Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Reports/2021-03-10 Wikimedia México

Add links
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
Conversational Report
Wikimedia México -10 March 2021

Attendees[edit]

Objective[edit]

The objective of the meeting was to talk to members of Wikimedia México to collect their thoughts, feedback and questions, on the proposed ideas for candidates for community-sourced seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.

Topics and Notes[edit]

Feedback on specific ideas[edit]

Quotas[edit]

  • One volunteer considers pertinent to think about a gender equality quota for women, and also to measure the participation of the LGBT+ community, which at least in Latin America is not represented. The volunteer thinks that is also true that there is a crossover with regional quotas/seats with this idea, and since it is more complicated to think about which region we are talking about, we should go for a gender quota.
  • With respect to other representations, a volunteer proposed instead of quotas, to generate a pre-selection system, where through an algorithm of community choose, if we have a 10% LGBT+ community, we can give candidates of that community an extra point in the selection to be positioned first. And maybe with this type of system we can provide more diversity to the board.
  • A volunteer thinks it is very easy to fall into tokenisms with the idea of quotas, so there should be more concrete actions into having a more diverse Board. In that order, the volunteer thinks that we must establish more safe spaces, especially for women.
Candidate resources[edit]
  • One volunteer stated that we should look for additional platforms additional to Meta to share information about elections or to the election itself, as Meta is complex even for longstanding users.
  • A volunteer is in favor of some kind of remuneration to Board members that really needed it, because of the demands of the job.
  • Regarding language, one volunteer considers a barrier that should not exist, and there should be a translation department dedicated to automatic interpretations when needed.
  • About training of leaders, a volunteer is in favor of this idea, but whether we focus on training or not, it is how the movement is going to teach capacities, without the corporatism vision that may come from other contexts. Also is important to recognize leadership and encourage it in a more spontaneous way.

Miscellaneous feedback[edit]

  • One volunteer argued that the needs of the Wikimedia Foundation are not necessarily the needs of the global community, as the Foundation has historically had an emphasis on U.S. corporatism.
  • A volunteer proposed create a kind of positive discrimination for overrepresented groups on the board, maybe not prohibit them from applying, but for example make a mention that if you are a "white male from the global north, please do not apply, as this is not the profile we are looking for".
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call_for_feedback:_Community_Board_seats/Reports/2021-03-10_Wikimedia_México&oldid=21238151"