The chosen six: 2022 Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees elections
- This article is not an official election material and was not endorsed by the Elections Committee. –E & J
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation and its work, as its ultimate corporate authority. The Board directs the Foundation in its operations, hires the Chief Executive Officer, ensures that the movement stays on track, and holds its management accountable.
Since April 2022, an election has been in the works to select two new candidates for the Board to represent the Wikimedia movement at large. This election is quickly nearing the most crucial phase - community voting! Here's all you need to know to make an informed choice.
Getting to know the candidates
On July 19, the Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee published the result of affiliate shortlisting for the 2022 Board elections. Six candidates were selected:
- Tobechukwu Precious Friday (Tochiprecious)
- Farah Jack Mustaklem (Fjmustak)
- Shani Evenstein Sigalov (Esh77)
- Kunal Mehta (Legoktm)
- Michał Buczyński (Aegis Maelstrom)
- Mike Peel (Mike Peel)
These candidates were selected considering evaluations made by an Analysis Committee selected by Affiliates, which evaluated candidates on their "lived experiences in the world... especially... the regions of Africa, South Asia, East and South East Asia & Pacific, and Latin America & Caribbean", "cultural and linguistic fluency with regions and languages additional to your native region and language", "experience as an advocate for creating safe and collaborative spaces for all and/or experience in situations or contexts of censorship, repression, or other attacks to human rights", and "experience in relation to or as a member of... a group that has faced historical discrimination and underrepresentation in structures of power including but not limited to caste, race, ethnicity, colour, national origin, nationality, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, language, culture, education, abilities, income and environment".
The Signpost has offered each of the six shortlisted candidates an Op-Ed space in The Signpost to express their views beyond their official statements. Please note that the views expressed in each of these opinion articles are those of their authors; they do not necessarily reflect the views of, nor an endorsement from, The Signpost.
- Candidate Op-Ed, Tobechukwu Precious Friday [statement]
- Candidate Op-Ed, Farah Jack Mustaklem [statement]
- Candidate Op-Ed, Shani Evenstein Sigalov [statement]
- Candidate Op-Ed, Kunal Mehta [Op-Ed]
- Candidate Op-Ed, Michał Buczyński [statement]
- Candidate Op-Ed, Mike Peel [statement]
Voting on an Election Compass
There will be an "Election Compass" for this year's board election, introduced as a tool to help voters select the candidates that best align with their beliefs and views.
Community members have proposed statements that candidates will answer using a Likert scale (strongly support/support/neutral/oppose/strongly oppose). To use the Election Compass, voters have to enter their own responses to the statements and the Compass will then show them the candidates whose views are most closely aligned with their own.
The statements the candidates have to respond to are key to a good Election Compass. The proposed statements can be viewed on Meta. Community members are now able to vote on the statements they'd like to see included until August 3. The overall timeline, as announced on the Wikimedia-l mailing list, is as follows:
- July 8–20: Community members propose statements for the Election Compass (already completed)
- July 21–22: Elections Committee reviews statements for clarity and removes off-topic statements (already completed)
- July 25 – August 3: Volunteers vote on the statements (ending shortly)
- August 4: Elections Committee selects the top 15 statements
- August 5–12: Candidates align themselves with the statements
- August 16 (now delayed to August 23): The Election Compass opens for voters to use to help guide their voting decision
The Elections Committee oversees the process, supported by the Movement Strategy and Governance team. Movement Strategy and Guidance will check that the questions are clear, there are no duplicates, no typos, and so on.
Asking individual candidates questions or commenting on candidates
This year, candidates will only be formally asked six questions as a whole by the community (fifteen questions were asked by affiliate representatives, but not all community members are represented by an affiliate). In the previous 2021 election, there was significant controversy on how questions were chosen, and not all Wikimedians agreed with the final set of queries.
The Signpost is pleased to provide a space to spotlight answers to additional questions posed by community members. All of the six candidates have indicated interest in answering questions on their talk pages; we intend to republish answers to questions posed on the discussion pages below. Please note that under the Candidate Guidelines, it is optional for the candidates to answer questions outside of the formal Elections Committee-organized process.
- Tobechukwu Precious Friday's Op-Ed's discussion page
- Farah Jack Mustaklem's Op-Ed's discussion page
- Shani Evenstein Sigalov's Op-Ed's discussion page
- Kunal Mehta's Op-Ed's discussion page
- Michał Buczyński's Op-Ed's discussion page
- Mike Peel's Op-Ed's discussion page
Spreading the word
Lastly, we encourage you to share news of the election with your friends, families, acquaintances and enemies! Feel free to link to this article or any other coverage of The Signpost. Social buttons are always available to use at the top of each article, allowing you to download it as a PDF, email it, or share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Reddit.
From the team, happy summer or winter, and thank you for reading The Signpost.
Discuss this story
The final selection of the 15 statements was confirmed by the Election Committee on August 4.
Candidate participation
Just fyi for those not following things on meta, it seems like there is a thread on meta at meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Community Voting/Questions for Candidates suggesting that the election committee is discouraging candidates from participating over here. I find that bizarre and sad, as what is the point of an election where the candidates are discouraged from (not allowed to?) talk to the electorate. Bawolff (talk) 02:29, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from candidates
Thank you to the Signpost team for writing this article. We are collectively writing here to clarify a few issues.
We were first asked to contribute to this by email on the 25th July, with a deadline of 30 July (in a period where other election activities are ongoing). When we as candidates were discussing this amongst ourselves, there was a consensus from five of us to respond to the Signpost with a request to follow a different procedure: instead of asking us to write new text, we requested that they used existing materials, and followed an equal process for all candidates. The one candidate who did not support this was the one who suggested to the Signpost that they ask us op-eds, without consulting others beforehand. We were hoping for an equal and fair process for all, which respects the existing election process.
We are disappointed that the Signpost did not follow this proposal, instead publishing one op-ed, and not making it clear why the others of us requested that they reuse existing materials. We also did not agree to answer questions as part of this article (although some of us may choose to answer anyway) - instead suggesting an alternative of an online discussion session with all of us. The Election Committee has designed a defined way to ask questions of candidates, which takes into account that we don't have unlimited time to contribute to the election process, and makes the process as inclusive and as equitable as possible, including embedding translations into the process.
We do not ask the Signpost to change things at this point, we simply want to point out these issues with this comment, with the hope that this situation does not arise again in future elections. On behalf of Shani, Farah, Mike, Tobechukwu, Michał. Mike Peel (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Video answers posted
The WMF board candidates' video answers to six questions proposed and selected by the community have been posted on Meta-Wiki.
Written answers to additional community questions that were proposed but did not make it into the top six can be found here (further answers may still be added to this page in the days ahead, so do check back). Andreas JN466 07:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]