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Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Reports/2021-02-09 Dehalvi Wikimedians

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Conversational Report
Dehlavi Wikimedia User Group - 9 February 2021

Attendees

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Objective

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The objective of the meeting was to establish contact with the Dehlavi Wikimedia User Group (Urdu community) and introduce them to the call for feedback regarding the proposed ideas for Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees’ Community seats. The attendee was a one of the primary contacts for the user group.

Topics and Notes

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The community member were first introduced to the structure of Board of Trustees, their roles and responsibilities, along with the previous round of changes to the by-laws, in which the number of board seats were increased from 10 to 16, and the trustee evaluation form was approved. This was followed by the problem statement for the call for feedback, and why it is important for them and the larger community to be involved.

Feedback on specific ideas

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Call for types of skills and experiences
  • A minimum skill set has to be defined for the candidates irrespective of diversity. A functional board is better compared to a bulky board. Also, if people are only present for the sake of diversity, but are not contributing to the process and decisions, it is just a waste of the seat. The candidates should thoroughly be vetted against the minimum skill set.
Community-elected selection committee
  • It is unclear how the selection committee will make its decision - what procedure will they follow, this has to transparent. The diversity of the selection committee is crucial, and it should be made sure that no two people with very similar profiles should be on the selection committee. The idea, given the information available, doesn’t give confidence that it will be a fair play in practice. Answers to questions related to diversity of the selection committee, election procedure of the selection committee, conflict of interest etc. are unknown currently, so for that reason, community voting feels better, rather than a committee.

Follow-up

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A follow-up meeting with community members of Urdu language projects and Dehlavi Wikimedia User Group members will tentatively happen on 6 March 2021.