User:Mike Linksvayer/Community-led board diversity quotas

(This is just an idea. If there's an appropriate template or categories that would mark it as such, please add them. If there's a more appropriate location for the page please move it.)

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is not gender-balanced (3 female, 6 male), and is extremely unbalanced on global dimensions: 1 South, 8 North; zero members from countries with GDP (PPP) per capita below world GDP (PPP) per capita or countries not considered high-income and advanced economies. These imbalances probably (citations needed) harm both the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Wikimedia Foundation and movement toward achieving their vision.

The movement can substantially correct these imbalances if hundreds (cf. 2015 votes) of Wikimedians pledge to vote only for female and/or Global South candidates for community-selected board seats. These pledges may encourage such candidates to stand for election, discourage male Global North candidates, and if honored, determine winners.

Questions:

• How many Wikimedians are likely to make and follow through on such a pledge?
• Does it matter that some number of Wikimedians will object the concept of community-led positive discrimination?
• Does precision matter? Some people will feel strongly about whether candidate origin and current identity/residence must both meet criteria, or only one of origin/current matter, and which one matters.
• Some pledgers might also be able to influence the 2 affiliate-selected trustees; is this pertinent?

Prior related discussion

Two 2015 candidates mention quotas in responses to a question about board composition, though not community-led ones.

Josh Lim (Sky Harbor):

We can no longer afford to have more of the same: what good is more seats or a reallocation of seats if the people who compose the Board virtually come from the developed world, for example? Short of suggesting diversity quotas (a terrible idea since I believe we need to be able to stand on our own and we shouldn't have to rely on the Foundation's good graces to get representation), we need to have a discussion on how to address this appalling lack of diversity before we go around discussing Board seats. It's a good thing the Board has recognized it by calling for those candidates to run, but it's not enough, and we have to do more before we have this discussion.

Comment: Community-led quotas do not rely on the Foundation's good graces. (See Sky Harbor's comments on the talk page.)

Cristian Consonni (CristianCantoro):

I think introducing quotas should be discussed. I am not talking necessarily of gender-based quotas but, for example, of location-based quotas or using another suitable criterion. I know I am possibly one of the least diverse candidate in this election from many points of view, nevertheless I do recognize that the lack of diversity in the board is a problem and I am open to discuss concrete solutions for this. Quotas is the first solution that comes to my mind, but of course there may be other possibilities. If we agree that the lack of diversity is a problem then we should intervene because I do not believe that this situation with magically solve itself otherwise.

Comment: Community-led quotas are a concrete solution translating "we should intervene" to "intervention by us".

Also during the election Federico Leva (Nemo_bis) commented:

As for affirmative action, true, we don't have a women quota. I'm personally in favour of quotas for women pretty much anywhere (with others, I even managed to get quotas in the bylaws of my university) but I'm not sure they'd work for this body, it's something to study. Had we had a quota, perhaps more women would have had the courage to stand as a candidate, knowing they'd only compete with other women; and voters would have had more options to get female membership among the elected people. Sic stantibus rebus, with a shortage of candidates it's not fair to blame the voters only.

Comment: A subset of voters can organize and take on more responsibility.

...Wikimedia Foundation board diversity quotas have certainly been discussed many other places, and I'd be surprised if community-led quotas (perhaps in the form of lists?) haven't been discussed and even tried as well. Pointers wanted!

I've been thinking about quotas since the 2015 election as well, and planned to suggest community-led quotas well in advance of 2017 community elections. The idea is not motivated by current issues, though I'm prompted by those to post now: (1) the possibility of a community election sooner, to replace community-selected and board-removed trustee James Heilman (no longer pertinent as of 2016-01-29) and (2) community complaints about lack of geographic diversity among two recent board-appointed trustees (I wish for the community to lead on this issue, not only complain). Mike Linksvayer (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2016 (UTC)