2021-03-13 Topic panel: Support for candidates on the Call for Feedback edit

The conversation ran on Saturday, March 13, from 13:30 UTC to 15:00 UTC
Number of participants : 31

Summary edit

Panel edit

Recording of the panel part of the topic panel.

All panelists and all participants were in support of the idea that support should be given to candidates. Below are some of the suggestions made by the panelists:

One person suggested community office hours; mentorship programs; pairing people with perhaps existing board members or board members or people who have run for board in the past; incentives and leadership programs.
Another person suggested a team be created to support candidates before or after elections. He said this team should organize some kind of office hours in which they will be informing and coaching the potential candidates about the election process and what it entails to be a board member. He also said that the candidate support team should also identify community members with potential and invite them to contest in the elections.
A third person said the role of the board and its duties need to be well communicated to the community. She also suggested that the Wikimedia board manuel should be revised. And that the board position application announcement should be written as if it was a job position with the same type of very detailed job description. And candidates should have public support in writing a resume and cover letter and everything. Her final suggestion was training programs similar to the WikiLearn initiative. She said these programs should be open to board candidates and anyone from the community. And the focus topics, she said, should include: What is an Audit, How to do fundraising, How to do communication quizzes.
This same person also mentioned that something that keeps coming up in discussions with some community members is the need to maybe pay people to serve on the board, in order to encourage really a diverse group of people,

One person also supported this idea and added that without the notion of paying people, maybe some allowance should be provided to mothers who need to hire a babysitter or a nanny to take care of their children while they are away on board duties
Another person also supported this idea and added that taking care of educational expenses of candidates could also help
He strongly believes direct mentorship is something that could be implemented in the next elections
One person said that for the sake of equity, support should be provided for all
One person suggested that proper policy be implemented to ensure candidates or applicants commit to completing the training or utilizing the resources provided.
He also suggested that safety nets be put in place to ensure candidates do not abuse whatever support is provided and to avoid cases where candidates abandon the candidacy after the training is over.

Open mic discussion edit

Watch on Youtube the part 2

Recording of the open mic discussion of the topic panel.

Shani explains the newly created Community Affairs Committee and it’s function to keep closer contact with the communities and asks for some weeks for the CAC to settle in.
Douglas explains on the idea of a remuneration for board members, that this is quite problematic, as paying people to engage in what is essentially a form of volunteerism might have corrosive effects and is especially unfair to volunteers in countries like South Africa and socioeconomically similar countries.
Mykola proposes to explore which kind of support packages (financial, training, child care etc.) are offered by similar international NGOs to board members.
Andrew proposes (at least partially) open board meetings, for everyone to know the members and to be able to see what kind of work is done.
Florence proposes to show off how attractive the position is, not only by it’s incentives (travelling) but by changing the world. Even more important though would be to encourage hesitating candidates by describing how much time is needed, if they have to consider any dangers or trouble with their employers.
Abel points out that these kinds of support might be helpful, but he enforces the need of maybe financial support and how to prepare your presentation, how to convince people, how to work on your communication (including social media) - this might be as important.
Nanour proposes a kind of questionnaire as a large scale vetting based on a call for skills for candidates to assess themselves and then to communicate their vetting result.
Richard considers to encourage people by their friends to run as candidates in a friendly manner .
Florence proposes a service to present candidates in video interviews in their own language and then translated, to spread knowledge on them especially among younger, more visual voters.
Mykola shows how this works out in the Ukrainian Wikipedia, where a service is providing a quick overview of all candidates and their answers to a few key points that were important for the community. It worked as a good summary for a community where most candidates are not known to pretty much anyone.
Richard agrees with Florence’s idea on video interviews, points out though, that this should be done in a fair way, as English speakers might have an advantage then.
Quim asks for a way to design a campaign in a more supportive way, taking care of equality.
Euphemia makes clear, that it is important to plan support programs, mentorships and trainings in a very strategic way, as else it might be difficult to really get ideal candidates in the future.
Mykola points out on a candidate of the last election, that a certain standing in the community is required though, like at least solid edit-counts, some years of editing even or additional roles as patroller or administrator.
Florence reminds, that even on a minimum scale the movement often misses to understand disadvantages and gives an example of the Wikimania in Canada, where some people had to let out meals, as their budget was too short for the high food costs in Canada. “And we don’t even realize that.”
Anass sums up that during the call for feedback nobody is against the idea of supporting candidates, offering support in different capacities and about several subjects for the potential candidates. And he asks, how is this going to go forward now, remembering strategy conversations, where he thinks, that sometimes the discussion takes too much time and there's not really a lot of work, asking if there is consideration from the board about next steps?
Shani answers that the board waits for the CfF-report to see what can be done. She thinks there are things that are easy to implement, easy to operate and to make happen fast. She assumes some of it is already on the go, not really related just to the elections, but as an offer to the communities as a way to support leaders in the community and encourage it all year long, not just for elections. All of that will happen, but she cannot give a date right now.
Abel recurs to what Mykola said on minimal community membership, especially about edit counts. He thinks that's something that is not an excuse for giving or offering support for candidates. Offering support doesn't mean the candidate will win. It is not about edit counts, but the passion for the movement.
Mykola proposes to consider such a person, if qualified by other means too, to be appointed, not elected.

Etherpad notes edit

Copy from https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/CfF_-_Support_for_Candidates / Version 2179 Saved March 13, 2021

Consider phases of support

Before candidacy
During candidacy
While serving on the Board

Create a team whose main role is to support

For the process
- Translations
- Develop videos for candidates
- Host video call "meet the candidates" sessions
For candidates
- This team needs to have real experience, not just facilitators
- Host interviews for candidates since most candidacy is normal made in text only

This might encourage more people to learn about more candidates and not just vote for candidates they know

the BoT can implement a large scale vetting to all contributors as an assessment form

Training opportunites (open to all from the community so that it is useful to all community leaders) - WikiLearn (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development/WikiLearn)

Communication crisis
Audit
Budgeting
Harassment
Leadership
Perhaps management, board governance, public policy information needed

CHALLENGES

complicated to implement in depth training before these elections. Which short term training could be implemented for this term ?
training or coaching from former board members ?
Abuse by potential candidate: Attend only for professional training for own good then leave
Time commitment: Time zones, child care, day time job commitments vs. wiki governance commitments

Financial support

reimbursing expenses related to board participation is definitely a good idea (like childcare, Internet connection, etc.)
Be wary of the complications of paying people
Consider financial support as supporting equitable participation from a diverse range of communities

Mentorship from former Board members Training for candidates once they are elected

Motivate and reward people running for the Board whether they are elected or not

Barriers

Language - English still seems like a prerequisite
On-wiki work (number of edits) might look small compared to others who have privilege to edit more or focus more on community organizing

Communication

Many groups do not know what the Board does
Revive and revise the Board manual (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_manual) - historical

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook - current, but updated ?(Translate)

Effiently post meeting minutes

Candidates need awareness about the situation in the movement

Consider opening up a portion of the WMF board meeting to public observation like other organizations do

Challenges related to those options

revise can be done before elections
translation ?
promotion and communication about it (small podcast/video of current or recently retired board members ?)

Communicate clearly about the position role
Write down the position opening as if it was a job position ---> doable for this election
Provide support on our to answer to that "position" (which steps to follow, what the process is going to be like, which tools are available such as translation services etc.) (aka office hours ?)
Challenge: support to be done by professionals

Better communicate about the Board

Organize office hours to explain the role, answer questions to candidates
To hear what candidates need and provide information
open mic with the board on their wake-up periods (?)

Outreach for candidates

Consistent outreach
Identify leaders in the community to invite for candidacy
See what the candidates needs are and guide them to resources to support their knowledge acquisition
Support them in drafting materials for the candidacy (like a resume or cover letter)
Think about how this differs regionally and be intentional in communication

other Ideas

consider opening up a portion of the WMF board meeting to public observation like other organizations do(noted above in communication)

Providing a service of video interview to all candidates, with interviewer in their own language and translation in other languages. Helps weigh in the personality of the candidate.

it would be great to have a 'job description' (e.g. we want a trustee with a technology experience) + a space where you can nominate good people matching it!

Chat log edit

Jan-Bart de Vreede 1:46 PM https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook#Desirable_skills,_experience_and_traits https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook

Andrew Lih 1:47 PM Or consider opening up a portion of the WMF board meeting to public observation like other organizations do

Denis Barthel 1:47 PM Thank you Jan!

Mykola Kozlenko 1:48 PM +1 to Andrew! Inviting potential candidates to a board meeting would definitely help

anass sedrati 1:48 PM +1 Andrew

Andrew Lih 1:49 PM One reason people may not know what the board does is that it is a black box and minutes are very slow to be released

Quim Gil 1:49 PM https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Committee

anass sedrati 1:49 PM Candidates (and the movement) should first receive an introduction about the board, explaining what is the board and what will be done there (in video format, note META :D)

Shani Evenstein 1:52 PM @Andrew, in a few weeks the Board will finally have someone who will offer administrative help to the BoT. This will help with issues such as minutes released.

Andrew Lih 1:54 PM Thanks Shani great to hear. This has been a long-standing problem so it is not a criticism specific to the current board. Cheers

anass sedrati 1:54 PM Also something is important is that there should "always" be discussions and outreach related to the board, not only during elections Occasional outreach is sometimes a reason information is not well disseminated and not anchored within many communities

Nanour Garabedian 1:56 PM the BoT can implement a large scale vetting to all contributors as an assessment form.

Andrew Lih 1:58 PM Anass - agree. And to Shani’s credit she has done significantly more ongoing outreach for board-to-community than we have seen before, so that is a great step that we hope can be a repeatable best practice

anass sedrati 2:00 PM @Andew - Yes, Shani is one of the few Board members I saw in many meetings :)

Željko Blaće 2:04 PM good point

Mykola Kozlenko 2:05 PM reimbursing expenses related to board participation is definitely a good idea

Euphemia Uwandu 2:05 PM +1Shani

Vanj Padilla 2:05 PM +1 Shani

Jan-Bart de Vreede 2:05 PM +1 richard

Shani Evenstein 2:06 PM @Annas, the Community Affairs Committee is aiming to find a solution for this need of better connection with the Community.

Nanour Garabedian 2:06 PM +1 richard

Euphemia Uwandu 2:06 PM +1Richard

Andrew Lih 2:07 PM +1 exploring different ways to support board members, such as childcare or relieving other burdens

Paulo Perneta 2:08 PM "reimbursing expenses related to board participation is definitely a good idea" I never imagined they were not reimbursed 😳

Željko Blaće 2:08 PM +1

Shani Evenstein 2:09 PM @Andrew, the CAC is one ways to "formalize" the relationship with the community and find venue(s) where we can regularly touch base and exchange ideas. More to come on that in the coming months.

Nanour Garabedian 2:09 PM @Shani, what can the Community do to help CAC?

Mykola Kozlenko 2:10 PM +1 to Florence. Would be interesting to explore what kind of packages are offered by similar international NGOs to board members (not necessarily financial, can be training packages etc.)

Euphemia Uwandu 2:10 PM Right@Florence and Mykola

Richard Knipel 2:10 PM +1

Butch Bustria 2:10 PM Douglas raised his hand

You 2:11 PM yes thank you Butch

Douglas Ian Scott 2:11 PM Thanks Butch

Vanj Padilla 2:11 PM Time spent working in the Board = time taken elsewhere (like family, personal goals, career) and deserve some perks and rewards too.

You 2:11 PM Douglas after Shani you can go

Florence Devouard 2:11 PM Paulo, no, not all reimbursed...

Nanour Garabedian 2:12 PM Shani, thx!

Shani Evenstein 2:13 PM Thank you for the question, Nanour! :)

Shani Evenstein 2:14 PM @Paulo, some things are reimbursed, but more could be done to support Trustees. That said, I believe the focus on this specific discussion is on how we can support *candidates*

Florence Devouard 2:14 PM fully agree with that. Not supportive of paying people myself. Only expenses. Plus benefit packages as Mykola is saying

Richard Knipel 2:15 PM I support that too Finding all of the appropriate reimbursements and packages of support

Florence Devouard 2:16 PM but yes, are we rather on supporting candidates Or supporting members ? I think it is candidates

Douglas Ian Scott 2:16 PM +1 Andrew!

Željko Blaće 2:16 PM Who exactly are Big Open orgs?

Richard Knipel 2:16 PM well, we want membership to be more attractive to prospective candidates :)

Jan-Bart de Vreede 2:16 PM I am not sure what happened there, because upto 2016 we had someone from the staff to help with minutes etc... so it is good to hear that that support has returned

Shani Evenstein 2:17 PM @Andrew, that's part of what the CAC will be tackling...

Abel MBULA 2:17 PM Inforrunately we could not discus what kind of support need to be put in place for candidates

Florence Devouard 2:18 PM supporting is different than attractiveness though.... hmmm

Andrew Lih 2:18 PM Big open - Wikimedia Mozilla Cc

Florence Devouard 2:18 PM wikimedia Mozilla ?!?

Željko Blaće 2:18 PM just these 3?

Abel MBULA 2:18 PM ???

Željko Blaće 2:18 PM ok tnx

Florence Devouard 2:18 PM I think he forgot the ,

Abel MBULA 2:19 PM Sure

Željko Blaće 2:19 PM is that formalized network? or loose alliance?

Richard Knipel 2:19 PM it's not formalized

Željko Blaće 2:19 PM tnx

Richard Knipel 2:19 PM just referring to the larger organizatons in the field

Andrew Lih 2:20 PM Nothing formal - more of a casual shorthand :)

Butch Bustria 2:20 PM "Big Open" is a red link on Wikipedia

Željko Blaće 2:20 PM ok maybe it should be?

Andrew Lih 2:21 PM Haha perhaps - we need an WP:RS ;)

Shani Evenstein 2:21 PM @Zeljko, no, but our strategy process drives us to maybe drive that, right? Becoming facilitators for the Open Movement to formalize and work together better.

Butch Bustria 2:22 PM Douglas your hand is still up

Shani Evenstein 2:27 PM The Board put forward an evaluation form..

Florence Devouard 2:27 PM yeah but....

Andrew Lih 2:27 PM Yeah check of Nanour knows about that? Check if

Shani Evenstein 2:27 PM That was for Nanour. Wanted to be sure she is aware..

Butch Bustria 2:28 PM +Florence +1 Florence

Mohammed Bachounda 2:29 PM :)

Abel MBULA 2:29 PM +1 Florence

Nanour Garabedian 2:30 PM Shani, yes thanx

Shani Evenstein 2:30 PM Wonderful. Here's a link to what I was talking about - https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Approving_Trustee_Evaluation_Form

Euphemia Uwandu 2:31 PM +1Florence very important too. Beyond the pictures, it helps to weigh in into the personality of the persons involved.

Nanour Garabedian 2:32 PM this evaluation form divides to 8 categories where I meet 4 of it but I am absolutely far to be a potential candidate, at least for now.

Mykola Kozlenko 2:33 PM I would still prefer people not running for fun but understanding that's a 3-year commitment

Butch Bustria 2:33 PM Since Wikimania 2020 and Wikimedia Summit 2020 / 2021 was cancelled maybe an open mic with the Board of Trustees on their wake up periods

Andrew Lih 2:34 PM Agree butch

Florence Devouard 2:34 PM But wikimania will be a bit too late for elections. tStill a good idea to retain though

Quim Gil 2:35 PM o/

Paulo Perneta 2:36 PM @Shani, yes, I agree the focus of the discussion is on candidates, was only surprised that not all the expenses were reinbursed to BoT memberes (I think they should)

Shani Evenstein 2:37 PM You'll have to ask Florance what she meant.. :)

Mykola Kozlenko 2:37 PM I mean... Abel had 1000 edits in total at the moment of election while all others had 10K+, so even from that point of view he already started as an outsider

Florence Devouard 2:38 PM past story Paulo. A staff at that time even told me "if you do not have a sufficient sustainable income, you should not even candidate to be on the board" (when I was outlining that full time child care for 3 children when I was away on board meeting was an issue to me)

Shani Evenstein 2:38 PM @Mykola, # of edits is just one metric , not the only one.. Some people focus on things like Outreach, and can have relevant experience, though their edit count is not that high.. #JustSaying.

Richard Knipel 2:39 PM wow, Florence, wow

Shani Evenstein 2:39 PM @Florance, to my knowledge, that is not the case today..

Florence Devouard 2:39 PM but situation improved over the 4 years.... Shani, I am sure. Just thinking that it might make some hesitant if they do not have yet confirmation that this is now covered

Richard Knipel 2:41 PM There are of course other areas of contribution, and candidate suppport can help candidates better explain their contributions in different areas

Paulo Perneta 2:41 PM wow, Florence, wow 😳😳 (2)

Shani Evenstein 2:41 PM @Florance. Right. I understand.

Nanour Garabedian 2:41 PM I liked the idea of designing a campaign and could be as panels and office hours about BoT charter and Handbook and different Committees in WM

Shani Evenstein 2:41 PM @Richard, just so.

Richard Knipel 2:43 PM we owe everyone pizza, absolutely, I say as a New Yorker

Shani Evenstein 2:43 PM +1 to what Florence is saying.

Butch Bustria 2:44 PM New York Pizza I like over Chicago

Richard Knipel 2:44 PM being independently wealthy should not be a prereqisite to movement leadership

Željko Blaće 2:44 PM +1 pizzas (and better nutrition meals :-)

Florence Devouard 2:45 PM :)

Shani Evenstein 2:45 PM +1 to Zeljko :)

Mahuton Possoupe 2:45 PM Come eat Paris pizzas, you will never regret

Richard Knipel 2:45 PM in New York, we have free pizza at almost all our meetings, because even here not everyone has money (in pre-covid times)

Quim Gil 2:46 PM o/

Paulo Perneta 2:47 PM I've personally seen WMF staff from the Global South skipping breakfast because the WMF were paying them according to their country rates, even if they were temporarly relocated for an event in a much more expensive place than the one they lived in

Butch Bustria 2:47 PM I look forward to BoT office hours in wake up hours of 16 time zones

Florence Devouard 2:47 PM exactly Paulo

Jan-Bart de Vreede 2:47 PM We used to have a general set of questions which were asked of all candidates on Meta... that would allow people to answer in their own language... there always had to be translation anyway

Mykola Kozlenko 2:48 PM speaking English still sounds like a pre-requisite for WMF board, because it's working language is English

Florence Devouard 2:48 PM Butch, you raise a good point. Equity will be providing many hours. Not only those satisfying the majority...

anass sedrati 2:49 PM Thank you Shani. The question was not specifically to you but thank you for taking it. I appreciate

Mykola Kozlenko 2:49 PM no, absolutely not

Shani Evenstein 2:49 PM Happily. (@Anass :))

Mykola Kozlenko 2:50 PM it's just an explanation of an obvious reason of a low support

Shani Evenstein 2:50 PM @Paulo, as far as I know, there is a way to get reimbursed for expenses while traveling. But I will re-check..

Richard Knipel 2:50 PM yes, any legitimate candidate has done sonething BOLD, and deserves personal support during the campaign

Shani Evenstein 2:52 PM @Abel, that's part of why we have appointed seats.

Abel MBULA 2:52 PM Ok

Euphemia Uwandu 2:54 PM @Abel...this is a good point. But there is need to also ensure the said person is or will be passionate about the cause of wikimedia and its related projects

Florence Devouard 2:54 PM Jan-Bart, any further idea from you ?

Richard Knipel 2:55 PM Shabab, do you have anything to share?

Shani Evenstein 2:55 PM Thanks much, Nanour. I was definitely something missing, from my perspective, which is why I initiated it. I'm also excited to start this work. I'm hoping we can help offer solutions to some of the things the community has been asking for a long time. But. One step at a time.

Butch Bustria 2:55 PM I like to hear from former trustee Jan-Bart

Florence Devouard 2:56 PM everyone wants JanBart :)

Richard Knipel 2:56 PM a recipe?

Jackie Koerner 2:56 PM The meaning of life.

Shabab Mustafa 2:57 PM @Richard, Thanks for asking. No major point from me at this moment.

Shani Evenstein 2:57 PM We did that in 2019. And efforts were also put into translation.

Richard Knipel 2:57 PM https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42 of course

Shani Evenstein 2:58 PM @Richard, I was about to say just that :)

Mykola Kozlenko 2:58 PM +1 to the platform! it would be great to have a 'job description' (e.g. we want a trustee with a technology experience) + a space where you can nominate good people matching it!

Jan-Bart de Vreede 3:01 PM @shani it is great to hear that we still do the general questions and translation, we should keep that this year!

Florence Devouard 3:01 PM just avoid google forms... :)

Shani Evenstein 3:01 PM We have every intention to. Last time we actually had allocated staff to support the elections. I'm assuming it'll be the same.

Nanour Garabedian 3:02 PM an anonymous assessment could give some more confidence to potential candidates

Shani Evenstein 3:02 PM Thanks everyone!

Richard Knipel 3:03 PM Thanks for all of the ideas!

Nanour Garabedian 3:03 PM Thanks

Florence Devouard 3:03 PM thanks everyone ! Enjoy today dinner ! 19mn ? or 90mn ?

Paulo Perneta 3:04 PM wonderful panel 🤩 congratulations to the panelists and everyone else that took part - not forgetting the great moderation

Nanour Garabedian 3:04 PM @Florence, bon appeti!

Shani Evenstein 3:04 PM @Everyone, I have to drop from the call now, but if anyone has further questions, please reach out to: shani@wikimedia.org

Transcript edit

This is an automatic transcript. The team has edited it only slightly and many mistakes still remain. We welcome corrections.

Generated during recording from the Topic panel - Support for candidates (2021-03-13 at 05_32 GMT-8).mp4

[00:04:09] Such a distinguished and diverse panel we have here with us once again, thank you for agreeing to our request to be here. So my first question to our panel is, what kind of support can we offer to potential candidates between now and the upcoming board elections?

[00:04:30] That is right here right now before the nomination period, during the nomination period and during the campaign.

[00:04:38] We would very much appreciate each of you can give you answer in one minutes, which asks you to go first.

[00:04:46] Yes, thank you. Yeah. I think it's really important that we that we increase the number and the diversity of candidates.

[00:04:54] There has been a bit of a falling off in the number of diversity of candidates in community global elections recently. And I think we need something like a culture of invitation where people feel encouraged and supported to to run as candidates. And that means things like community office hours, things like mentorship programs, pairing people with perhaps existing board members or board members or people who have run for board in the past. And I think even incentives, things like leadership programs, ways to support people if they win or if they don't win. You know, we also want to if there's like the three top three winners, what about the four and five and six winners, especially those from underserved communities? And how can we support their their development as leaders within the movement, whether that's working with an affiliate or working on a project or working with a grant or helping them with other skills. So I think I think there's a lot of culture of invitation that can go on. I tried to do that at a small scale with the Wikimedia New York City chapter where we like I said, there were a lot of good candidates who wouldn't put themselves forward, and some of us tried to encourage them to do that. And I think that can also be done at a global scale with with some more. You know, obviously there's a lot more resources. The Wikimedia Foundation has that that an individual affiliate doesn't have and a lot of staff support. They can go to that.

[00:06:13] Thank you so much, Richard. Abel, considering your experience in the 2017 election.

[00:06:23] What kind of support do you think that we should offer to potential candidates for the upcoming elections?

[00:06:37] I believe you're speaking, your muted, could you please unmute so we can hear you?

[00:06:45] But thank you for the speech I think of for each other.

[00:06:51] We need to support candidates when they are running for elections, as I was trying to think of about this topic.

[00:07:01] But it's going to be very interesting and very important if we we can create a team whose main role will be to support candidates. I think we can say, for instance, the kind of team the main role is to support candidates on before or after election if they win or they don't win. But the team is there.

[00:07:27] So what the team would be doing is that to organize some kind of office hours will be extended, will be telling the potential candidates what their role, what they have to be prepared about something and also to to answer some questions they might have. I see it as a project grants, you know, every year when the project grants, there are some office hours to explain about project grants, to answer questions and so on. That's what is amazing about the election of the body, because I remember back in 2008, I think when I was candidate, I couldn't think of a good I could even suppose at all. So I just followed what they asked. But nobody could really tell me what to do, could be there to hear me, to fill my field and to to coach me something like this buzzword. So I think in this year or the year to come, we have to correct this. Also, what I wanted to add is it's the team, the dedicated team that we might create what Israel its role will be also to identify some leaders in the community and ask them to to run for election, because some people, oh, they have skills, but they don't like to to to to run for before election because they say, OK, even though I go there, I want to be it is only for black or white people.

[00:09:21] So I want to do it. But the team is there. I was going to say, hey, can you run for.

[00:09:34] You army.

[00:09:38] So private.

[00:09:40] Yeah, so I was saying that let me get back to you on your last point, but let me at this point, I'd like to throw the same question to Buche, but what kind of support can we offer to potential candidates between now and the upcoming board elections?

[00:10:04] The kind of support that the candidate needs is actually more on on the awareness on the depression situation of the movement. It depends on the candidate who will who will will need help.

[00:10:23] Of course, if you say a totally new candidate, let's say it's a community leader, but but no broad experience. But he's a respected figure in their community, then probably that person would need help on management or government skills or policy, public policy.

[00:10:49] If the person is already on the movement force for quite some time already and then already held some positions in affiliates, probably just the ins and outs of the operation of the foundation, but that everything else, probably a general sense of what's what's happening in the movement, because once the person sits on the board, he will be accountable. He will he will be responsible for the actions of the foundation on his tenure. That is me.

[00:11:28] Thank you.

[00:11:29] But the next person is Florence - Florence, could you please share your take, but please try to keep it brief for us?

[00:11:38] I'm going to be super bullet point wise. First, I would like to thank you, Richard, for pushing forward this proposition, which was not meant in the initial discussion. So I think it's very important. I did my homework somehow and I went to most of the answers, the group discussions, to try to collect some feedback from the people. And of course, there was very little on the topic because it was not in the initial discussion. Still, I could see some common point in many discussions, and one of them was that many groups actually didn't know what the board was actually doing. So that's I think that's the first thing we need to address. People cannot feel comfortable dating or accepting to be appointed unless they know what what to expect. And I would like as a first idea to propose that we revived the Wikimedia Foundation board manual. I can draw the link afterwards on the link. This is something I created back in two or five. It has been updated for several years by several board members such as TO and Phoebe and S.J and Matt. And then it was dropped and tagged historical. But I think this is a practical thing we could do. Even if it's not perfect, we could revive this before the next election. My second suggestion came from an idea that was suggested in one of the group discussion was to propose the position written as if it was a job position with the same type of very detailed description.

[00:13:16] So this is something we could do. And similarly, we could offer when you do some when you're in a country and you apply for a job position, you can have public support to write your resume and cover letter and everything. We could propose a proposed justice of people being available to help you write down your proposition. And the third idea comes from a Wiki learning initiative. So for those of you who do not know, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently running two programs, which in turn one is in partnership development and one is related to our assignment to the law, to a training process over eight weeks. So the idea would be to extend that with many different training propositions that could be financial, that could be understanding what is an audit, that could be how to do fundraising, how to do communication quizzes. All this proposition would not be open only to candidate board members, but to anyone from the community. So we would at the same time train future potential board members, but also members of the community. And once the people candidate, they can show they are willing to learn and they have a certain degree of skills because they followed in the past this type of training proposal.

[00:14:44] So these are my three propositions. Thank you very much.

[00:14:49] Thanks for joining, Shani. Would you like to share your thoughts on the same questions? What kind of support can we offer to potential candidates between now and the upcoming elections?

[00:15:08] Thank you, Zita.

[00:15:11] I actually like many of the ideas that I hear here in the room and I think I don't know if many people here know, but just recently in the previous board member board meeting that we had on February, a new board committee has been approved. It's called a community affairs committee. I'm the chair of that committee. And I'm hoping that this committee can be assisting in the facilitation of what is being discussed here. So, for instance, maybe having an office hour that we can open up for community, etc.. So this is, of course, we're just now been approved and we will be starting to work very soon in the coming two weeks. But I think I'm hoping to see in short and thank you, Quim, for dropping the dealing here. I'm hoping that this committee can help facilitate some of the discussions and answer some of the needs.

[00:16:16] Thank you so much, Shani, I have a second question, and the question that I have is in relation to the fence and what I would like to know is.

[00:16:31] These are great suggestions that we've all made, but what are some of the challenges that we should prepare for?

[00:16:40] Well, we plan to implement these ideas and how can we overcome these challenges?

[00:16:54] Richard, would you like to go?

[00:16:57] Yeah, I mean, I think we have to realize that, you know, it's an experiment, so there has not been this this dedicated outreach to candidates before. It's been sort of like, guess the expression as catch as catch can. That's it's whatever people have had support from, maybe their friends or or people they've known by chance. So we will have to see how things evolve, how many people are signing up to run. If we're reaching the right types of people, if we're getting a diverse enough pool and we will have we'll have to adjust. You might have to adjust tactics in midstream to make sure that we're reaching the right types of people and getting a diverse enough pool and and maybe more proactively reaching out to potential candidates. So recognizing that this is an experimental area, we'll have to see what works and enforce more of what works and do perhaps less of what doesn't work. But I think there is a lot of room for support. I think it's a brave thing and perhaps a bold thing to say in English. Wikipedia to do run for candidates to run as a candidate for the board. And I think we should try to word that whether they ultimately win or not and make it give give them more incentive to get more people to run, because I think that will make a a better pool and a better, more diverse process.

[00:18:14] Thank you, Richard. Abel, would you like to share your thoughts on this as well?

[00:18:29] So the question is, what are some of the challenges that we may encounter in implementing the many ideas that have been proposed by the panel?

[00:18:38] And how can we overcome these challenges so you can take it from your perspective, the office hours that you suggested. What are some of the challenges you foresee?

[00:18:53] Ok.

[00:18:57] Sorry, I was checking if I was thinking about the challenges, as I can see if I take the perspective of my my own perspective on the office hours, as I suggested, I think, or what what we have to do, as I heard the Richards speaking, is we are just trying it's not the final version. We are just trying to to think about it is exactly how the community, especially in Africa and Asia, because they are there are these are communities that are most underrepresented. How can we exactly reach out to people from those communities so that they can they can come, they can heal, they can have the chance to be very active, proactive in our conversation. All in all, discussing the discussions, sorry, that is being done everywhere, because most of the time, sometimes in my country, for instance, most people are not aware that there is such an office out. So we need to think exactly how to reach out to everyone on time so that we cannot miss someone or some potential candidates.

[00:20:33] That's what I think I see as a challenge, reaching out to people on time and discussing with them.

[00:20:43] Thank you, Mel. But what's your take on this question?

[00:20:49] Actually, for me, it's the challenge is possibly the people who would just abuse or or just utilize the training or the resources on their own.

[00:21:06] And once their their time is up, they would step in and not communicate anymore, that that's one potential challenge. And that but the safety net, there is probably a policy could could be implemented to prevent such like proper vetting for that potential candidate for that will be eligible for training. And then then, of course, the the resources that are required for that person. Then also I'm looking into the possibility that the challenge of usage of his or her time because. At this moment, the virtual meetings is everywhere, and we don't know if that person would be asleep or would need to take care of his family or her family or that person will need to finish his thesis or turn. Or everything, but of course, the the there will be safety nets that will be placed to ensure that the person will be ready for that position once the.

[00:22:39] Florence.

[00:22:45] So I was looking for my microphone, three comments on the three ideas I put forward. First of all, I don't think there is a real challenge to do it before the next election. To to focus elements would be the one how to present it and to promote it, to communicate about it, because it's just a wiki page. So it would mean sort of a little communication campaign around this. And maybe that means doing some short interviews of our board members or something that that would raise the interest of people and show them the way to this page. The second is it's not translated. I don't know if it's a date up to date. That's another thing. But currently it's only available in English. It's not translated. So maybe there's something to do on that matter. My second suggestion, which was related to coaching support, is to be super careful. I heard about office hours.

[00:23:50] So the only thing is that office hours means always being provided by staff members.

[00:23:56] And what I was thinking is if people if we want to train people and show them how to best show themselves, we need professionals that are used to really working into making a clear and focused on entrusting the candidacy of someone. So this is this is a set of special skills. So we need to make sure that the people who are in charge of that are just not facilitators, but also people with the real experience of how people actually candidate to a position. And on the third point, and that's the most challenging one, providing governance training sessions, the time is too short to do something serious if you want to do to run a program of two hours. Honestly, this is not sufficient. We want to to make it more serious, something like several months, several weeks of training, which means the program needs to be set up and everything just will not be on time for this session. So this is something we should consider for the next session or elections. But what is possible to set up least that can be small and still useful for this training.

[00:25:11] Thank you, but thank you from Florence. Shani, would you like to touch on this as well?

[00:25:19] Sure. I believe we need to differentiate between two things. First of all, what we can do in a short amount of time for the candidates before the elections and also differentiate between what we do with people who are actually elected and until they begin, because usually there is a time difference between the time of the elections or rather the results and the time they actually start to serve on the board. So considering the first one, what is easy to do right away? I agree with Lawrence that doing things like office hours, creating a job description that someone mentioned or creating an online manual, these are all doable things in terms of capacity building. I think we should be investing in it in general, not necessarily for elections, but rather for this is something that I want to see happening for the community in general in order to increase leadership and should be something that we offer all the time, all year long, not necessarily, I think, for elections. And and so I I also agree with Florence that it's not we cannot build something really professional right away before the coming elections. It's something also that we are already working on, the teams at the Wikimedia Foundation already working on capacity building training. So that needs to to be considered. And finally, I just want to note that I think there should also be specific training to people, to the candidates after they have been elected. And we are the board of trustees is now this year, one of our goals or focus areas would be to develop a program for trustees. And some of that should be in the in the time before they actually start as a prep of sorts. But something also should be happening while they are trustees.

[00:27:30] So tailored, tailored training.

[00:27:37] To the specific candidate, right, because each candidate is coming with a different background and different needs, maybe so some things should be for everyone, but there should also be an element that is individual for each elected trustee.

[00:27:57] Thank you. So we have nine minutes more to end the panel session at this point, I would like to ask the panel, is there anybody who would like to add to the first question or the second question?

[00:28:14] Please feel free to mute or raise your hand.

[00:28:19] I'm not going to to mention to to outline that we know the well, I know it is that there is training for candidates once they are elected, but I'm not sure if this will actually help hesitant, timid candidates to apply to apply. So I think what the support we need to provide the support before the election, before the candidacy, not after, we can always tell them that some reassure them that something will happen afterwards. But I think we should rather focus on the support that is needed before the elections.

[00:28:59] Magic little, can I add one more thing here?

[00:29:04] I know Florence, I completely agree with you, but I'm betting here something that I heard before from community, not not necessarily my own idea, but it's something that keeps coming up and actually came up very strongly in the Roles and Responsibility Strategy Group in phase in the phase where I think it was phase two with all the different Denine groups that we had.

[00:29:32] And one of the ideas there was that in order to really achieve diversity and actually having people that necessarily that won't necessarily be able to serve on the board because they don't have the time. Right. They have to work for a living and it's simply impossible for them. So or moms that simply, again, don't have the time. Then one of the solutions that was raised in that group was that maybe board of trustees and I think it's a discussion that will come up again with the global council, means that they need to be paid for the role. I don't necessarily agree or disagree. I also think that the current board should not be specifically making that decision if it's a decision that needs to come from community. But it could be that in order to encourage really a diverse group of people, we need to pay for this time. Otherwise, you know, we will keep not getting the moms or people from developing countries that simply cannot afford to give that amount of time for free. So that's one more and more thing to consider. And again, not specifically my personal opinion, but something that I keep hearing.

[00:30:54] Just one second to say I fully agree with that, I remember one of my biggest challenge when I was on the road was actually to play for the nanny, the babysitting when I was spending its time, several days in the US. That was definitely a challenge, at least without the notion of paying people. This is definitely something to propose.

[00:31:16] Thank you, Shani and Florence, is there anybody else who would like to see OK?

[00:31:24] I think those are some good points. I mean, it's certainly worth considering, especially things like expenses, perhaps educational expenses might also be something useful that maybe a somewhat indirect way of helping people get along. Something that I think we could do in this upcoming election is to have very direct mentorship.

[00:31:41] I think there are a lot of board members or former board members or even people who run in the past who would be willing to mentor people. So maybe we just set up a grid of, you know, I'm interested in running and I or maybe I'm a board member or former board member. I'm willing to provide an hour of my time to talk to someone, and especially maybe if there are like ten thousand people who apply will help narrow it down. But I think that there are a lot of board members of four board members who would be willing to give some individualized mentorship, maybe to ask more difficult questions that you couldn't perhaps answer in in a public office hours. You know, like how should I present myself? How should I talk about my energy history, things like that? How should I share my, my, my, you know, my degrees or degrees that I don't have? And how do I deal with that? If I felt comfortable talking about some things like that, I think there would be some individual support. And I think that individualized support from people who bid board members would help a lot and help encourage people.

[00:32:40] But would you like to give us your final words before I can give it to Denis?

[00:32:48] Actually, nothing much for me. I agree with the the the the opinions or the suggestions that are being fed on this discussion.

[00:32:59] It's very fruitful. And I'm hoping that it will be in part with the policy that the board will consider once they formulate the. The document or policy document.

[00:33:22] About.

[00:33:27] I love you. Oh, I think I'm happy with the discussion that is going on here.

[00:33:34] And as Richard and others have said, that we hope that the body will take into account and we think everything discussed here and it will be implemented for the benefit of the community. Thank you.

[00:34:01] I think I still have three minutes left, so Shani influenced, you want to give us your final words?

[00:34:14] I just wanted to reflect on something that is related to whether we should provide similar equitable support to all candidates or whether we should support specific people. And I think for for the sake of equity, we should we should provide the same thing to everyone, whether they accept the support or not is their own problem. But I don't think we should make our own call on whether we should support specific people over others. And that that is true at the same time for the training, the coaching, the of the office hours and everything, and this is one of the points I have seen raised whether underrepresented communities should have additional support, more support than the others. And I think it would be extremely difficult to implement. And this potential inequity would not just not be fine.

[00:35:26] Ok, having had all these interesting ideas from our panel, I believe it's now time to hear to hear from all the participants if there are any contributions or questions they might have for our panel, two entries. So I'll be handed over back to Dennis, who will be moderating the open mic session. Denis, please take it away.

[00:35:52] Thank you. Thanks for all the panelists for these first almost 40 minutes with some very interesting insights. And now it's time to open up the mic and to start a discussion. So consider to raise your hands already some logistics before if you want to speak. As I said, please raise your hand. Wait until your turn arrives and mute yourself, please. When you're not speaking, as we would like to hear as many voices as possible, please keep your contributions short. And on the topic of the panel, of course. And if you want to, you can put questions and contributions in the chat. You're welcome to write in your language. We can translate it from Arabic, Russian, Spanish, French and German. So Zita will pick your contributions from the chat and we'll bring them up here. They're.

[00:36:46] I see there are currently no raised hands sorry to in Dennis.

[00:36:54] I think I just saw a message in the chat from Nanoha, which is great a question directly to Cheney. And she wants to know, what can the community do to help S.A.C.?

[00:37:13] Thanks, Ed, we will be having its first meeting next week where we will discuss the priorities and create a plan for the coming for the coming few months. I'm assuming that at some point we will want to have community feedback and kind of brainstorm with the community on venues, for instance, to how to when to communicate with something that the community kept flagging as missing. A constant and regular connection to the board is some kind of platform to not only hear back from the board of trustees, but also to give ideas to and to, you know, initiate ideas. So we will we will need to do we are just starting out. So give us a few give us a few weeks to to settle in. And I guess we will reach out to the community to to get that feedback from you when the moment is right. So still still a lot to come in that sense.

[00:38:24] Thanks a lot, Douglas, you raised your hand.

[00:38:29] Yes, thanks, everyone. So Douglas here from Wikimedia, South Africa. And and we end with me.

[00:38:36] South Africa discussed the money, the remuneration issue amongst many of the issues that we discussed regarding the sport issue and with regard to remuneration, we were sort of of two minds.

[00:38:52] I'm just I'm just saying this to sort of put this out. This is not really a question, but we like we we very strongly like one one thing that came very strongly from our internal debate about debate was the need for remuneration in that it's it's unfair, especially to folks from like South Africa, a country like South Africa, certainly. And I suspect many other countries that are quite similar to South Africa in sort of socio economic regards to sort of sacrifice their time without some form of remuneration. And that's sort of quite a consistent message that came out of our board debates. But it was also tempered by a a another point that just sort of warning against the corrosive effects of money and remuneration.

[00:39:47] So I just sort of want to throw that out there, that this is conscious, at least within our chapter, this conscious need for remuneration, but also just to be cautious and wary of the potentially corrosive effects of paying people to do to engage in what is essentially a form of volunteerism and and all the complications and and dangers that can sneak in, sneak in through that back door.

[00:40:19] Thank you, Douglas.

[00:40:23] I saw that Mykola had a proposal and in the chat, Mykola, would you like to propose again?

[00:40:37] Which story would be interesting to explore? Yes, I think that was mentioned, Florence, I think that it would be interesting to explore what kind of packages are offered by similar international NGOs to board members. I don't necessarily mean financial packages, but something like training packages, something like child care packages and stuff like that. So basically we hear from different communities. So there is a problem with the kind of. I've been probably on some kind of equality or equity in terms of access to the board, so maybe somebody else has already dealt with this problem, I don't know, like a Red Cross, I can just international or whatever large international organization threaten board members from all over the world, probably already have some ideas how to do it. So that's what I think we can explore in terms of like packages offered to the candidates. But regarding support to the candidates, I mostly favorable to Andrew's idea. I think it would be good if we can preserve the idea to exist to board meetings in the.

[00:41:51] Thank you very much for explaining this again. Any questions to our panelists or any contributions from participants?

[00:42:07] Hi, this is Andrew, since Mikula asked me to maybe chime in on this point, I put into the discussion. My point was that for an organization or for a movement like Wikipedia, which is now 20 years old, to be considered part of the big open movement, we have a surprisingly lack of openness with board meetings. So I'm glad to hear from Sharni that there will be help in putting the minutes out from the board meetings on a regular, maybe faster basis than where we've seen in the past, where sometimes it took several quarters up to a year to put the minutes out. So that would be very welcome to have that be faster. But also the idea perhaps of even a small portion of the board meetings to be public, to be open, even if it's just whether it's ceremonial or informative news, some type of how's everyone doing? Here's what the board is thinking about. Nothing confidential, nothing mind blowing, but simply just to understand a little bit of what the board does. And that would go a long way, especially since we don't have in Face-To-Face, Wikimania or Wikimedia summit, we don't even get to mingle with the board members, even on a casual basis. I think there's even greater need for some type of contact with what the board does. And that would help also inform people who are interested in becoming board members what they're in for and what kind of properties and values are there as a board member. So I thought I'd just bring that up because that has been a longstanding question from a number of people where there are prominent organizations like DPLA, the Digital Public Library of America that have completely open board meetings. And economically, we should look at the best practices of other like minded institutions in this area. That's it for me. Thank you.

[00:44:01] Someone else.

[00:44:05] Come here, I see a question from Zol in the chat. Apologies to pronounce your name. I would like to touch on your question. Richard.

[00:44:24] And Jelka, I think you mean Jelko thinking it was just a technical question, what the other organizations that big opened or what is the full form of big open?

[00:44:45] Someone to answer this.

[00:44:48] I think in general, I'll just speak French. Andrew says Wikimedia Foundation, a creative commons and organizations like that.

[00:44:59] Right, usually we talk about Wikimedia movement, Mozilla Creative Commons, and sometimes Internet Archive is put into that mix as well.

[00:45:11] Maybe.

[00:45:13] Oh, definitely, that's a great one.

[00:45:14] Open street map, absolutely document the Open Knowledge Foundation. There are many other organizations doing work, the work that is done in the educational realm, everything to do with what what is known as Osas open educational resources could be under that umbrella. So the idea is any organization that is doing work in the open knowledge sphere, it could be open data, open governance, open education, open culture. Any of that falls under the big open.

[00:45:51] That's right. Thank you, Tony.

[00:45:53] Florence, you have been asking a kind of rhetorical question in the chat.

[00:46:08] Which which to question the one about related to the victim.

[00:46:12] Yeah, yeah, Richard was mentioning attractiveness. This is a big question on whether we are talking of supporting before they get selected. So let's include a little bit of attractiveness and how to help them actually candidate understand better motivate them to join. This is a little bit of the attractiveness or whether we support them afterwards and after the afterwards is a different topic, I think. We could always in the board manual outline with all the benefits related to being a board member, while it's super exciting, you get to change the words, maybe you get a package or whatever, some presence, maybe a meeting in special places, free trip to San Francisco or three times a year and stuff like this. But what we really need right now is, is to support them, the one more hesitant because they don't exactly know what's going to happen, how much time is going to take it is going to be used, whether they will be put in physical danger from doing it, whether it will cause problems with their employer. All those things are ways we could support them, make the step of actually deciding to put their names and and proposing themselves for real.

[00:47:38] Thank you very much. No one will raise your hand, sorry, sorry to cut in Dennis Cardoza comments in the chat from Bill.

[00:47:47] He was saying that unfortunately, we could not discuss what kind of support need to be put in place for candidates I don't know about. Would you like to touch on your comment or suggest ways that we can provide support for candidates?

[00:48:03] Yes, because I was just reading the thread, though, seeing the discussion. That's why I did suggest to it.

[00:48:12] So what kind of support might we we might offer we women vote for potential candidates? I think here in Florence, as I mentioned, some some kind of support we can put.

[00:48:29] But what I want to suggest is that we we try to think exactly what are the real needs, especially as we discuss about leadership, leadership training and office hours.

[00:48:47] Unfortunately, we couldn't agree with that. So we can go with the children. I had the Florence or someone talking about having to learn. So there are some resources, though, to to be used to be food for candidates, but especially my adult life. I can say it. My problem my challenge with that subject is do we need to offer candidates some kind of financial support or we just need to offer them more soft supports, like how to get ready, how to do this, how to prepare your presentation, how to convince people how to work on your communication, or you can communicate through social media or meter as we have it, or we need to go farther, more with the other kind of support that we might offer. That's what I was trying to think of for Florence and some other panel members can propose just some kind of support they think we need to put for the next election, especially for me.

[00:50:09] As we said before, preparation, no physical or psychological preparation is important, but some other kind of support might be also important.

[00:50:20] I don't know if the team member. I need to add something.

[00:50:28] Thank you very much, none you raise your hand.

[00:50:33] Yes, hello, everyone, and I have written in the check before that I propose to do a large scale vetting to all the contributors in Wikimedia Foundation, like assessment for, for example, to know if I can be a candidate, a potential candidate or know so already. And due to this of feedback, because I'm less than one year Wikimedia.

[00:51:10] So I went to the handbook and I went to the Aldredge that is already written.

[00:51:18] And it's just a matter.

[00:51:22] So, you know, and we know that the candidate potential candidate can do the decision making capacity, monitoring capacity, leadership capacity. And there is other things very important, the board's legal and literary application.

[00:51:40] So we know that what we need from this candidate, but we don't know if we have this potential candidate or no to to specify which kind of support in which domain we need to focus on that. So can do a larger scale vetting like a Google for just as the question is related to this effective board oversight point, and then we can discuss which one is best to to support that. Thank you.

[00:52:22] Something that occurs to me, I mean, I'm not quite sure I understood exactly what you meant by the Google form, but something that might be good to provide, obviously a way for people to reach out to, say, a group that supports and supports potential candidates without having to listen in publicly. So it might be good to just encourage people to dominate and encourage their friends to run. I could imagine, like even like a campaign, get your friends to run for the board and you give them like a little league, even a little bar and start a heart and you encourage their friends to run. And there might be a nice way to find because I think there are a lot of potential people out there who have maybe who maybe wouldn't be willing to put themselves forward.

[00:53:01] And if there was some some some polite way that they could encourage their friends to get them to run from the different language committees, that might be nice.

[00:53:11] Can I add something? Yes, please, I'm sorry. Yes, we are talking in there for the Colford skills is the minimum level four criteria.

[00:53:22] So we can say what is the minimum level of this criteria to after that? You can be a potential candidate to that. And when I say it, with this larger scale weighting to a lack and assessment form, can we know which a minimum level of criteria we need and who have that?

[00:53:54] Oh, this is this is more about skills, it's not so much a question of support, I think.

[00:54:02] Again, we know this kills what we what we're missing then then we can focus, what can we support more? I see.

[00:54:18] There possibly ways that we could search for for people who have skills that are not there.

[00:54:22] I mean, personally, I'm not a fan of vetting. I think that should basically be done further by the community. But am I right?

[00:54:32] Oh, they came to my mind that one of the thing that I find a little bit frustrating is that most of the candidate presentation are on wiki pages, just text. So the big benefit of that is that it's easily translated. But couldn't we offer somehow the possibility for candidates to easily record an interview with them, something that would be rather friendly, not too aggressive?

[00:55:00] My theory is, is thinking I'm talking to it now. I'm open to theory. Yeah. Something where they could be interviewed in their own language with subtitling and explain themselves who they are and we can look at them. I know image is not everything, but many of our members are young people and they like images. They like videos, they like something visual and just a text.

[00:55:26] I I'm afraid they never take the time to actually read the presentation of the candidate, nor do they read the questions that are being asked, nor do they read the answers. I think I say I'm guilty on this because most of the time I vote for the people I know because I know they are fine and I know I would be happy with them. I don't go read the candidacy of the people I don't really know very much in depth.

[00:55:51] So maybe if we could also proposed them a service where we would take charge, shooting the video and providing an interview in in the proper language and providing the translation of the interview. That could be a service. I would just have to answer the questions. So, of course, the people were timid and would don't like to show their faces it to be a problem. But for all the other ones that can be plus I think.

[00:56:18] Thank you very much. We have a race end from.

[00:56:22] Yes, I just wanted to make a quick answer and said, look what we have done in Ukrainian Wikipedia community. On that said, we have made a village discussion like what we want from to select the candidate we want. And we made a quick table with a few answers to key questions that were considered important to note to our community, because, you know, there is a Q&A on matter with many candidates giving quite a long answer. And we have chosen, if you like, key questions for our community. We made like one, two line translations into Ukrainian to give a candidate ideas on where to keep of to give voters idea on where the candidates stand. Basically, we make a quick overview of all candidates and their answers to a few key points that were important for our community. And that's already. And it was all obviously translated into Ukrainian from English. But it was a good summary for our community through that, because most people in our community did not know pretty much anyone. There was no candidate from Ukraine.

[00:57:28] Like there is an advantage of being from friends that you, with most elections, come at least one candidate who speaks French. In most nations, we don't have any candidate to speak Ukrainian.

[00:57:38] So that was a good advantage for people. And I don't think they we we also put a link to the debate, which happened last year. I think it was on Sorin last election cycle. I think it was on YouTube or somewhere or it was on. I don't remember there was an online debate last year. I don't know if many people have watched it, but we put a link there. It is interesting to check how many views this debate has now.

[00:58:08] Yeah, I think I think it's a it's a it's a positive idea, Florence, I'm assuming it could be done in a in a in a language equitable way. I mean, you know, people some people are more comfortable with different languages. And people might be concerned that people who are English speakers might might have an advantage. But assuming that could be done in a fair way, I think they'll be positive. I mean, something that I think about myself having, like something like a friendly candidate forum, either as individuals or as a group. It's something we could potentially do on the Wikipedia weekly network, the the live stream that Andrew and I and some others do. And I think it might be a good way to to sort of introduce people and just have sort of a friendly introduction and maybe even have like, you know, if we're doing it, like we could do questions and things like that, make a bit of an event. Maybe we do when a week or two, a week for a certain period of time to keep people interested.

[00:58:58] I would like to throw in a small question when we have heard that Andrew has provided the idea to to make the board meetings more open and that we have other ideas which are basically in making people interested in getting things going on in the board.

[00:59:24] How much is supporting candidates to a question of encouraging people to encourage candidates to consider themselves to be a candidate just as a thought?

[00:59:55] I guess if if the board is less of a black box, if its people might be more inclined to say, I could be on the board, I've seen the board, I've seen the board talking about board issues, even if it's just a brief introduction. So that might be an inducement or a way of feeling familiar with the board that might make it easier in the long term to contract candidates.

[01:00:22] Thanks a lot. I do not see a raise any questions in the chat currently?

[01:00:31] There's a lot of piping going on. We can hear this.

[01:00:34] I want to see a comment from Butch, but would you like to touch on the comment? And before Batuz, I would like to ask if there is anybody on the call who hasn't said anything and would like us to hear your voice.

[01:00:53] I just want to reiterate what have mentioned on the chat because. We have to we need to summits that were canceled and then Wikimania 20 that is supposed to be in Bangkok was didn't happen. So probably there are the old US free open. Opportunity to have an open mike, so probably we could consider having an open mic session in the next few weeks or a few days with open ended questions with with the community. That is me.

[01:01:45] Thank you. So, as Zita already said, we would like to hear especially voices who have not spoken out up to now. So if you have a thought in your mind or an opinion, please check out.

[01:02:17] If nobody will, I know it's a bit of cheating because I'm part of the facilitator team, but I have one question that there's been a lot of ideas related to active support to candidates, something that comes to mind after hearing current trustees, past trustees candidate that didn't make it, and people who know very well the process is. Having a campaign designed in a more supportive way, way, I think I've made a very good example at the beginning he said that he was running as a candidate and had like zero support. In the meantime, someone else that year probably know everything about how the movement works, how do you know where, where to get attention or what to say and so forth. So that the question is, is there a possibility, one of their ideas, to make a campaign process that is more equal by design? That doesn't rely as much, in my opinion, as to how much time you have, how good you are in the language, in certain channels and so forth. So something more maybe. I don't know. Florens also mentioned this idea about the job application type of type of. The way to present the candidates, I don't know, just have a question about not just active support to candidates, but also a design of the campaign process itself that supports better equality among among candidates.

[01:04:03] Euphemia, you have your hand raised with an answer to this.

[01:04:09] Hi, thank you for the opportunity.

[01:04:12] I just wanted to to add knowing, fully aware that we have sometimes some difficulty in trying to get potential candidates for this board position. I wanted to try in maybe the necessity of being very strategic in rolling out some programs and maybe some sort of mentorship or training for members of the community to probably watch out those that my are the. Becoming or maybe getting the needed skills for future positions for these border positions, because if we don't really employ this, it will really keep being difficult to really get our ideal candidates in the future of our future positions. Well, maybe if we're very strategic in coming up with training or maybe mentorship or maybe any program that will support people in the community to pick up some of these skills for further positions in the future, I think it will really help out in solving some of these things we are lacking in getting the right candidates.

[01:05:45] Thank you very much, Euphemia. And the other voices.

[01:05:50] Yes, is there are some comments coming in from Mykola, Florence and Shani, I think we should first begin with Mykola.

[01:06:04] I, I just I just had a quick comment on those saying that he had to lowest support. Well, I just mentioned that he also had a lot of which I did count, like he could only 1000 ferrets at the moment of the election. So, I mean, it is a bit I mean, it was a bit understandable why he also was he always he already started with a disadvantage.

[01:06:28] So if you are being elected from the online community seat, I think that that's one of the things the community is looking at. And objectively, a bell started like with silverware did count without any advanced community participation. So it was a bit understandable why he already started with a disadvantage. I don't think that it should disqualify from participation, but I just mentioned that it is understandable why this happened and I mean that it would probably be something that would always. Happen in the online community elections, and when you are a candidate on the online community, hit the community, more or less expects people who are to some point involved in an online community like, say, you have been an editor for several years, so you have probably been some patrol, our administrator or whatever, because that's kind of people online community trusts, and we cannot change the system.

[01:07:34] I mean, we can.

[01:07:37] We can give a bigger advantage to some skills which was discussed yesterday, will probably be discussed in other panels, but it's I will just mention I just mentioned this is understandable.

[01:07:49] And I am also saying about what Florence mentioned. So, Florence.

[01:07:58] Yes, please. To both of these speaker, to just me, it just wasn't clear to me what you were asking me to follow schemin.

[01:08:16] There have been two worlds to one of your comments and the chat to the world.

[01:08:20] I can I can give you a more recent example that really shocked me because this was a long time in the past. So I expect that this has been changed. But I want to give you an example. You might remember some of you Wikimania in Quebec, in Canada. And contrariwise, some some other Wikimania event, some of the meals were not covid usually we take care of every single meals at Wikimania, but because Canada was very expensive, we did not do that. And I found some community members actually skipped meals because the price of even the pizza in Canada was too high for them on their own personal budget. And those people are just fine in their countries, it's only that in comparison, they come for Wikimania event where they expected every expenses will be covered for some reason, just some of them are not covered and they end up not having food. OK, could we even happen? So when we realize that some of us just, you know, managed to buy instead a bunch of pizzas all together so that we could have make sure that everybody was eating, but sometimes we do not even realize that some expenses that seem to be minor for European or American can actually be quite big expenses for other community members. And we do not even realize that.

[01:09:54] So we have to think. Of course, that's Kevin.

[01:10:05] Thank you, Blowholes.

[01:10:06] Anass, you raised your hand.

[01:10:14] Yes, I did. Sorry, I am outside, so I had some time to take my phone. Well, basically I have kind of a comment and the question here. So my comment is the topic that we are discussing in this specific meeting is a little bit different than other topics, because when the discussion started, the conversation on this call for feedback started. There were some proposals about the board governance and everything. And of course, they were controversial. So someone might be supporting an idea someone might be against. But I have a feeling that nobody is against this idea, this one that we are discussing now, which is offering support in different capacities and about several subjects for the potential candidates or for everyone who wants to know more about the board. So my question is, how is this going to go forward? And the reason why I'm asking this question is because we have this same discussion in the strategy conversations that has happened the last two years. There was a lot of discussion about capacity building, about sharing internal knowledge, about all these great points. But I have a feeling that sometimes the discussion takes too much time and there's not really a lot of work. So my question here is, given that this is something that almost everyone has a consensus about, and I don't think there was will be someone who said, no, we don't offer support, let's let it be like this. My question would be, is there consideration from the board about any next steps? Are there going to work on this soon? Is there any definition of a time line of roles and responsibilities? Who will do what? When can we expect to have material ready? What kind of material will it be? I mean, I don't expect, of course, any answer now, but at least there is a willingness to do this work. And when can can we expect to have it started?

[01:12:02] I guess you would be the right person to give an answer on this question, Shani.

[01:12:10] I'm not sure that I am. Well, we are just now hearing this request from people, and so I guess the organizing team will have a report of sorts that could be that will be sent to the board and then we can see what we can do. Right. As I said at the beginning, I think there are things that are easy to implement, like having some kind of office hours, like having a menu of sorts, describing it a bit more for people. These are things that are easy to to operate and to to make happen fast in terms of capacity building. It will take more time. I'm assuming some of it is already on the go, but it's not really related just to the elections, to my perspective, but rather something that we want to offer our communities and we want to have some modules for capacity building and, you know, just a way to support leaders in the community and encourage it all all year long, not just for elections. And so, yeah, translation support, all of that will happen. So. And as I can give you a date right now, if that's what you're asking me, but what I can say that I think these things are manageable and.

[01:13:42] We'll take you to the border.

[01:13:47] Yes, thank you, Shani. I'm sorry, just to clarify. So I was not asking about a specific date or a specific action that should be done, but I just wanted to understand if there is a will to do this and if we can expect to see it happening soon.

[01:14:04] Well, I can tell you what is in my power. Right. And the CDC will be dealing with some of this in the coming months for sure, as part of its mandate and other portions of the board. Other committees in the board are also interested in supporting the elections, like the committee and I would say the rest of the board in overall staff and and the board want to see the elections happen and want to see people supporting. So we will do whatever we can to make that happen. I'm not sure if I answered, but I hope I didn't.

[01:14:47] Thank you very much, Shani.

[01:14:49] I'd like to call our bill, are you ready to hand just one thing I can compliment a bit exactly this at this point, I don't know if I can go after I believe you told this question.

[01:15:05] Habib.

[01:15:08] Thank you. I just wanted to say something about what my caller was saying, but I don't really agree because my caller was saying something about the number of idiots.

[01:15:25] I think that's something that is not an excuse for giving or offering support for candidates. Offering support doesn't mean the candidate will win. No offering support is just to guide the candidates to until the election. Iran's election, win or not win is not a problem. So if the candidate has a low number of idiots, you mean that you can't offer support? I think it could be a bad excuse and also something I want to add it. But it is a number of ideas I think shouldn't be very, very important. Well, let me give you a simple example today. As you can read on the Wikimedia Foundation that I just lost to Wikipedia 20, you'll see that they put a featured volunteer. And I was astonished to see someone, the founder of Africa, of the library from Ghana. I don't know who is a future volunteer, but she has started editing Wikipedia just in two thousand and eight. But if you see the number of edits, I think it's not too much. And he doesn't she doesn't have so many dates. But what she has done is so important. Well, she has trained around eighty eight hundred people across Africa and she's running so many projects about library in Africa. So someone like that, if you want to run for the election, you say, no, you don't have sufficient number of it. So you're disqualified. I think it's I think not so good. That's what I said to people when we did have this kind of meeting. I said Wikimedia community has to correct something because we rely mostly on the degree allow me to say like this on degree on Wikipedia, it means that you must be in three years or four years over Wikipedia.

[01:17:51] It's something not good. I, I can say that we need people with leadership skills, people with the same kinds of governance who can help grow the movement. Go for that to say we can take someone from Harvard, for instance, who has no Wikipedia. But as they put the passion for the movement, who can bring some other skills that we still don't have. But if we see only a Wikipedia and first, I think it's something that we need to correct or we need to change.

[01:18:31] Thank you for this, Quim.

[01:18:35] Unless someone wants to continue this important conversation, mine is just a technicality all over the place. But I can I can say this later.

[01:18:42] Thank you very much for your time.

[01:18:47] I'm just a quick reminder. We have eight minutes more to the top of the hour, so please keep your comments.

[01:18:58] Yes, first of all, I agreed with this idea of designing a campaign because from my experience here, these office hours are repeated and I'm less than one year Wikimedia Foundation member. But with this office hours and call of feedback, I could to have more information. And I know now about the charter beauty of the as the A, A, B as all that. So it was very useful. And I assume here if there is any potential candidate, it will be happy to know about more information will to take it and to not take more time to just research about the information. Just discuss with other quantitate and this discussion. We we can imagine this potential candidates will be, for example, or perhaps a peer in the board of trustees. So it's a good opportunity to have this campaign and just small things to Shaney. I'm very happy that this committee, S.A.C. is it's going to be and exist now because in the first office hours and I didn't know too much about the Wikimedia Foundation and movement, I ask there is no body and commitment between the board of trustees and community, and there is one now. So I'm so happy and waiting for that. Thank you.

[01:20:57] Thank you very much. Just a short reminder, we have five more minutes of the official time, so everybody who hasn't spoken yet, please speak out in five more minutes. We will close the official with the close the recording and close down officially. But we expect from here to you more so we have a further raised and by Mikhaela.

[01:21:25] Yes. I just wanted to quickly react to what I said. I just think that what people expect from a community selected seats is having some sort of advanced community experience with advanced is something everyone understands their own way. I don't think that's an experience you cannot really learn outside the community.

[01:21:47] And I would just understand that, I mean, probably we cannot offer a good training on understanding the community for community service.

[01:21:58] We should offer this training to selected seats. And what that's what Cheney said, that if there is a person who could have done a good contribution to the movement but is not very experienced in the community, that's a very good person for appointed seats who should be trained on how community works.

[01:22:14] And on the other side, we can perfectly offer training on WGME for governance to people who are not experienced in America, non-profits. And NASA also want to hear from you on, Bart.

[01:22:34] What do you want to hear from me?

[01:22:38] Your beautiful voice. OK, good a joke, OK? A story, a story got no with. I think, um, I was thinking about that. We did.

[01:22:54] We not do that because I really the last two, three years I have not been looking at the elections, but we used to ask general questions on the matter page and ask everybody the same questions and have them translated everything else. Do we still do that or have we stopped doing that?

[01:23:14] Well, when was the last time we had the election? Was three years ago now.

[01:23:19] Ok, so I only missed one, I think, because it's really good, because it allows people to answer the questions in their own language and give and in their own native language and to translate it anyway, because we want to make sure the answers are available for everyone and levels the playing field a bit. And it also gives everyone time to respond in their own timing. And it also was a signal if people didn't have the time or didn't take the time to ask a question like, OK, you don't have enough time to spend on this. That's also something we, uh.

[01:23:49] But they're all there's all kinds of good information, which was not biased.

[01:23:54] But is there a way we could improve that that specific thing that we have been doing since?

[01:24:00] Well, for many elections now, I don't know if we still do it because, I mean, I discovered it, like Ishani said, apparently the Ministry of Support wasn't there for a while either. So some things might have changed. So I'm hoping that's still there. But I like the idea of the the video call in the native language and having that translated as well with subtitles or whatever to make sure. And I think we still have the other thing, which is I don't think we've mentioned a lot yet, but there are a lot of cultures where people don't want to nominate themselves. But I would expect other people to nominate them.

[01:24:31] And that's the kind of support we could also try and identify and maybe have people nominate other people simply because it's a cultural thing.

[01:24:42] So we could propose a platform or some way, some some system, so that people could nominate others.

[01:24:52] These were not jokes, but I hope that's maybe what you were asking.

[01:24:55] What about the joke? The recipe or the meaning of life or the meaning of life is easy. That's just a no.

[01:25:05] No, I don't. I, um.

[01:25:07] Can I just simply say. Yeah, that we did in the previous elections, we did questions, OK, and those were trumped or spin also in an effort to translate to I think, which is all of the materials, the info about people and the questions that have been happening systematically, completely, not related to the specific aid that the board of trustees need. No, no, no, no. This is completely to two separate things.

[01:25:39] No, no. But I was just saying because there were other development which had missed, this might have also been discontinued. But it's good that that's still going on. And I think in general, I think Richard mentioned it. But other people I do think there's a lot of people out there who have experience, who are willing to help, even though they're not candidates themselves. So if there are candidates who are interested approaching from of me or whatever, and on the other hand, things change and some things don't change. So my information on being on the board might be outdated. On the other hand, I think a lot of that experience is still relevant. I mean, France has been on the board for a long time, but most of the things you have not changed.

[01:26:19] Also things haven't changed. So it's all relative.

[01:26:23] So.

[01:26:24] Yeah, so thank you very much. I would like to call for a last round of questions, contributions, whatever you have in mind, and then we would stop the official, stop the recording, and you can stay here in the room, too, for a more casual talk on this tape. But then we will stop the official. So I thought there had been a in.

[01:27:01] Yes, thank you.

[01:27:02] I just want to say that I do support the idea of nominating candidates, so it's what I see in the movement. So I called the kid on computers. It's an American non-profit, non-profit organization where we like the community, some number of board member of trustee, no body. Not that someone is doing some great thing so it can be a good candidate for the next election. So I nominate him. It is a small organization. It's very easy to do it, to do it. We just use Google, Gmail. So we you just say, OK, I suppose I nominate such person for the next election and it's very easy. But you know, the ecosystem of Wikimedia movement, I don't know how you can implement this idea. Was it to me as such is so big that most of the other nonprofits. But the ideas are very interesting. So we can try to think of and see how to do this exactly in the context of the media.

[01:28:25] Just to react to what Bill was saying, it's it's only the appointee's is one thing, but we don't know what are the next steps. Does that mean, though, all of a sudden the candidate we hear about has been nominated by someone, or does that mean the person is actually contacting the nominee, saying, I nominated, you don't have a candidate?

[01:28:50] Sorry, but we need something that Dean would have to end official session now.

[01:28:57] I hope that all of you would stay so that we can have a chat later on after the official session has ended. Having said that, I would like to say thank you so much. First of all, to our panelists, Abel. Butch, Florence, Richard, Shani and many thanks to everyone joining us. We truly are making set to join this discussion.

[01:29:27] Yes, Zita. Thank you very much. And sharing your thoughts, the questions and your contributions to this ongoing effort to this Call for feedback has been all about it.

[01:29:38] And it made it especially valuable to again, we are grateful for this and we hope to see you again in 90 minutes from now when another interesting third panel is starting or Global Counsel Hub's. That's a real late Saturday evening to come. Now, we will stop the recording.

Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Conversations/Topic panels/Topic panel: Support for candidates/Report

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