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Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Election of confirmed candidates

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The Board acknowledges the importance of a broad community vote as part of the trustee selection process. The Board has no intention to implement a new process for selecting community- and affiliate-selected trustees that does not involve community voting.

You are invited to share the reasons why a community vote on trustee candidates is important to you. For instance, how does voting on confirmed candidates compares to direct appointment of confirmed candidates? Understanding the reasoning behind the preference for a vote will help the Board to properly incorporate the vote into the trustee selection process.

Summary of ongoing feedback

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The facilitation team keeps this section in sync with the main report.

Direct elections have received considerably more support than an indirect system mediated through a selection committee. The exceptional cases of volunteers preferring an indirect system have been documented in the “Selection committee” section above.

  • Most participants expressed their preference for Board elections when discussing related ideas like quotas, the vetting of candidates or the selection committee. Even when these ideas would be introduced, they expected elections to remain.
  • Wikimedia CH (Switzerland) emphasized the importance of a direct community vote.
  • At a European community conversation, one person said that community votes are important as they can readjust approaches of the Board and its inner circle, creating new topics and enforcing different points of view.
    • Another participant said that democracy is a better working principle than any elitist approach.
    • Another participant added that broad elections are safer, as they allow different and critical perspectives to enter the Board.
  • The ED of an European affiliate welcomed any combination of ideas preserving the direct involvement of the communities with a process ensuring skills and diversity.
    • She said that enforcing skills and diversity should not lead to a loss of involvement of the community in selection processes.
    • To her knowledge, this view was shared by a vast majority of the "Roles & Responsibilities" Movement Strategy working group.
  • The ED of another European affiliate said that community involvement is important due to shared ownership in the movement.
  • A member of Wikimedia Norway said that a lot of work within the movement is done by volunteers, so they should be a major part of the selection process, as decisions influence their work a lot.
  • Some participants said that Board elections were essential, and expressed their preference to convert some or all directly appointed seats into elected seats.