Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2005

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This page serves general discussion on Election and voting. If you have a question on Election, please put it on Talk:Election FAQ 2005. We Election Officials will answer your question on FAQ page.

See also Talk:Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, 2004

To do

Suggestions for election procedures

I have three requests regarding the organization of this year's election:

1) Translations. We need

  • the announcement that people can stand for election, and how
  • the 1000 character candidate profiles
  • the announcement of the actual vote to be translated into as many languages as possible. To avoid candidate bias, a translation of candidate profiles should only be allowed if all profiles are included.

If Sj is not going to stand, I think he would make an excellent organizer for this. Getting longer platform statements translated could remain within an individual candidate's responsibility.

2) I would like the candidate profiles to be displayed *on the voting page* in the language set in the user preferences. This should be doable as a hack by putting them in the language files or the MediaWiki namespace(s); I can write a script to assist with that.

Why? Because this way, voters will not have to seek out information in their language about who they are voting on, which should lead to a much better informed choice.

3) Given the growing importance of Wikimedia and the Board, I'd like the integrity of this election to be closely watched. This should include a post-election analysis of the data: checking for sock puppets, double votes on multiple wikis, etc. This could be a collaborative effort. I'd like to ask the organizers to make this part of their election planning.

I think at least two developers who are not going to stand should serve as security advisors to the organizers. Let's also carefully define the requirements for being allowed to vote. This should be done in private by the organizers and the advisors and published only shortly before the vote to avoid trickery.

All best,

Erik (copied from the mailing list)

Proposed timeline

Candidates accepted and presentation from Saturday, 0:00 May 14, 2005 (UTC)to Friday, 24:00 June 3, 2005 (UTC)

Vote from Saturday, 0:00 June 4, 2005 (UTC)to Friday, 24:00 June 17, 2005 (UTC)

I fear this timeline is not very good unfortunately. First because a meeting is planned next week (so, AFTER the 14th) to decide whether there is a board expansion or not. Second because 2 weeks is a rather short time to expect statements to be translated, then questions asked. I fear this is not very realistic; Anthere

Right. I suggest:
~May 17th - candidate statements (hopefully you can organize the meeting before then)
June 1st - translation of candidate statements
June 15th - beginning of vote
July 1 - end of vote, new board term begins
I think candidate questions don't need their own period, they can happen during the entire process.--Eloquence 00:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Hi, Anthere. Welcome back and thank you for your suggestions.
We officers got a mail recently from Angela and she asked us to wait until next Monday. Other three didn't say anything currently (perhaps they are in beds already *g) that is why the schedule above is said "proposed" (before it was said once "exact timeline"). I proposed already to postpone this schedule at least beginning presentation from the next week.
As for the length I am not worry about translation (remember yahoo! press release was translated into several languages in a hour) but I don't oppose to make it longer. How about three weeks? --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 00:49, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For Eloquence. I am not sure your suggested schedule is the best. I prefer to have a buffer time after we set the rule and the day we begin to accept self-nomination but within a week, I assume. And as for translation, I don't think it is a good idea to have a term only for translation.
I admit it would be the best that all translations can be available at once, but I doubt its feasibility at the same time. First if we don't publish statement before translation is complete, we need to work separately and it become difficult to cooperate. We concent translation will be done on meta, so in public, just after the presentation by candidates themselves. We assure some major language translations including English, French and German [sorry now I can't assure if Ja translation is available, nor if it will be posted to JA projects including JA WP. I have currently no contact between JA WP. I know only it will be not ME the person who will care for JA WP which allows trolls to play with my real name and to edit freely including defaming me.] though there are currently no volunteer for Fr and De translation coordinators. Other language translation will be followed including Pl, It, Nl, Skan(No) and Balkan(Sr, perhaps). I support to make the presentation term longer but don't to separate translation and presentation.
My proposed schedule are 4 days shift, or 1 week shift from the former plan, that is, begins the next Wednesday or the Saturday. But there is no other Election officers available, I would like to wait for them and to listen to them. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 01:01, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where do I vote?

Can't figure it out...

Thank you for your interest. We'll have to wait devs. I hope to let you know where you can vote as soon as possible. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 08:04, 28 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Seems to have started a day late. But the links are at the top of the main page and articles of en.wikipedia 01:43, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Now you can vote on your local project till July 12. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 01:46, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be noted in the official Election Notice?
Can I change prematurely in the local translation of the Election Notice?
RaSten 18:28, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous active users — clarification of ineligible voting status required

If members need at least 400 edits prior to May 30, why does it say "All active members are invited..." Clearly, not all are.

Following on from Bjones' comment above, I originally had the following on the 2004 talk page (203.198.237.30 08:13, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC))
The heading notice should be amended to refer to "all active, non-anonymous users" (or something similar), or the reference to "active user" should link to a clarification on the election page which points out that the set of active users does not in fact include all active users.
As an active user who happens to be an "anon", although I personally feel that I should be entitled to vote (unfortunately some appear to be less equal than others), the exclusion of anon contributors should only be accepted if this point is made clear. The representation that all active users may participate is plainly incorrect if the appropriate changes are not made. No exhortations to damn well log in then, please. Perhaps I will. 203.198.237.30 04:04, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You misunderstood. Those elected people represent the users who are active user members of Wikimedia Foundation, that is, registered editors. You as anon could be an user though, you have no membership as anon, and it is written in Bylaws which you can read on the Foundation Wiki whose link is provided in the message. And I would like you to know that you can't "happen to be an anon" but you and only you are responsible for your anonymity. Thank you. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 21:40, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
And you're an election official?? I would like you to know that you and only you are responsible for wilfully choosing to write such an unhelpful and rather churlish response. All you needed to do was graciously provide a link to Article III of the Bylaws for the edification of anyone who was unsure or otherwise ignorant about voter eligibility. The fact of the matter is that you should wikify "active user". 61.10.7.252 16:34, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Bad treatment of Multi wiki editors

  • In order to vote you must have at least 400 edits prior to 00:00 May 30, 2005 (UTC) on the Wikimedia project from which you cast your vote.
  • Voting from more than one project will also be regarded as sockpuppeting.

So, if a real person is on wiki1 with 201 edits and on wiki2 with 201 edits these are not counted together, what looks like independent treament. But with the second statement independent treatment is not done. Users like me that have the same name on all wikis they are involved with, are easy detected as the same person. Others maybe less easy. Tobias Conradi 10:40, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The point of this is to avoid vote fraud. Under your plan, someone could create accounts on random WP projects with the same name as En:WP users who didn't vote, pretending that they were that user. It probably would be discovered soon enough, but it's too big a risk to take. Ral315 (En:WP) 18:22, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
under my plan? I did not announce any plan. Creating an account in the past seems to be impossible anyway? ;-) Tobias Conradi 23:26, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What about checking people's IP addresses? If someone really wants to go through the trouble of voting but only has enough votes over a group of wikimedia projects, then each of their files in each project should be contacted, and if the people behind each file agree that each other person is the same person, then i think they should be allowed to vote. All we would need is a system where the person would contact someone from each address, not the other way around. --Quadraxis 02:37, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Required number of edits to vote excessive?

I think being required to have 400 edits is excessive. I've been a member of Wikipedia for a year now and have made "only" 200 edits. What's the point of this? --JulieADriver 21:29, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so, 400 is not excessive. Very active contributors can make 100 edits in a day. Those people can prepare easily sockpuppets with 200 edits criteria. And we found some sockpuppets with over 200 edits but there were very rare a sockpuppets with over 400 edits. Thank you for your understanding and your vote in the next year in advance. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 21:47, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The message about the elections

The message about elections is displayed now at hebrew wikipedia. The problem is that the message is at english... How I can change it? (I am an administrator). Troll Refaim 16:47, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Did you translate the texts in m:Election UI text 2005 and put the translations into texts with names like [[:he:MediaWiki:boardvote_entry]] on your local server? RaSten 17:57, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I translted it. The translation is existed at [[1]]. Troll Refaim 18:47, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)
But you have to copy the separate text items into new ones.
For example, the text (which I found here:

את/ה הצבעת בעבר.

בכל מקרה אתה יכול לשנות את הצבעתך ע"י הטופס למטה.

בבקשה סמן/י את תיבת הסימון ליד כל אחד מהמועמדים המועדפים עליך. .

Candidate statements

should be put into a new text as he:MediaWiki:boardvote_intro_change.
(I hope the quotation succeeded as I have no idea at all what I did whith the individual charachters; I just copied what was there, and it behaved rather peculiar.) RaSten 19:26, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. [he: משתמש: טרול רפאים|Troll Refaim]]. 19:34, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)
And as for the sitenotice (the text appearing at the top of each page) You should put the Hebrew version (probably this:
<a href="/wiki/Special:Boardvote/vote">Wikimedia Board Elections</a>: ההצבעה פתוחה עד ה-12 ביולי
as he:MediaWiki:sitenotice rather than he:MediaWiki:boardvote_sitenotice RaSten 19:37, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I did it. Most of the texts alredy changed, but the "Boardvote/entry" page didn't. Troll Refaim. 20:05, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)~

Error?

This happened to a German user, what happened? He is working longer than 90 days. -- 84.60.15.103 18:52, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Urgent

The user who wanted to vote in the elections is de:benutzer:gmoeller.

He is author since 17. Nov 2004

The message says his membership was less then 90 days. This is not true obviously. It is 249 days.

Why can he not vote via German Wikipedia? -- Simplicius 19:24, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC)

If you are being told you have zero edits...

Sorry, you made only 0 edits before 00:00, 30 May 2005. You need at least 400 to be able to vote.
  • The above message may be because the Elections for the Board of Trustees link in the notice has brought you to Meta-Wiki, thus the vote link is now within Meta. Go back to your preferred Wiki and try to vote there. (SEWilco 20:07, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC))
And also ask your local administrator(s) to fix the sitenotice. Thanks. --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 20:17, 30 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Withdraw my vote?

Is it possible to withdraw my vote? As the persons I voted for kinds disappoint me at the moment! In their reaction to the 4th time I am being blocked. Waerth 02:28, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)

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