Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Reports/2021-02-18 LGBT+ DE

Attendees

14 people have been invited, regrettably, only one person showed up, thanks to her/his work the round was productive though. At the request of the attendee her/his identity is kept anonymous.

Topics

Ranked Voting System

This could work out well, much more democratic than a classic voting system.

Quotas

Quotas are hard to realize, as there are so many possible quotas for only 8 seats.

Call for types of skills end experience

There is a certain danger of manipulation as a narrow defined needed skill might lead to a single wanted person or group only.

Vetting of Candidates

Sounds reasonable. It is required though to be realistic when it comes to needed skills as only very few candidates might be able to fulfill this requirement, resulting in not enough candidates.

Community-selected committee

One should bear in mind that the vote of a community is only as diverse as the community itself.

Election of confirmed candidates

“Why is a community vote on trustee candidates important?” As both work together, both need to have rights.

Direct appointment of confirmed candidates

Any failure during the selection process would be on the backs of the few volunteers in the selection committee!

Regional seats

Will be reserved for extremely privileged persons from the regions. Besides this privileged countries will be dominant in the regions again (South Africa instead of Malawi, Japan instead of Kazachstan).

Specialization seats

Having a certain background in sciences does not necessarily mean to bring wanted skills as scholarly disciplines usually are way wider than the needed skillset.