana🦋 (talk) 10:29, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Even if there was a valid reason for removing Ravan, the lack of transparency is concerning, and so is the last-minute removal immediately prior to the election. Furthermore, no such arguments obtain with the other candidate removed, Bluerasberry.

And moreover, the basis of the earlier halving of the number of candidates was electability. The last-minute extra removals, leaving voters with only four candidates for two open seats, make that previous reduction excessive. The election is no longer free and fair.

Let the voters decide. Reinstate all candidates for which there is not an easily articulable reason for excluding them, and in that/those case(s), state the reasoning. Otherwise the reductions in choice appear arbitrary and contrary to movement objectives (which include diversity). Yngvadottir (talk) 18:29, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Note that longstanding WMF Board member Esra'a Al Shafei, also from a Middle East country (Bahrain), was removed from the WMF Board and replaced by an American en:Council on Foreign Relations member, Mayree Clark, on 27 August. Esra'a, too, had criticized the war in Gaza.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Republican campaign against "foreign" influence on Wikipedia has yielded its first fruit. Andreas JN466 16:32, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I do know that Esra'a chose to stand down voluntarily before the end of her term, not as the result of a political campaign about "foreign influence". Equally, the current board has only 2 US citizens (not including Jimmy Wales), with the remainder being from Belarus, Brazil, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. As someone who values and respects Esra'a and her work, I'm disappointed she is no longer on the board, but let's not head too far into the realm of conspiracy theories as to why she is no longer there.

I would also suggest that the more relevant description of Mayree Clark is that she has been a trustee on the Wikimedia Endowment Board since April 2024 and has a long career history of working in finance, specialising in risk management, and a long career history of non-profit governance. While I would rather have seen another queer woman of colour be Esra'a's replacement on the Board, it is clear that Mayree Clark is eminently qualified for the position. — OwenBlacker (Talk; he/him) 17:25, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

The Brazilian member is more technical, does not represent and does not have a strong relationship with the Brazilian and/or Portuguese Wikimedia community afaik, nor was he chosen by it, just to be clear. Augustresende (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, Esra'a's departure was announced on the same day as the Comer/Mace investigation (27 August). In both cases one would assume that the decision preceded the announcement by a few days, but the coincidence is striking, is it not?

If Ravan was dumped because of her views on Israel/Palestine – cf. the Jerusalem Post article published on August 10, 2025 – then that begs the question how Ravan's critics would have viewed Esra'a's presence on the board, given that she had been on record as describing the war in Gaza as a genocide. I can't imagine the Jerusalem Post, nor Comer and Mace for that matter, would have been happy with her, either. Andreas JN466 18:40, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Genuinely, there is no conspiracy around Esra'a. I had an email conversation with her shortly before she stood down; I don't want to share from that without Esra'a's consent, obviously, but she was very clear that she was stepping down voluntarily. Please do remember that there is more to the world than just US politics (thank the gods 😅) — OwenBlacker (Talk; he/him) 21:01, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, if Esra'a could comment here and confirm that, that would be very welcome. Regards, Andreas JN466 07:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

There is also the fact that Esra'a's decision to step down (if, as you explain, it was entirely her own decision) would have come at a time when the board were debating how to deal with the Jerusalem Post article. I am sorry – it just seems like a giant coincidence for her to leave just then, in the middle of her term, after having been on the board for the best part of a decade. Andreas JN466 07:04, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry but the board resolution pointed out that Esra'a's resignation came on early August and is earlier than any Israeli/Zionist/whatever you call's article publishing date. I would say it as coincidence rather than intentional. 1233 （T / C） 07:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

It is correct that Mayree Clark was appointed as Esra'a's replacement on August 4, a week before the Jerusalem Post story:

• Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/August 2025 Meeting Outcomes

Whether or not the Ravan story was already brewing then – it's not inconceivable that there might have been contact between the JP and the WMF before the story – I don't know. But yes, the timeline is not as straightforward as it appeared to me originally. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Andreas JN466 13:45, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Adding to the mix - I have compiled a series of events surrounding what is being discussed, as well as open questions that need to be discussed in response to these events at: m:Learning from events and reactions surrounding the removal of Lane Rasberry from the 2025 Board Elections candidate shortlist. I had help from a few others to copy-edit and verify details. Hexatekin (talk) 14:35, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Just as a minor detail: I don't know if there is consensus that four is too low a number of candidates for a ballot with 2 seats. If you would have asked me before this incident, I would have probably responded that 4-6 would be a pretty nice range. So if I could be nitpicky, can I suggest we remove the "number" as a negative consequence? I think there are many more relevant concerns/arguments anyway. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:49, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

More answers on the Board's decision on the 2025 final ballot

Dear all,

There have been some discussions about the reasons behind the board's decisions on the final election ballot and some questions.

I wanted to answer some of these - including whether active journalists or activists can be trustees. Overall, both journalists and activists can serve as trustees, and have done so in the past. However, given the sometimes sensitive nature of the decisions we are required to make as the Board, trustees must consider the discretion required in the role. This means their ability to continue publicly writing, speaking and contributing to topics that may come before the Board of Trustees is limited. Board members are seen as spokespeople outside the Wikimedia movement and hence must consider how being a public persona aligns with the fiduciary responsibilities of a trustee.

In terms of the process, the final ballot was decided following discussions with candidates, who had seen the communication prior to it being sent. There were also steps to improve our processes this year and going forward. As in past years, background checks, media checks, reference checks, and an interview with members of the Board’s Governance Committee were conducted. Only the order of the process was different this year, as these checks were done before voting. These changes in the timeline were announced several weeks ago in August, and have been in development for some time. This change was made to avoid a situation where the Board is unable to implement the outcome of the community vote because the vetting had not been done on the whole ballot.

After the background checks were completed and the interviews were conducted, each candidate received a communication from the Board which outlined the concerns and was given an opportunity to answer and comment before the Board made the final decision. The candidates have each been provided a summary and an explanation of the Board’s decision, along with the reasons for not providing these summaries publicly. We also communicated that there are no reasons discovered that would stop the candidates in question from running again (the next elections are scheduled for 2027 for 4 seats), after they work on the issues communicated. While the candidates may choose to communicate more, we cannot comment on whether they have provided an accurate representation of our concerns as expressed.

The Elections Committee did not weigh in on the final ballot, as this is not in their mandate; the final ballot was decided by a unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. We apologise that the changes were implemented quite late in the process, and we shall see if something can be changed for the next rounds to happen sooner, now that we know how long each step of the process takes with this number of candidates.

I invite you to ask questions about the process on this talk page and continue to be available for conversations with anyone through the Let’s Talk initiative (sign up here on Meta).

Best regards,

Nataliia Tymkiv

Chair, Wikimedia Foundation

-- NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 12:12, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

As I wrote on en:Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost#Training?, for the COI stuff, it's normal to ask a prospective board member to recuse from COIs after they've been elected but before they're official appointed. At which point the candidate could either accept or refuse [and then you move on to the next suitable candidate]. This is in general for any board, not WMF specific. Dismissing them before the election and not even giving them a shot is what is nuts. So is asking to recuse from COIs for a year+ before resubmitting a candidacy. Headbomb (talk) 14:01, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

pardon me @NTymkiv (WMF), but your answers still lack transparency, which makes us more and more concerned. Rotana🦋 (talk) 14:20, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@NTymkiv (WMF) This is not a tenable position, you say The candidates have each been provided a summary and an explanation of the Board’s decision, along with the reasons for not providing these summaries publicly, could the reasons for the same be shared with the community? Additionally, I would really urge y'all to work on a publishable version of reasons for disqualifying each candidate. Doing so without providing the community with a reason risks the appearance to impropriety even if none was intended here.

- Sohom (talk) 14:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

• I think part of the problem is the final ballot was decided by a unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. How candidates get chosen in the first place and how this vetting gets done makes it feel like it isn't really an election at all. The earlier comments about unity were incredibly concerning. What's the point of an election even existing if people don't feel listened to and can't vote for who they feel best represents them? Clovermoss (talk) 16:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

As Clovermoss says, all the reductions in choices wind up presenting the community with an inadequate opportunity to express their preferences.

If the concern is a candidate's ability to fulfil the legal and fiduciary responsibilities of the position, it is inappropriate to affirm that that candidate may be suitable for the next election, and to offer coaching. That indicates that the concerns are not disqualificatory, but the Board's preference. The position is contradictory. The Board is in effect overriding the will of potential voters in this election and seeking to override the will of those in a future election, for reasons that do not rise to the level of unfitness on the part of the candidate.

Unanimity on the Board is not an end in itself, and runs counter to the objectives of reflecting diverse perspectives and of reflecting the movement. The role of the Board is not primarily to be a spokesperson; the Foundation can and does employ PR people for that purpose. By seeking unanimity the Board risks not being effective in its more important role of oversight of the Foundation's adherence to mission objectives and to best practices for a charitable foundation. Consensus can and should be achieved by discussion; otherwise there is no point in having a multi-person board of trustees. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:49, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

From all the bad decisions taken by the BoT in the last years, this is in the Top 2. How can the board decide to veto two members just when the election day is coming? Theklan (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

What was the other? Augustresende (talk) 19:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@NTymkiv (WMF) and @Victoria, just to be clear, could you clarify this?

The candidates have each been provided a summary and an explanation of the Board’s decision, along with the reasons for not providing these summaries publicly

More specifically, is there anything prohibiting the candidates from sharing these reasons publicly? It seems like Victoria has already done a half disclosure in the below section. I want to confirm if the candidates now can share the reasons too. Soni (talk) 12:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

• I have compiled a series of events surrounding what is being discussed, as well as open questions that need to be discussed in response to these events at: m:Learning from events and reactions surrounding the removal of Lane Rasberry from the 2025 Board Elections candidate shortlist. I had help from a few others to copy-edit and verify details. Hexatekin (talk) 14:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Reflecting on process

The Board has a legal responsibility to at least apply some criteria (e.g. where the candidate's appointment would harm the Foundation) so it's impossible to take away the possibility entirely that at some point the Board rejects a candidate.

There's a range of other criteria that fall outside the legal scope, but which may lead the board members to conclude that certain candidates are 'unwise'. In that case I think there should be better ways than having the board self-select who they want to allow to join their ranks. To mind come two processes that seem an improvement to me - very likely there are more and better. The first would be to appoint an outside group that can make this determination based on confidential and sensitive information, to avoid a conflict of interest. The elections committee may not be the best suited but I'm sure we can figure something out. The second could be to provide the feedback first to the candidates (upon which they could withdraw) and then to the community.

I realize this is all hard to implement at very short notice - but it's not exactly like this election came as a surprise, and neither of the excluded candidates' profiles was particularly surprising to me to run for election. Of course, I don't know exactly what the vetting turned up, and how problematic it all was. I'm glad that Nat committed to reflect on this process. I hope the board will share the outcome of this reflection well before the next round makes it urgent again. The current process is harmful to all involved, but I'll assume good faith and imagine that the board was presented some significant and consequential reasons to make the decision they made.

At the very least I wonder if the Elections Committee was provided the opportunity to rule whether two more candidates (the runners-up) should be admitted to the ballot. I do think this is within their mandate. Effeietsanders (talk) 20:51, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

It is quite a while from my last time talk here. Personally I am still bewildered why the rules suddenly change in the middle of the campaign. As we are still trying to figure out what's going on, and I feel like we are literally rushed to vote. I have serious doubt that keep the current timeline to open the ballot really a wise thing to do.

One thing I am still wondering why the issue was not a thing during shortlist and now suddenly a thing. Then what's wrong with shortlist process is a thing worth digging in.  ※ JY Chan ~ User:Yuyu  ※  talk page  ※  10:38, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

@Yuyu That one is easy to guess... The shortlisting took place in July—if I recall correctly—and in early August there was a barrage of press articles about one of the candidates, with very serious allegations that I find impossible to dismiss. - Darwin ^Ahoy! 14:29, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I would like to refrain from guessing what was the exact reason behind the decision - I have my own thoughts about it, but the public guessing is potentially damaging for the candidates' reputation. The point made in the earlier sections that the lack of transparency on the reasons is problematic is a fair one.

What I'm also realizing, is that the process was only approved on October 1. This suggests that either the process was uncharacteristically rapidly executed (with Background checks, media checks, and legal assessments, interviews, evaluation and decision making, and informing the candidates involved before posting the decision publicly 2 days later), or the process was only approved after executing it. That is another concerning element and regardless of the reason, has at least the appearance of a decision-based process. Effeietsanders (talk) 15:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

I always appreciate your thoughtful comments, and this is no exception. The last comment above (about "only approved on Ocrober 1") seems extraordinarily short, but the process was announced with less detail on August 21st when the timeline was changed to allow for these checks to happen before the vote. We should all really have followed up at that point to understand in more detail what would be entailed; presumably those details started to be worked out internally then.

I'm glad that the final process was made explicit in its own board resolution, even if it was very late in the timeline. That lets us see that an outside group was not involved in evaluating risk and the elections committee was not involved in considering whether to include runners-up from the shortlist. –SJ talk  03:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for that additional information SJ! I would still think 12 days is extremely short for this process to complete, but this is helpful context. Effeietsanders (talk) 14:53, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I don’t want to guess at the moment either. Let me say I would like to raise such questions for later enquiries, if there will be one.  ※ JY Chan ~ User:Yuyu  ※  talk page  ※  04:31, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

In one organisation I worked in, an elected candidate commission vetted all candidates. They did not have the power to exclude any, but gave an overview of what they perceived as the strenght and weaknesses of each candidate. This worked well in giving voters the information they need, without pre-determining part of the vote. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 06:44, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Well, it's not a guess anymore. According to Victoria, Ravan was indeed excluded because of the press coverage of her posts on social networks.

It was never any sort of "wild guess", btw, as anyone who had read that press coverage would probably know. - Darwin ^Ahoy! 10:32, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Victoria says that she limited herself to the publicly available information. The lack of transparency (and that the board may or may not have provided a representative summary to the candidates to begin with) is part of the problem why the appearance of a conflict of interest is so tricky... Effeietsanders (talk) 14:51, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Community objections to the removal of Ravan

Hi Natalia, glad to regard you here. From what you mention here, it is the Board that has made this decision. As their spokesperson, I kindly request that you convey these positions to the members of the Board. In the case of the Spanish-speaking community, we urgently request clarification on the specific reason why Ravan has been removed. Otherwise, we will not participate in the process. Thank you, ProtoplasmaKid (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

Petition for reform

People who watch this page may be interested in 2025 WMF Board reform petition. Clovermoss (talk) 04:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Some more thoughts...

Hello all.

I want to share some of my concerns about this and echo calls for the Board to share more of its reasoning, to the extent it's possible to do so.

Obviously the context to this difficult situation with US politics at present. Probably the hostile environment in US politics has influenced the Board's approach to this. Wikimedians, particularly outside the US, are probably inclined to underestimate the scale of the challenge US politics poses.

However, that said, I have quite a lot of concern about this.

From the Board's statement and from what Lane has posted it seems the Board looked issues which the election process can be trusted to deal with. There is little chance of a candidate with no 'track record of commitment to Wikipedia's core values and principles' winning a community election. Both Lane and Ravan can evidencemore commitment to those values than many people who've been seated on the WMF Board. I would urge the Board not to hyper-scrutinise community-selected candidates for alignment with the community's values, the community is good at doing this. It is also a bit odd saying that candidates who have served as editors for years as well as in affiliates, on AffCom and on the MCDC lack experience. Again that is more experience than most Board members have.

I have some more sympathy with any concerns about candidates' ability to maintain confidentiality and public support of the WMF's actions. One cannot be a journalist reporting on the WMF (even through the Signpost) at the same time as being on the WMF Board, and Board members basically can't speak to journalists about Wikipedia independently of the WMF's press office. If this was in doubt with one of the candidates then that would be a good reason not to seat them on the Board. If that was the reason Lane was not allowed to run, then I understand this. But I am reading between the lines and guessing a bit based on what has been said. I don't know whether this is the case.

We also do not know why Ravan was removed. Was this an attempt to manage reputational risk given that she had been criticised in (some parts of) the media for things she tweeted or retweeted about the October 7 attacks and the Gaza genocide? If so - I think this is the wrong decision. We can't claim to care about knowledge equity and then exclude an Iraqi woman for having opinions which are typical, even moderate, for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Again, we do not know what the reasons were but if this was the reason it is likely the wrong one. Does the WMF's commitment to knowledge equity stop the moment someone in the USA or Israel might get upset about putting it into practice? Whatever the 'reputational risk' of having a board member whose views are controversial in some right-wing media, what about the impact of the decision the Board has taken on the whole Arab Wikimedia community?

I am also concerned about the Board's view that they need a 'strong and united' board - diversity of perspectives is one of the strengths of an effective Board.

I would urge the Board (and, so far as their agreement is necessary, the candidates) to tell us more about the reasons. Who knows, perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye, and perhaps there are things that cannot or should not be shared. And whatever the Board says at this point people will be unhappy. But it would be useful to understand more what the real issues are and what the expectations of candidates really are.

Regards, Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 09:18, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I am having similar feelings on how this has unfolded. However, I think that having a strong and united board does not equal to losing the idea of "diversity of perspectives". For the reputational risk, I believe matters that happened in the past month (and a bit longer) as an external observer technically forced the foundation to review the overall process (and the election process, as a whole, as observed by this new policy that was approved two days before polls opened for future elections).

With the relevant information, I am not confident that Ravan will pass the Media Checks (as with Victoria), but outright denying the spot for candidacy may check some concerns for members of the community when basically board elections are the only way community members can enter influence the movement in the board level. 1233 （T / C） 11:03, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I've been on a number of boards and committees in my time, and I have worked under various degrees of collective responsibility, ranging from whether you were in the majority or minority, US supreme court style you are responsible for your vote to if you've had your say in committee let the majority make the case in public and even once the decision is made, support it or resign. I do find it odd when people describe the opaqueness and rigidity of groupthink and unity as "strong". In my experience a strong committee is one where diverse perspectives are listened to and attempts are made to achieve consensus decisions, even if that sometimes means the majority has made a concession to a minority view. Whilst weak committees and boards can take many forms, including factionalisation and especially rigid factions that disrespect minority views and of course boards that have lost touch with their base. WereSpielChequers (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Message from Victoria Doronina on Wikimedia-l

In case not everyone is on Wikimedia-l, WMF Board member Victoria Doronina has made this post: [1]

It's helpful understanding the Board's reasoning. At least we know what we are agreeing or disagreeing with now...

I'm writing this as a Wikimedian, relying solely on publicly available information. I'm sorry, but I will not reply to any questions, as the last time I tried, it didn't end well.

It may sound counterintuitive, but WMF is sometimes too nice and careful about the reputation of wikimedians and this leaves room for speculation. In this case, the WMF left a lot of room for candidates who didn't pass the preliminary stages of the vetting process to withdraw with grace, but it didn't work, and now we have multiple petitions for the reinstatement of these candidates.

Concerning Ravan, future candidates should be more cautious about what they post on social media, as some posts pose significant risks to the WMF's reputation, primarily because the press is particularly vigilant about the WMF board candidates at the moment. I'm supporting women (you may have noticed that I'm a woman too) and LGBTQIA+, but in this instance, I cannot support her candidacy, because the risks for the public reputation of WMF outweigh the risks to gender equity.

As for Lane, he

• publicly stated in his candidate video (1' in) that WMF is going to replace some of the text in Wikipedia with the text written by AI - this is not true, as anyone who has read the WMF AI strategy would know.

• Publicly written in the candidate statement: "I set up a Right to Information project on Meta-Wiki because years ago, I wanted information, and I could not find a way to communicate to the Foundation. As trustee, I encourage the user community to organize to make public information requests to me."

To me, it looks like he's going to disclose the non-public information, especially as he emphasises that he's an editor of the Signpost and his duty as a journalist will come before his duties as a trustee. He also writes:

I want access to Wikimedia Foundation financial records so that I can analyze them at my university, or otherwise, the WMF can just be direct in saying it does not want to share this info. Right now the WMF's financial reports are incomprehensible to the user community. We need transparency in those reports so that Wikimedians in each country can know what money the Foundation spends on their behalf, and what the development strategy for that country is.

It sounds like he's going to disclose non-public financial information.

All people who know Lane well state that he's an honest person who does as he says. As a Wikimedian, I cannot support a candidacy for a person who makes grossly unsupported statements. As a trustee, I cannot support anyone who wishes to disclose non-public information, which is in direct contravention of the trustee's duties and responsibilities.

As you can see, my objections to the Lane candidacy have nothing to do with him being a minority or any other potential issue that he mentions in his communications; it's much more mundane.

Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 09:53, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @Victoria: for providing this information.

Information about Ravan has appeared, among others in The Jerusalem Post. Check out the link where her controversial statements posted on social media are quoted. Therefore, I am not surprised by the bold decision of the Board of Trustees to exclude her from participating in the current elections. Gdarin | talk 10:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Took a scroll through it. A good chunk of it is primarily objectionable from JPost’s right-wing perspective, but some other bits (mainly uncritically retweeting Jackson Hinkle multiple times), do genuinely unnerve me.

I don’t necessarily have an issue with her not being on the ballot in a vacuum, but I do heavily question why this sort of thing wasn’t addressed earlier on; given how late in the process we are, it’s unfair to her to be booted this late. The Kip (talk) 02:31, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Kudos to @Victoria: for finally clarifying that. To me, both reasons make sense, though IMO this removal should have happened after the "election", though maybe the Board wanted to pass a message there. And the Board should have been frank about their reasoning since the start, as those are objective and sensible reasons, instead of using vague corporate wording and leaving it to peoples imagination.--- Darwin ^Ahoy! 11:34, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

• There are broader issues at play here, such as how communication from the Board tends to be reactive rather than proactive. I encourage people to support my 2025 WMF Board reform petition. As for the rest, I imagine that Lane wanted to make sure that the new words regarding AI were followed through with given the recent and extensively documented summaries scandal (which to my knowledge, is what prompted this new strategy). I don't see any indication that Lane would disclose non-public financial information without consent and I think the intent in that statement is saying that what is publically available isn't very understandable or accessible to the average person and that should change (I don't even know what's really publically available myself, a lot of this information seems to be a bureaucratic maze). He says explicitly that this could be refused by the WMF. I also think his Right to Information proposal sounds quite reasonable and would support it, but its entire set up does not read like someone who is just going to disclose everything all at once without other people agreeing to it. There's a certification section, afterall. But now none of this has a chance because Lane has been removed from the election process. Clovermoss (talk) 12:14, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  @Clovermoss As one of the folks who saw the events unfold from the WMF side and the community side, the strategy came before the summaries experiment, not after. Also, the summaries feature was a effort on the part of the WMF Reader/Growth team who were explicitly working on the goal "making the encyclopedia more understandable" because research has shown that folks have difficulty reading the lede of extremely technical articles (this is something the community has shown support towards the WMF working on fixing). The use of AI was incidental and a relic from a time when the communities position on AI was less absolute in 2024 (and I say this as somebody who has looked through much of the documentation in my role in PTAC and was in a position to ask the tough questions). PTAC has even published the exact sequence of events leading up to the Simple Summaries launch. Any attempt to characterize it as "the WMF has decided to be hostile to it's editor base" does disservice to intentions of the employees who worked on and at the very least shows a lack of care towards the organization that they are planning to represent (even if such was not intended) Sohom (talk) 14:03, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

  I appreciate the clarification but if it came after, then it's even more important that people have the ability to vote for someone who follows through to make sure that the words are not just words. Clovermoss (talk) 14:11, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I thought the WMF is supposed to be fearless. What someone posts on social media should not be a factor, unless their posts are so egregious (and I haven't seen any such examples?). Leaderboard (talk) 12:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

My thoughts are similar to this, too. //shb (t • c) 12:45, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, @Victoria: for providing further information on the recent events. This is particularly necessary given the actions taken by you as members of the Board. To quote your own words, I would like to say that:

“Future candidates should be more cautious about what they post on social media, as some posts pose significant risks to the WMF's reputation.” If this was the reasoning behind Ravan's removal, I would kindly ask you to share with us the full reasoning behind the foundation's decision to determine that Ravan's social media post warranted her removal from the electoral process. Being a woman adds an additional layer of consequences. Particularly because it sets a negative precedent for the freedom of expression of Wikimedians who may want to participate in the future, as they will be affected by “chilling effects” that will censor their thoughts in advance. Second, and more importantly, when you say “the press,” you are referring specifically to a specific news website that, like others, is subject to scrutiny and does not represent a unanimous position. Moreover, if it is the media outlet being referred to in public, it is one with clear and declared biases. Could you provide more information? Best regards,

ProtoplasmaKid (talk) 13:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Checking the controversial social media comments makes everything more clear: There is no room for anti-genocide sentiments on the Wikimedia Foundation. Shame. I'm disgusted by this decision and I'm seriously considering stopping my almost two-decade long history of contribution to the WMF projects. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 14:22, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Sadly, it seems that WMF only cares about diversity when it fits the narratives of the North American/Western European elite mindset. Don't you dare share opinions that are widely shared in the rest of the world (and even in the US and Europe), like being against genocide, because that is disqualifying. --Osmar Valdebenito, B1mbo (talk) 14:57, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

For the passer-by reader: the Jerusalem Post article linked above quotes her writing:

And there are still many, many people who think that what happened on October 7 was only for the [Palestinian] prisoners [in Israel]! What happened on October 7 was for everything that happened during the 75 years before October 7!

Interpret that as you wish. Janhrach (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

• Just wanted to reiterate that Lorenzo's email on the mailing list doesn't change anything for me, personally. We don't know what went into his vote, but the board vote was unanimous, and no one is publicly disagreeing with Victoria's interpretations. She explained why she voted the way she did so of course people are going to read into it. It's the only rationale from someone who voted to disqualify both candidates that we have. Clovermoss (talk) 04:35, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Victoria How are you positioning your personal opinion as a Wikimedian? From what I have experienced recently, I believe that a member of the Board of Trustees should exercise great caution in what they publish or say, as their words directly represent the Wikimedia Foundation and inevitably impact its reputation.

From your email, I understand that the Board believes the WMF is “sometimes too nice and careful about the reputation of Wikimedians, which leaves room for speculation. In this case, the WMF left a lot of room for candidates who didn't pass the preliminary stages of the vetting process to withdraw with grace, but it didn’t work, and now we have multiple petitions for their reinstatement.”

Your mention of my “reputation” could easily be perceived as defamatory. So I must ask, which reputation are you referring to? My reputation as a human being who calls a genocide what it is "a genocide"? Or your reputation as someone who relies on a biased and mistranslated media article, published by a platform known for excusing the killing of children, as a source to question a candidate’s fitness for the Board of Trustees?

You also mentioned “preliminary stages of vetting.” Which stages exactly are you referring to? I have been publicly and consistently writing about Gaza long before October 7, 2023. I was elected to serve on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, wasn’t I “vetted properly” then?

In 2015, I was chosen as one of four Wikimedians to represent the movement in receiving the Princess of Asturias Award on behalf of Wikipedia, standing alongside Lila Tretikov (Ex-CEO) and Jimmy Wales. Wasn’t I “vetted properly” then, too?

My humanitarian stance has remained unchanged for over 15 years. What has changed, however, is that a poorly translated and misleading article managed to influence the Board’s judgment and reverse its position on a volunteer who has dedicated 17 years to this movement.

I must express my deep disappointment. I truly believed that members of our Board of Trustees would be more discerning, more informed, and more impartial, not so easily swayed by external bias or political noise. Ravan (talk) 11:53, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Surely the extraordinary step of removing Lane after he passed through the shortlisting process should require more than issues with his candidate statements made prior to the August shortlisting. To whatever extent Lane's description of the Simple Summaries initiative was inaccurate, it was made while screensharing the enwiki Village Pump thread clarifying that AI summaries would sit alongside the editor-written leads. As the thread closing statement in that screenshare shows, the initiative was put on hold amid "strongly negative feedback from editors" so Lane's criticism was clearly warranted. It beggars belief that the WMF Board has construed Lane's statements at their worst, rather than first seeking a commitment that he would not disclose non-public information.

As Ravan has noted directly above, her positions have been clear for more than a decade. The only change since the August shortlisting is that The Jerusalem Post has made their opposition to her candidacy known. Per wbm1058, Katherine Maher served as the Board-selected WMF Executive Director while extremely vocal about social justice issues on social media. To criticize Ravan for her posts clearly showcases content-specific policing rather than a genuine aversion to social media use. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 20:41, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

@Victoria Your question is very important, as it highlights a core issue in the discussion around neutrality and the Wikimedia Foundation’s policies regarding public conduct and representation.

When it is said that Ravan’s candidacy poses “reputational risks” to the Foundation, that statement itself deserves scrutiny. The supposed risks are rarely defined clearly, and they are often linked to what is perceived as “political controversy.” However, similar scrutiny is not always applied to those who openly support Israel or express political positions in its favor. This reveals a serious inconsistency in how neutrality is applied.

Claiming that supporting Palestine harms the Foundation’s reputation while supporting Israel does not is an example of double standards. Freedom of expression, cultural diversity, and plurality of views are core values of the Wikimedia movement. Therefore, treating one political stance as a “risk” and ignoring the opposite stance contradicts those fundamental values.

True neutrality does not mean avoiding or silencing difficult conversations; it means being fair to all perspectives. If the Foundation wishes to maintain its credibility, it must apply the same standards to everyone. If any public political expression is considered reputationally harmful, then that rule must apply equally—whether the candidate supports Palestine, Israel, or any other cause.

In other words, Ravan’s views should not be considered a “risk” simply because they express solidarity with a humanitarian cause, while other political expressions are overlooked. In such cases, the Foundation does not protect its reputation—it undermines its neutrality. Mohammed Qays (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

@Mohammed Qays strongly agree. @Victoria given the roles listed on your user page, I’m genuinely surprised you’d speak like that! that kinda behavior harms the reputation of WF also! 😁 Rotana🦋 (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I must say that Victoria's message does not help.

Mentioning the political positions of a candidate as grounds for exclusion makes it sound like the WMF is pre-emptively surrendering to censorship and viewpoint discrimination. This is far more damaging for the WMF than anything a new member could possibly have done, considering the importance for the WMF to be a flag bearer of the First Amendment in the USA. (Indeed the First Amendment is pretty much the sole reason it's morally justifiable to have the WMF based in the USA; when we renounce it, the entire reason of existence of the WMF as USA org crumbles.) It's also just silly, because we have seen how surrendering to blackmail has only invited more blackmail.

As for Victoria's opinion on Lane, I must disagree in the strongest possible terms. I believe that Lane would have been able to rise to the role of Trustee, with everything it implies, and if necessary resign from the position if it ever became incompatible with his personal conscience. Nemo 20:02, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

• Over time, the behavior of the WMF board suggests they generally have no issue with individuals expressing concerns or advocating for social justice causes they care about. The exception, it seems, arises when criticism targets genocide or the actions of Israel.

This raises a critical question: would the board have responded the same way if the SM post had condemned apartheid in South Africa, or the oppressive treatment of Uyghurs in Chinal, or the war crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian war? My suspicion is that they’d have welcomed it. Some may interpret the situation differently, but to any objective observer, a pattern may have started to be taking shape here. It walks like, talks like, and unmistakably resembles one thing: double standards. -—M@sssly^✉ 15:59, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

• Followup from Victoria posted to Wikimedia-l: [2] ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · contribs · email · w:en) 21:58, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Removing candidates over calling out genocide is not at all "understandable"

1. According to the WMF's own website, its mission includes "Defending free expression" and "Upholding human rights". Very ironic.
2. If the board isn’t concerned about “reputational damage” when calling out the US congress over freedom of knowledge, it’s much more plausible to not be concerned or "cautious" about calling out internationally-recognized genocide that has murdered a Wikimedian (among tens of thousands of other murders and crimes), displaced other members of our community, destroyed invaluable cultural heritage, and leveled the homeland of 2 million people. If anything, the board should be concerned about how little it’s spoken about these horrors that have been televised daily for two years and how they have impacted our community.
3. If diversity means anything in this movement or to this board, it's exactly about facing this kind of situation. Yes, it's easier said than done, and it's harder to speak about flowery things and put them into a 2030 strategy than to implement them, isn't it.
4. I'm frankly baffled that the board not only believes it has the power to dictate who's allowed to run in its own elections, but seems in the announcement to feel entitled to do so. Do we need to even ask about the point of any elections in which the current governing body is gatekeeping who can run?
5. The way in which this decision has been made, including inventing a new policy days before the election to justify "Candidate removal", is manipulative and authoritarian at best, and at worst warrants calls for a vote of no confidence in this entire process and board.
6. The lack of transparency in this decision, the timing (days before the election), the introduction of a new policy, the amount of intervention, all for me seriously and honestly question the legitimacy of this entire process.

Abbad (talk) 22:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your words, I totally agree with your statement. I'm truly shocked about statements suggesting Wikimedians should silence just to be considered for the Board. Osmar Valdebenito, B1mbo (talk) 14:18, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Abbad, thanks, you perfectly expressed our thoughts. Mervat (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@عباد ديرانية bravo 👏 Rotana🦋 (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Deutschland’s statement on the new review process for BoT candidates and suggestions for next steps

This year the BoT introduced a new review process for BoT candidates, which led to the disqualification of two candidates from this year’s board selection. Before we share our view points we want to acknowledge that this whole process is putting two valued community members into a very difficult situation and we hope they have the support system they need to get through this period.

Wikimedia Deutschland supports the idea of conducting more thorough background reviews and interviews with BoT candidates. We believe that this new process is justified by the higher scrutiny on the Wikimedia projects worldwide and the increasingly public role that board members have to play to lead and represent the Wikimedia Foundation.

However, we recognize the need for more diversity on the BoT and share the frustration expressed by others in the Movement to not see any female candidate in this year’s ballot. We also believe that the use of the term “board election” is misleading and creates wrong expectations. Furthermore, we regret the timing of the communication around this new process, announced only a few days before the beginning of the community selection process.

Nevertheless, we believe that our expectation of transparency shouldn’t interfere with our shared responsibility of ensuring the privacy and safety of our volunteers. Both disqualified candidates have been privately informed of the reasons leading to that decision. We don’t think that starting a public conversation about some of these volunteer’s private activities and past statements would be beneficial to them, their reputation, or to the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia projects.

Let’s work together to identify ways to improve the selection process in the future. Now more than ever, it’s important that we remain united and resilient to face external threats and challenges. This is why we decided to take part in this year’s BoT selection, which from our point of view, continues to offer an opportunity to bring additional perspectives and more diversity to the Board.

Suggestions on how to move forward:

To collectively find ways of addressing the issues surfaced in this process, we invite the current BoT to consider the following steps:

• Engage in discussions with Movement stakeholders to find ways of ensuring more diversity on the BoT and within the candidates (e.g by addressing the questions raised in this petition for reform). Possibly propose amendments to the current selection process (e.g. introduce quotas, rethink the self-nomination process for candidates etc…).

• Discuss ways of better educating the affiliates and communities about our internal governance situation, including the self-perpetuating nature of the Board and the reasons for it.

• Review the language used in official communication about the “Board election” to use more accurate language (e.g. “Board selection process”, “community consultation”). This would contribute to a better understanding of our governance model.

• Review the timeline of the newly introduced process to make sure the vetting process happens as soon as possible, and definitely before the affiliates shortlisting process.

--Nicole Ebber (WMDE) (talk) 08:50, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Diversity and unanimity

It seems to me that one of the primary benefits, if not the primary benefit, of diversity, is a diversity of viewpoint. Candidates from different locations, backgrounds, etc., will have different perspectives, different life experiences, different priorities, and different ways of thinking. The strength of a diverse group is that it will have someone to put that forth, where a more homogeneous group may not even consider it—not out of malice, but because it wouldn't even occur to them.

I think the Board would be made stronger by real diversity, and that may include, especially via the community-selected seats, dissenters and mavericks. A couple Board members like that can't stop the Board from doing anything it wants anyway, since if they were the only objectors to something they would be easily outvoted, but they could bring perspectives that a Board with "unanimity" might not even think to consider. If the Board is seeking "unanimity", then its supposed commitment to "diversity" is an empty platitude. At most, it might engage in tokenism, but that is just a veneer of diversity with none of its actual benefits.

The community needs to select its own members for "community-selected trustees" to have any meaning. I would not object to the Board having a list of objective disqualifying criteria (e.g., convicted of a felony or a crime involving theft or dishonesty within the last X years, removed from or resigned in lieu of removal from a position within the last X years for theft or dishonesty, material misrepresentations of history and experience in the candidate statement, etc.). But those criteria should be objective "pass/fail", not matters of opinion or "We don't like what someone said on social media". Well—tough. If you want actual diversity of thought, that means almost by definition that some members are going to hold views that you don't agree with and don't like.

I see that the interface won't let you cast a blank ballot, so this is my blank ballot. I certainly will not be participating in this—whatever it is, I will not call it an "election". It is a sham. If the Board gets to select or whittle down the list of candidates, these are not community-selected trustees, they're just a pick from a list of people the existing Board decided they already like. Maybe the community wants to select a maverick, or a WMF critic, or whatever have you. Maybe we value different things in a trustee than the current Board does. And if so, that should be our decision. In this case, well, it's clearly not. If you just want to do away with community-selected seats, have the guts to say that. If you want them to remain, let the community select. Seraphimblade (talk) 20:28, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. -—M@sssly^✉ 22:46, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

+1000, Well said. Mervat (talk) 13:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I concur.

I had cast my ballot having only scanned the ("allowed") candidates' statements and having known some etc. Only later I have realized that something (someone actually) is amiss and thus days later I have landed also here.

Quick pithy comments, as on mobile:

• Gleichschaltung and Nomenklatura are apt terms for what has been done here. I also wish I could change my ballot to a spoilt or empty vote, but the vote designers seem to have preempted it too.
• Just as I had predicted some years ago that some underhanded or murky mechanism would be further weaponized, see e.g. 2022 JAN: Private Message from WMF revealed.
• Yes, we know that tempora et mores and that the Heritage Foundation folks are breathing down your neck, yet still...
• In CEE Communist culture (yes, that nomenklatura world again) we had an adage for such a "socialist (managed) democracy" process: "if you select the candidates, do also go and vote for them yourselves, save us the bother..."

Off to add my nym to: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_the_2025_WMF_Board_election_removals/Arab_Community for now... Zezen (talk) 16:40, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I also agree. I clicked on the voting link early on, in case there was a way to register a protest vote, but of course there isn't. This "vote" is so tainted, it reflects badly on the four remaining candidates that they continue to be on the ballot. And I deeply resent being bombarded not only with banner notices on project pages urging me to vote, but receiving an e-mail today with the subject line "Your vote is missing!" Damn straight my endorsement of the Board's choices to continue its refusal to vet the Foundation's direction, use of funds, and relationship with the actual community is missing. That's completely intentional. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:44, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Breaking the loop?

This decision will not be changed.

When a Board makes a decision it ***knows*** the communities will hate and come after them for, it is not taken lightly. You think, debate, and argue a lot before you act. And when you finally do, it is because you have to.

You do not do that on a whim. And this is not the first time. We are in a loop, and it feels like we have grown used to it. The same scenario repeats again and again.

Trustees change, different backgrounds, beliefs, perspectives, yet the underlying dynamics stay the same.

We have a systemic issue that has been with us for years. The Foundation is still perceived as a community body. It is not, and it never was. It’s a US based organisation operating and protecting the websites and the brands.

Board elections have always been elections in name only. They are a way for the communities to recommend candidates, not to appoint them.

It is long past time we acknowledge that we have built a system with two centers of power, the Foundation and the communities, that do not share that power.

This permanent imbalance creates constant tension, wastes time and energy, and ultimately weakens our entire movement.

It is time we face that reality together.

This latest situation is only another symptom of a much deeper problem, one we have chosen to tolerate for too long.

Perhaps we have grown to even love this loop?

But I, for one, am tired of it.

No one here is doing something wrong; it is the system we built that is wrong. schiste (talk) 06:31, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

We the community did not institute the WMF, decide on its structure or the role of the Board, or play any more than an incidental role (one or two "community-elected" Board members took part, who were selected by a process heavily weighting employees and affiliate groups, subject to post-election Board veto) in the changes in the Board's makeup and selection process a few years ago—2022? All of this has happened to the volunteers rather than been "built" by us. (You may also be an employee or an affiliate member, in which case you have had more of a voice than the vast majority of us, but even so I see no indications you could have played a significant role in moulding the system.) Yngvadottir (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Smear Campaign Against Ravan, Wikimedia Foundation BoT Candidate

The below was written by several Wikimedians following JP aticle and the events following that, I chose to publish it under my name as a reply to Victoria's email:

On August 27, 2025, voting opens for electing two community- and affiliate-selected trustees to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Six candidates have been shortlisted to run for the election.

Among the six candidates is Ravan Al-Taie, a Wikimedian from Iraq since 2008.  Ravan has been a trailblazer in the Wikimedia movement, contributing to the Arabic Wikipedia, acting as an administrator on it, founding the Iraqi Wikimedians User Group, serving on the Affiliations Committee, on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, and on the Regional Grants Committee for the Middle East and North Africa.  Ravan was selected by the WMF to the delegation sent to receive the Princess of Asturias Prize for International Cooperation in 2015 that was awarded to Wikipedia. Ravan is the sole female candidate of the six in this election.

On August 10, 2025, Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir publicly accused Ravan of promoting “hateful views” by criticizing Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza.  Mathilda Heller of the Jerusalem Post, a right-wing English language Israeli newspaper, picked up on the tweet and proceeded to produce an article on the publication smearing the candidate under the sensationalist title “Wikimedia Foundation trustee candidate denies use of rape on Oct. 7, posts Hamas symbol”.

Since then, Lir has continued her campaign against the candidate on social media and Israeli television, posting exclusively about Ravan and her Board candidacy.  

Who is Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir?

Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir is a researcher at Bar Ilan University and Haifa University in gender and technology. Lir created a Wikipedia account in 2007 and another in 2014.

After the Gaza Genocide started in earnest in 2023, Lir switched her focus to spread Israeli propaganda mocking and smearing Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian human rights. In December 2023, she posted on X in dismay about English Wikipedia. In March 2024, Lir presented a pseudo-academic study on “The Bias Against Israel on Wikipedia” at the World Jewish Congress in Geneva smearing the reputation of English Wikipedia in front of an array of World leaders and influential people.  Since then, the bulk of her activity on X has focused on criticizing Wikipedia.

As part of Lir’s “crusade” against English Wikipedia, she ran a WhatsApp group for coordinated editing to push Israeli government narratives.  

In January 2025, an Arbitration Committee case was brought against Lir for canvassing, in which she was given a warning for “non-neutral editing and canvassing”.

Debunking the smears in the Jerusalem Post article:

• “Hamas inverted triangle”
  • The Wikipedia article about it is problematic
  • The red triangle borrows from first-person shooter games in marking targets.  The arrows were used by Hamas in their videos of fighting against the Israeli military.  The arrow became a symbol of resistance against an occupying army in an asymmetric war. - As per the problematic article as well, “The red triangle appears in the 1917 flag of the Arab Revolt, with the color red symbolizing Arab independence and unity. The red triangle also appears in the derivative Palestinian flag, which was used during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against British rule and Jewish emigration. In a 1938 photograph, Palestinian rebels are seeing waving a black, white and green flag with a red triangle, with a cross and a crescent, symbolizing interreligious unity, inside the triangle.
  • Some media speculated that the symbol originates from Nazi concentration camp badges. However, the Nazis used the inverted red triangle to identify prisoners with political views opposed to Nazism, not necessarily Jewish prisoners.^”
• IHRA definition of antisemitism
  • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism is highly problematic and has been weaponized to stifle free speech and conflate criticism of Israel and its crimes with antisemitism.  
  • Comparison of Israeli crimes to Nazi crimes are considered antisemitism under this definition.
  • The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/) offers an alternative definition of antisemitism and states:
    • The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism responds to “the IHRA Definition,” the document that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. Because the IHRA Definition is unclear in key respects and widely open to different interpretations, it has caused confusion and generated controversy, hence weakening the fight against antisemitism. Noting that it calls itself “a working definition,” we have sought to improve on it by offering (a) a clearer core definition and (b) a coherent set of guidelines. We hope this will be helpful for monitoring and combating antisemitism, as well as for educational purposes. We propose our non-legally binding Declaration as an alternative to the IHRA Definition. Institutions that have already adopted the IHRA Definition can use our text as a tool for interpreting it.
• Rape allegations
  • Ravan retweeted a post questioning the silence of the Western media about the rape of Palestinian detainees and asking for evidences on 7th Oct to encourage support of the victims.
  • The original tweet denounces Western media about fake news of “rape attacks” on October 7, 2023.  While allegations have been made of sexual violence committed on October 7, no independent inquiry has been run, nor any credible evidence presented to establish allegations of systematic mass rape.
  • The UN report on sexual violence on 7 October 2023 concludes that:
    • 86. The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation. A comprehensive investigation would enable the information base to be expanded in locations which the mission team was not able to visit and to build the required trust with survivors/victims of conflict-related sexual violence who may be reluctant to come forward at this point. Ravan Retweeted that video from an American activist few days after 7th Oct as a normal follow up on daily fast-paced events which was happening then.
• Jesus was a Palestinian
  • The characterization of Jesus as a Palestinian is as uncontroversial as the characterization that he was a Jew.  It is only controversial to those who attempt to erase anything Palestinian.  
  • Jesus is believed to have been born in the land that is now called Palestine by most, regardless of the name of the polity at the time. The region was called Palestine as far back as the 5th century BCE.
  • Palestinians are proud that Jesus was born in their land, a pride anyone would have in a revered figure originating from their country.
  • A Dutch movie was released in 1999 called Jesus is a Palestinian.
  • Australian comedian/musician Tim Minchin refers to Jesus as a Palestinian in his Christmas song “White Wine in the Sun”
  • The article claims that “[t]he cartoon additionally indicates that Jews killed Jesus - another antisemitic trope.”  Nowhere in the cartoon is it insinuated that Jews killed Jesus.
• Saddam and “the Jews”
  • The post said that whilst Saddam Hussein was claiming to fight Israel, he had in fact committed massacres against his own people that far exceed the crimes committed by the Jewish militias .
  • In Arabic, the expression “the Jews” is used to refer to the invading colonizers, and not to the Jews as a religious or ethnic group. (see this)
• Conclusion: Ravan has unfortunately faced significant online harassment following the publication of an article that distorted her words and misrepresented Arabic expressions through poor translation. Some of the comments directed at her were deeply alarming, including threats suggesting that “the Mossad should deal with her.”
  • Despite this distressing experience, Ravan chose to remain silent, trusting that reasonable and well-informed members of the Wikimedia community would not take such a misleading and unverified article at face value without proper fact-checking.
  • Sadly, it appears that some members of the Board of Trustees, including Victoria, may have relied on this biased and inaccurate article in forming their views or actions.
  • Ravan had initially agreed with the Board not to publicly address this matter, recognizing that doing so could place the Wikimedia Foundation in a difficult position, having to explain why external, unreliable sources might influence internal decisions.
  • However, following Victoria’s recent email, we felt it was important and necessary to clarify our perspective and share our side of the story. Regards.Ravan (talk) 11:31, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I would just like to add one more thing about the "Jesus was a Palestinian" point. I think you considered it obvious, so didn't feel the need to say it, but some people may not know this.

Jesus is a prophet and a very revered person in Islam too. So not only is it that Palestinian Muslims would respect him as an important historical figure, but also as a religious figure that they also respect.

I'm an atheist, so I don't represent any religion while saying this, but it's plain facts, and not my own take here.

Also, I'll change a formatting issue in your message @Ravan, please revert if you think if improper. Egezort (talk) 13:41, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

"Jesus is a prophet and a very revered person in Islam too." He could not have been. Islam started with Muhammed, which existed in the 7th century. Jesus is known to have existed in the 1st century. Islam did not exist at the time of Jesus. Snævar (talk) 14:58, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Snævar: While Islam did not exist when Jesus was alive, neither Islam nor Christianity existed when Abraham was alive; both figures are revered by both religions. Religions can (and do) revere people who existed before them. Perhaps you should read Jesus and Israel. — OwenBlacker (Talk; he/him) 15:18, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Your statement that Jesus follows Islam because that later Islam individuals revere them is a non-starter of an argument. Stop this nonsense please. Snævar (talk) 21:19, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

No one said that Jesus followed Islam as a religion. What Muslims believe is that, Jesus was a real prophet (but not the son of God) and that the Bible is a holy book (but that it changed and got corrupted in time).

So yes, Jesus existed in the 1st century, Islam didn't exist back then. But when Islam first started, Muslims considered Jesus to be a prophet.

This is not controversial in any way, please ask someone who knows about religion before making these statements. Egezort (talk) 21:47, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for this information, Ravan. I will share it with my communities. My solidarity is with you. ProtoplasmaKid (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you Ravan for your transparency and for accepting to expose this campaign publicly. I cannot see from your part, any violation of the code of conduct or betrayal of the principles of a Wikimedian. Camelia (talk) 18:42, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

@Ravan Finally!!! We found transparency, super thanks Ravan!👏 Rotana🦋 (talk) 21:48, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

@Ravan I am sorry to read of this program that has been waged against you. I know from our shared time working on the Affiliations Committee that you are highly principled and I do not consider your views to be inflammatory or warranting removal from the voting. The Board would benefit from your experience, integrity and insights. Shame on them. Doctor 17 (talk) 01:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Ravan, I don't know you personally but it's saddening to hear what you have to experience for supporting humanity and standing up against terror. What you're experiencing is deeply defamatory, dehumanising, and a tight slap on all things human. My solidarity with you!

@Snævar: do read this Wikipedia article. Psubhashish (talk) 17:25, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Hear hear. Thank you Ravan for putting yourself forward and I am outraged to see WMF give in to external pressure about your candidacy. As much as I have met and like all four finalists, WMF's decision to delist the only woman and only Middle Eastern candidate in the shortlist due to external pressure means that I will not be voting (blank votes are not allowed). If anyone's reading, please take this comment as me joining in to the official protest against the delisting of Ravan from the ballot. Deryck C. (talk) 05:22, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Having read this I feel even more robbed of being able to vote for a candidate I'd actually support. CNC (talk) 15:21, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

A loss of democracy

I am saddened to see the board taking greater authority over community elections and thus decreasing democracy within our movement, though its occurrence is not entirely surprising. A number of members of the board and foundation have for some time wanted greater say over community elected trustees. Suggestions have included being able to state criteria or skills they feel the board needs and making only those they feel have those skills eligible to run. However part of elections is being able to support folks who have skills you as the electorate feel those in authority are currently lacking. This is especially important in times of crises and reduces the risk of one of our key movement organizations, the WMF, being co-opted by those who may not be movement aligned.

We as the communities are far more powerful than we often give ourselves credit. While technically when on the board one needs to do what is in the best interest of the WMF, I believe the best interest of our communities and the WMF are aligned and inseparable. We are all pursuing the same mission. With respect to prior community efforts, the protests against SOPA and PIPA played a role in their being shelved. Our efforts around EU copyright law in 2019 in part led to a full discussion by the European Parliament. Community feedback regarding foundation staff bypassing ARBCOM in its sanctioning of Fram got the board to intervene in support of community self governance.

Yes technically we do not have elections, with all board members in the end being appointed by the board itself. But we have had an election process that the board has historically respected. As a parallel, as a Canadian we do not technically have a full democracy as our Monarch has the ability to disallow a bill passed by parliament either directly or via the Governor General. They; however, have never exercised this power since our country was formed in 1867. And if they did I imagine significant controversy would result.

As a trustee who was partly removed 10 years ago for pushing for greater transparency around the proposed w:Knowledge Engine (search engine) it concerns me to see a candidate within the election being removed by the board in part for speaking up for transparency. I believe we need an independent group of elected community members, who have signed non-disclosure agreements, and are provided details by the WMF legal team and trust and safety, to oversee who is and is not eligible to stand for election. We can have community elections if we demand them.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:51, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Since 1961 in Canada, not 1867. ~2025-28711-37 (talk) 01:11, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Speaking at the federal level per "No governor general has denied royal assent to a bill." Yes there is a similar provincial role and issues occurred there last in 1961. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:08, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Effect of controversy on numbers voting

Turnout in first 7 days of Wikimedia Board elections 2024 and 2025

I looked up the numbers voting in the current BOT election compared and compared with 2024. The numbers are basically equivalent (3174 this year compared to 3297 at the same point last year). Of course there are many factors affecting overall turnout and the timing of when votes are cast - particularly the timing of when centralnotice banners are displayed on different projects. However there is no clear indication of the calls for boycotts having an effect on total numbers voting. If there is an effect it will probably be more visible in comparing numbers between who is voting 'from' different wikis.

I post this purely as it's a question I looked into out of curiosity and may also be of interest to others. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 12:57, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@The Land Whatever effect the boycott may be having, it's probably being countered by the visibility given to these elections with all the fuss around them - and in my experience the vast majority of voters don't care much about such "details" - many don't even know the candidates and just sort them using very basic features, such as gender, country of origin, language and even how much they like their name. I'm not surprised there's no visible impact in the voting, though I'm still happy that my vote is not there legitimating that thing. - Darwin ^Ahoy! 14:27, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

I have only loose memories on the last Board elections. ;) I did find an email invitation for the 2022 BoT elections but not for the one last year. And I cannot remember having ever received an echo notification for participating in any Board election until this year. For that reason I personally think that the numbers cannot be compared easily, in particular since we don't know the baseline of the elegible voters that likely also has changed since the 2024 elections. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 10:41, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

So the difference is ~100 voters and the petition has ~100 signatures. Looks about right then. If there had been 1,000 signatures I imagine the difference might of been 1,000 you know. CNC (talk) 15:18, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I noticed a much more intense email campaign to get people to vote (which is a good thing), so I don't think the numbers will be comparable. You could maybe compare how many return voters there are. Nemo 19:46, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Additional perspectives on current and future board selection processes

Hi everyone, I'm writing on behalf of the Board of Trustees.

Since the announcement of the final ballot and further messages, we have been closely following conversations over the past week. We agree with the sentiments that we do not have an ideal process for board selection, and as such, we are continuously reviewing it and attempting improvements. This ranges from the role of various stakeholders in the short-listing process, the timeline of the selection, to the steps required by the Board's own bylaws, and to the most effective way of communicating decisions to our movement.

The change we implemented this year - vetting candidates before the vote, instead of after - was made in order to ensure that we don't ask the community to vote for people that we will not be able to seat. This might not have been the best choice, and we will rediscuss it for future selections. The checks themselves, however, haven't changed: they are the same I went through four years ago when I joined the board, including the background check, media check and the vetting interview.

We understand that some of you disagree with the decision we have taken regarding individual candidates. Unfortunately, it is not something we are able to provide more information about. Part of our duty is to protect the users and the projects, and sometimes that means not sharing publicly information that may harm them or the movement, even when the community demands it, or when some of the people affected demand it. In this case, we have discussed the reasons with the candidates, but it's not appropriate for us or them to bring them here.

I realize this is frustrating - it is also for us. Even before the announcement, we knew that this decision would receive harsh criticism, and we knew that we could not fully respond to it.

The Board's Governance Committee (which is tasked with overseeing the selection process) welcomes specific proposals and ideas for reform here on this talk page. We have time before the next selection cycle (scheduled for 2027) to make both incremental improvements and large-scale changes. The Governance Committee and the Board will carefully consider them. We commit to work on improvements of the selection process, and working with the communities and the affiliates, to make this process better for all stakeholders, including for the Board itself.

Lorenzo Losa
Chair-Elect, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
- LLosa (WMF) (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@LLosa (WMF): you found something so incriminating you can't share it with us, but only after the candidates were shortlisted? that's either a total failure of process, or a lie.

also, In this case, we have discussed the reasons with the candidates, but it's not appropriate for us or them to bring them here. you're kicking out candidates, then silencing them? ltbdl (talk) 00:44, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@LLosa (WMF), as Risker stated: ‘’[Let's] focus on what practices and principles people think should be changed, and how they can be changed in the way that is most effective to the support of our primary function, which is the creation, improvement, and maintenance of systems designed to share knowledge with the entire world.’’

Recent events surrounding this 2025 election have produced thousands of words already which demonstrate that neither the board nor its (s)election procedure including the secure poll interface are fit for purpose. Under the guise of a democratic poll, the (s)election process has only the purpose of ensuring that the seats are occupied by BoT yes-persons. Any perceived reasons for disqualifying candidates from an already small lineup are rigorously applied whether apparently appropriate or not. Claims have been raised in the last few days that the BoT is keen to self-perpetuate what appears to be the group-think of its members by limiting community representation through a sham election process.

We agree with the sentiments that we do not have an ideal process for board selection: despite its severe vetting of contenders for seats, the board has certainly not always been successful - there have been scandals right up to the top of the Foundation and within the board itself. Funds have not always been invested in the best ways possible. Fundraising has been left to WMF staff without control for its ethics, leading to further action by the community. Lack of knowledge and overview by the board of what the large volunteer workforce actually does have led to a paucity of support and to a growth in the technical deficit.

The board’s role, therefore, should be to set the tone of the system that governs volunteer engagement - making sure that the WMF executives manage and care for volunteers responsibly. Instead of the board making up its rules as and when it wants, it's time for its methods of composition and its Electoral Committee to be thoroughly revised, and with input from the community. When I registered on Wikipedia the WMF had five paid employees, the en.Wiki had one million articles, and there were 229 language versions of Wikipedia. 20 years later, 65+ mio articles have been created in 343 currently active Wikipedias. Since the WMF has grown disproportionately to the needs of its grassroots there has always been some level of discord between the volunteer communities and the staff.

Since the creation in 2021 of the board’s the CAC for the purpose of strengthening dialogue with the community, the community has been lulled into believing that the BoT is the gangplank to the WMF, and while such a bridge is a must, as I have said before: the board ain't it - as some projects and user groups have discovered to their dismay.

But this is not about the English Wikipedia, it's about how the Foundation and its board manage themselves and the entire collection of the volunteer-driven projects.

Currently, the BoT has an implicit duty of stewardship towards us, the communities. This is not a statutory fiduciary role per se, but it falls squarely under duty of care and responsible management in practice. The structural and cultural dimensions of the problem have been exposed; somehow that bridge needs to be built, and the BoT left to concentrate on their fiduciary tasks, notwithstanding that without that vast volunteer workforce, neither the WMF or its board has a raison d’être.

The BoT should ensure that it and the WMF's systems and staff are fit for purpose. Above all, the BoT must ensure open communication about the Foundation's activities, impact, correct use of funds, and ethical fundraising.

A board restructure in 2008 added a few seats, but its main mission statement never came to fruition. However, there have indeed been times when we have finally received excellent support from the WMF, notably (from my own first-hand experience) through the development of tools for NPP and in the final stages for w:WP:ACREQ, the very things that assure the quality of new article content. However, getting there without formal representation was extremely arduous, frustrating, and at times heated. In contrast, technical developments continued that the community did not want despite vociferous opposition, and only after years of development and wasted funds, are now being deprecated. There are other long-term ongoing user-facing developments that have limited use, or for which no data demonstrates positive impact. Perhaps the BoT should provide checks and balances on such projects, but as a fiduciary body and despite their CAC, they may claim it not to be within their purview

An elected independent Electoral Commission should replace the BoT appointed Elections Committee and should govern the elections, and a proper election page designed instead of a ranking, and one that permits a voter to change or withdraw their vote. Additionally, an independent bridge between the WMF and the communities (including Commons) is urgently needed more than ever. Perhaps it should consist of a majority of volunteers from across the movement, who would appoint some members from the WMF staff and some from the BoT who are not already elected community volunteers.

The Board of Trustees should concentrate on the fiduciary aspects such as insisting on access to raw data of the financials and impact metrics - not only polished summaries - offering advice to the WMF and being firm in giving it, and that board should be democratically elected and populated by individuals with strong, but diverse qualifications and experience. Kudpung (talk) 01:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The Board has lost the en:presumption of regularity to have us believe that this confidential rationale would obviate our concerns. Aware that these disqualifications would be controversial, it chose to write the October 2025 update such that it did not directly state that two candidates were disqualified after shortlisting, much less naming them, hoping to wikt:bury the lede. Given the Board's position that Lane and Ravan would not be seated even if this year's election was redone with them included on the ballot, my proposal for the next best alternative would be declaring that whichever pair wins the seats this year should only have a one-year term for the community to re-vote on these disputed seats next year. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 02:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Gonna go out on a bit of a limb and make a simple request for change, get rid of the affiliate filtering round. The incentives are misaligned there, I think the idea is for that round to weed out folks without leadership experience/who are simply not experienced enough to run the BoT when in actuality what we are weeding out is people without affiliate experience -- Sohom (talk) 04:00, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

After reading your message, I would like to make a memory exercise, because asking the community to try to solve an issue (see next sentence) the BoT has created has great implications on the current issue. (The Board's Governance Committee (which is tasked with overseeing the selection process) welcomes specific proposals and ideas for reform here on this talk page. We have time before the next selection cycle (scheduled for 2027) to make both incremental improvements and large-scale changes. The Governance Committee and the Board will carefully consider them.)

As you remember in your message, you were selected four years ago. Many people voted for you, because you proposed some fundamental changes for the BoT. I'm going to cite your own words (not changing anything here):

Transparency in the board's processes. Although I have been a highly involved wikimedian for more than a decade, I have always found it difficult to understand what the Wikimedia Foundation board is doing. Even worse, it is frustrating to see suggestions and concerns from the community that seem not to be taken into account.

Having been on multiple boards myself for many years, I fully understand that many of the board's discussions are confidential – but not all of them. I also know from experience that when you get into a board, it is easy to overlook these problems. It is not due to bad will, it's just that when you have the information, it's difficult to consider the perspective of those who don't have it. But this is one more reason to strive for real two-way communication.

You already proposed more transparency, a real two-way communication, and you said that it was difficult to know that the BoT was doing. You already said that it was frustrating to see suggestions and concerns from the community not taken into account. We were there, you were elected, but the problem is still with us. Still, the community is asked for suggestions, but those are not taken into account. The Board still has the idea of Papal infalibility.

In these four years we (the community and affiliates) have tried to improve the situation. We even had a Global Charter, approved by community vote and affiliates vote, that would change the way things are done. We already proposed a way forward. I'm going to cite again your own words:

Transition to a less central role. The Wikimedia Foundation Board has always been seen a bit like a board of the movement – although we know that it is not. Now, with the Movement Strategy, the new Global Council is expected to finally give a body that is truly representative of our movement. We don't know yet how it will be shaped, but in order to achieve its potential the Wikimedia Foundation Board, and the Wikimedia Foundation itself, will have to learn a new way.

This were your words four years ago. There was a potential solution (we don't know if it would work, but still a proposed solution by the community and affiliates). You were in the Board that decided to dismiss it and close any possibility for change in how power is shared. You was elected to promote this change to happen.

Now, after vetoing people for their points of view (per Victoria's message), you are asking us again, in the name of the Board, to give ideas to improve the situation. Ideas that will be "carefully considered".

How can we trust that, in the future, any well stablished and good faith wikimedian can be a candidate for the BoT if we have already seen the results in this process? How is people going to propose changes, if every possibility of change is vetoed by the same BoT that holds the power to make changes? How are we going to discuss the ideal process for selecting members if the process is based in the very same idea of the Papal infability? How are we going to discuss what to change, if the board doesn't say which are the criteria for their secretly kept decisions?

A potential solution to the problem was given by you four years ago, and you were elected for that. The solution is still there: more democracy, more transparency, more community. The BoT can still solve this issue lifting the vetoes and giving voice to the community. Let's end with the idea of infalibility. Theklan (talk) 06:35, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@LLosa (WMF) As Victoria previously mentioned, the board decided to remove Ravan due to concerns that her social media activity was damaging WF's reputation. After reviewing her Social media posts, we found that she had shared content about her personal life and expressed political views regarding the situation in Gaza.

This raises some important questions. Did the board formally review Victoria’s statements and the basis for the decision? Also, if the WF board is committed to protecting users and maintaining confidentiality, how was this information allowed to be shared publicly by Victoria? The way this was handled has clearly impacted the reputations of both Ravan and Lane.

These issues point to a lack of coordination within the board, poor management of publicly shared information, and insufficient protection of user rights.

We need transparency, but we need it in the right way, and in an unbiased way, because supporting Palestine or standing against the war, as Ravan thought, does not harm the reputation of WF in any way. Rotana🦋 (talk) 09:45, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Great point, Rotana! If Lorenzo's statement on behalf of the WMF Board is still unwilling to confirm Victoria's claim that Ravan was removed over her social media activity, then Victoria has disclosed non-public information, the exact wrongdoing that the Board thought the hypothetical risk of Lane committing was sufficient to remove him from the ballot. Maddening! ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 14:21, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

@LLosa (WMF): Can you provide any insight into why the Board voted not to ratify the Movement Charter, which had the support of 4/5ths of the affiliates and nearly 3/4ths of the community? Most of the best options for reform are contained in that document. QuicoleJR (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

حقيقةً، أشعر بإحباط كبير منذ عدة انتخابات سابقة. ففي كل مرة نُوعَد بأن المجلس سيكون أكثر تنوّعًا، وأن تمثيل المجتمعات سيكون عادلًا وشاملًا، لكن الواقع يُظهر عكس ذلك تمامًا. في كل دورة تتخذ قرارات تُثبت أن ما يحدث فعليًا يناقض الأهداف والرؤى المُعلنة.

بدأت أقتنع فعلاً بأنه لا يوجد تطوير أو تحسين حقيقي، بل فرضٌ لأمرٍ واقعٍ لا نعلم أبعاده. لذا أرى أن جهودنا التطوعية تبقى محصورة في بناء المحتوى فقط، أما الأمور التنظيمية، فلا يُسمح لنا بالمشاركة فيها إطلاقًا.--Nehaoua (talk) 10:00, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

My proposal is simple: let's drop all pretense that the shortlisting process has anything to do with qualifications. Instead of calling it a vetting process, just call it a nomination process, where the board proposes some candidates for the community to express a preference on. The Wikimedia Foundation board has several times now made clear that it requires all members to align with the majority view of the board. It makes sense to exclude the people the board dislikes from the "election"; it's far better than letting them win a vote and then refuse to appoint them, or even worse expel them during their term. By clarifying that this is not about qualifications per se, but it's an entirely subjective decision, we will avoid this humiliating result where two people have been singled out for being supposedly inadequate for the position. Nemo 19:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Have any of the remaining 4 candidates commented on the removal of the other 2? JulieKahan (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

LLosa (WMF), I think it's not unreasonable to reject a nomination for undisclosed reasons, and I agree that the same process should be followed regardless of the reasons. As I remarked over at Signpost it does not seem reasonable to insist that candidates not share the reasons. I do understand that there is a risk that candidates will be pressured into revealing them, and that adverse inferences would be drawn of those not revealing them.

Perhaps the solution to this would be for the vetting to take place before the nominations were public.

Rich Farmbrough. 23:27, 25 October 2025 (UTC).

My understanding is the reason that doesn't happen is because apparently it costs $40,000 to vet a single person. I'm going off secondhand information here but that's what I was told. Clovermoss (talk) 01:10, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

the fact that it costs $40,000 to vet a person speaks to the dysfunction of the board. ltbdl (talk) 07:42, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Just to clarify, that figure is not accurate. Conducting background and media checks has a cost (which we have to undertake as part of the board's fiduciary duties), and that cost is taken into account in deciding when to perform them, but it's not 40k per person, by far. This year the cost was 32k total for all candidates. - LLosa (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the fact check. It's good to have an official number. I think greater transparency about as much as possible would be a good thing. I've had a lot of people reach out to me since I started the petition and the state of faith people have in the board is even worse than I thought. I have some ideas about communication that might be helpful if you're willing to listen. I know that a board member said that they're willing to listen at WCNA, but part of what makes that so frustrating is that words are not actions. Clovermoss (talk) 23:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Llosa. Just to clarify (not to make a big point out of it), does that include staff time or not?

(As an aside: To point out the obvious: appointing someone illegal or PR-risky without being aware of it, may be much more 'expensive' as soon as lawyer fees and Comms staff time are considered, let alone missed donations.) Effeietsanders (talk) 12:16, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

wait, you did vet the candidates, but threw them out at the last minute anyway? ltbdl (talk) 14:50, 31 October 2025 (UTC)