2015 Wikimedia Foundation election preparations underway
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 Samuel Klein (top), Phoebe Ayers (middle), and María Sefidari (bottom) |
2015 will see through the biennial community election for the three community-elected seats on the Board of Trustees—the "ultimate corporate authority" of the Wikimedia Foundation and the level at which the strategic decisions regarding the Wikimedia movement are made. This election, which last took place in August 2013, will be facilitated by a volunteer election committee, an independent body tasked with planning voting criteria, checking candidacies, drafting organizational documents, and auditing votes, the composition of which has now been solidified following a call for candidates some time ago. This week elections committee coordinator Gregory Varnum began the long election campaign with an announcement to the foundation-l mailing list stating that candidacy nominations are now open.
The elections of Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation have been held regularly since 2004, and on a biennial basis since 2009. Up to ten trustees sit on the Board at any time, divided into four groups: a founder's seat occupied by Jimbo Wales; two seats filled by chapters and thematic organizations; three filled by open community voting, per this election; and four occupied by members that the rest of the Board chooses to fulfill "necessary technical expertise". The three community-elected seats at issue in the coming elections are currently held by Samuel Klein, Phoebe Ayers, and Maria Sefidari (pictured), all of whose terms expire in July 2015.
While these elections were originally called the "Board elections" this year's election will be the second such round following the 2012 movement structure reorganization, and so, as in 2013, two other elections will be held concurrently. Five community members will be elected to the Funds Dissemination Committee, the body responsible for the review and submission of recommendations to the Board regarding applications for funds from movement affiliates to the Foundation. The FDC has nine voting members, all serving two-year terms, staggered between five community-elected members, whose seats are now up for re-election, and four members elected with FDC input by the Board of Trustees. In its foundational years the FDC originally consisted mainly of members elected through the latter category; only two community-elected members joined the committee in the 2013 election, and so this year's election will be the first one in which the full five community seats are up for grabs. As with community-elect trustees, community-elect committee personnel will serve a two-year term to expire in 2017, at which point the next election will take place.
Finally, one candidate will be selected to serve a two-year term as FDC ombudsperson. Serving as an independent regulator for the body, the ombudsperson will be responsible for receiving, publicly documenting, investigating, and reporting on complaints issues against the FDC process, as well as for the publication of an annual report, delivered to the Board of Trustees, that seeks to identify any systemic problems in the FDC process that warrant Board review. Portuguese Wikipedian Susana Morais is the current ombudsperson.
As in earlier years the elections will be held electronically using SecurePoll software. Though some analysis on voting patterns will be done as a part of the election committee's verification activities, the contents of individual votes are strictly confidential. No member of the election committee or the Board has immediate access to the votes tally, as the responsible encryption key is being held by "an independent third party" and will not be used until after the election is concluded. The votes will be tallied and the candidates with the highest rank in terms of percentage of support votes—calculated as the number of support votes over the combined total of supports and opposes—will be recommended to the Board for appointment.
In his announcement to the mailing list, elections committee coordinator Gregory Varnum stated that this year the Board and the FDC staff "are looking for a diverse set of candidates from regions and projects that are traditionally under-represented on the board and in the movement as well as candidates with experience in technology, product or finance." The two committees have jointly published a pair of letters to this effect, outlining more precisely the candidates that the bodies hope to attract (though whether or not the desired candidates will be elected is the onus of the community). Also to this effect this year the election committee is also accepting community nominations for nominees, whom the election committee will directly contact with further information on how they can run. Varnum states that this came about from the revelation that "those who know the community the best are the community themselves", and it represents a significant step forward in terms of the provocativeness with which the election is organized—and likely a necessary one, given the last election's unexpectedly low voter turnout.
The candidacy submissions phase of the voting will last from April 20 to May 5 for Board nominees, and from April 20 to April 30 for both the FDC and FDC ombudsperson nominees. Voting is scheduled to take place from 17 to 31 May 2015; the election committee will announce the results on or before 5 June 2015, at which time the voting results will also be analyzed and made available for review.
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