User:Soni/BoT 2024 guide

This is my evaluation of all candidates in the 2024 WMF Board of Trustees elections. I will keep updating this page as more information arrives.

General Metrics

For each subcategory, I plan to put roughly 4 candidates in Support and 2-4 candidates in Neutral. Elections are zero sum, and I would like to reward candidates that strongly align with my criteria much more than those who weakly align with everything.

For the overall ordering, I am also considering my own opinions and how well the candidates align with them.

Experience with Wikimedia Movement

When judging experience I care about (in that order) -

1. Significant experience within any Wikimedia project or higher roles (sysop/bureaucrat/Arbitration Committee)
2. Clear work with offwiki projects or initiatives (Affliates or hubs, hosting events)
3. Other roles within the movement that require experience (BoT, committees)

I am not counting any experience outside the Wikimedia movement; it's hard to evaluate and not relevant to me. The WMF already appoints board members with outside perspectives, so I believe the community and affliates should nominate those with significant experience within our projects.

All candidates are ordered by roughly my order of preference.

1. Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz -  Support. Clear long term experience with editing, admin on Polish Wikipedia. Significant experience organising offwiki events. Some committee experience.
2. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight -  Support. Significant experience onwiki and admin on English Wikipedia. Significant experience organising offwiki events. Some committee experience, sitting Board of Trustees member.
3. Victoria Doronina -  Support. Admin and former Arbitration Committee member on Russian Wikipedia. Sitting Board of Trustees member, and some other movement experience.
4. Lane Rasberry -  Support. Significant long term experience onwiki. Strong offwiki organising credentials. Some other experience across the movement.
5. Lorenzo Losa - Neutral. Admin on Italian Wikipedia. Some affliate experience. Sitting Board of Trustees member.
6. Christel Steigenberger - Neutral. Admin on Commons, former admin on German Wikipedia. Experience as WMF employee, which I do not value as strongly.
7. Farah Jack Mustaklem - Neutral. Clear experience on affliate side of things. I cannot offhand evaluate them all, but founding new offwiki communities is a strong positive.
8. Deon Steyn - Neutral. Strong onwiki experience and Admin on Afrikaans Wikipedia. Little offwiki experience.
9. Bobby Shabangu -  Oppose. Not great experience onwiki. Some experience with offwiki and affliates.
10. Mohammed Awal Alhassan -  Oppose. No significant onwiki experience (Despite Admin at Dagaare Wikipedia). Not significant offwiki experience.
11. Tesleemah Abdulkareem -  Oppose. I would Oppose them if they applied for sysop in their home project (English Wikipedia). There is no significant offwiki experience to offset these.
12. Erik Hanberg -  Oppose. Nobody with <100 global edits should be in any higher roles in any project, forget the Board of Trustees.

Answers

Each candidate was expected to answer five questions - Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5

All answers collected together can be found here.

When judging answers I care about (in that order) -

1. Clear answer that "gets" the question (as opposed to generic corporate-speak)
2. Any specific stance they stand for (as opposed to candidates with no own opinions)
3. Unique insights from candidate (as opposed to same ideas as anyone)

All candidates are ordered by roughly my order of preference.

1. Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz -  Support. A1 was a unique perspective and clearly explained all the reasonings. A2 was the level of depth I expect from a BoT candidate. A3 was solid. A4 has a clear stance, even if I don't agree with it all. A5 was solid. Candidate has committed to answering all community questions asked at another location, a strong positive in my eyes.
2. Lane Rasberry -  Support. A1 is exactly the level of insight I expect from a trustee. A2 is solid. A3 is another unique and insightful take I support. A4, I don't fully support but they have a clearly articulated stance. A5 is the commitment to transparency I prefer from all trustees.
3. Victoria Doronina -  Support A1 has a clear reasoned take but I disagree with the facts as written. A2 was solid and the level of depth I expect from a BoT member. A3 is solid and reasonable. A4 had unique insights and clear language I appreciate. A5 explained all its stances well and had a clear take. No answers have corporate speak, and all have insights.
4. Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight -  Support. A1 had a clear consistent take. A2 was well written but lacking in depth I expect from a sitting BoT member. A3 had a clear take, but felt generic. A4 was solid and clearly written. A5 was solid and the level of experience I expect from a BoT member.
5. Lorenzo Losa - Neutral A1 was well worded but somewhat lacking in insights from a sitting member of BoT. A2 was well worded. A3 was solid and made new clear cut points. A4, while not quite "bold", clearly demonstrated solid understanding of our Movement. A5 was too generic.
6. Deon Steyn - Neutral. A1 was well written and spoke about specifics. A2 felt slightly generic. A3 was very generic. A4 was bold; while I didn't agree with everything, every point had some reasoning. A5 was solid.
7. Mohammed Awal Alhassan - Neutral. This one is hard to judge because I suspect the candidate is not a native English speaker. A1 was too verbose and felt generic despite some valid points. A2 had more insights but felt similar. A3 had a clearer stance though I disagree. A4 had a clear understandable take with valid points. A5 was solid. Overall had many new points of view, but not confident on their depth.
8. Bobby Shabangu -  Oppose. A1 was unique but did not fill me with confidence. A2, A3 were solid. A4 was filled with corporate speak. A5 was well answered, and engaged with the question.
9. Christel Steigenberger -  Oppose. A1 was well written, but didn't really answer the question. A2 was also quite generic. A3 did not answer anything. A4 was a non-answer filled with politician-speak. A5 was more solid, but still quite a non-answer.
10. Tesleemah Abdulkareem -  Oppose. Their level of English is not sufficient for most lesser roles, forget a Board Member. This makes their answers hard to understand. This would not be a problem usually; except the candidate's "home project" is English Wikipedia.
11. Erik Hanberg -  Oppose. No answer to Q1. If a board candidate cannot answer all community questions, I do not trust them to be accountable to the community.
12. Farah Jack Mustaklem -  Oppose. Late answers. If a board candidate cannot devote enough time to answer all community questions, I do not trust them to be accountable to the community.

Final Tally

All columns are sortable by my preference order.

Candidate	Global user link	Experience	Answers	Overall	Personal Notes
Lane Rasberry	Bluerasberry (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Support	Support	Support	I strongly value more transparency and accountability. Bluerasberry's history and answers convince me the most on holding the Board and the rest of WMF accountable.
Maciej Artur Nadzikiewicz	Nadzik (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Support	Support	Support	I disagree with Nadzik on Movement Charter, but the commitment to sharing governance with the rest of movement is the right step forward, and I appreciate their engagement with the community.
Victoria Doronina	Victoria (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Support	Support	Support
Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight	Rosiestep (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Support	Support	Support
Lorenzo Losa	Laurentius (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
Deon Steyn	Oesjaar (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
Christel Steigenberger	Kritzolina (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Neutral	Oppose	Neutral
Farah Jack Mustaklem	Fjmustak (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Neutral	Oppose	Neutral
Mohammed Awal Alhassan	Alhassan Mohammed Awal (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Oppose	Neutral	Oppose
Bobby Shabangu	Bobbyshabangu (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose
Tesleemah Abdulkareem	Tesleemah (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose
Erik Hanberg	Erikemery (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose