Junta directiva de la Fundación Wikimedia/Convocatoria para recibir comentarios:puestos en la junta directiva/Cuotas
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El compromiso con la diversidad es una de las prioridades de gobernanza identificadas en los estatutos de la Fundación. La junta ha expresado constantemente su compromiso de lograr diversidad en la composición de la misma. La junta puede cumplir con estos compromisos directamente con los puestos de selección directa de la junta. Sin embargo, para los puestos seleccionados por la comunidad y los afiliados, el hecho de que la junta declare su deseo de diversidad no es suficiente para garantizar que los miembros seleccionados reflejen verdaderamente la diversidad del movimiento Wikimedia.
Un posible enfoque para abordar este problema es introducir cuotas que requieran que un número mínimo de puestos en la junta seleccionados por la comunidad y los afiliados sean ocupados por miembros de grupos que de otro modo estarían subrepresentados o en desventaja en un proceso de nominación y votación en toda la comunidad.
La junta tiene muchas preguntas abiertas relacionadas con la idea de cuotas y solicita comentarios de la comunidad sobre cuáles deberían ser las respuestas. En particular:
- ¿Qué tipo de diversidad sería más importante garantizar con un sistema de cuotas? Algunas opciones posibles son género, etnia, estatus LGBT +, geografía, experiencia en regímenes totalitarios, estatus social (incluida la clase y los ingresos), haber experimentado falta de libertad de viaje, expresión o religión, y madurez comunitaria dentro del movimiento Wikimedia.
- ¿Cómo se debe aplicar un sistema de cuotas? Una posibilidad sería reservar ciertos puestos para miembros de ciertos grupos. Otra posibilidad sería considerar la diversidad general de la composición de la junta al final del proceso de selección. Otro más sería incluir la diversidad en el formulario de evaluación de los miembros de la junta como características adicionales importantes.
- ¿Cómo se deben establecer las cuotas y cómo se deben cambiar con el tiempo?
Cabe señalar que, si bien la Junta no ha llegado a un acuerdo con respecto a una comprensión clara de qué tipo de diversidad debe introducirse sistemáticamente, ha discutido el género como un criterio ampliamente no controvertido para la diversidad general de la junta, pero no ha llegado a una conclusión sobre cómo se puede introducir en la comunidad y designar puestos de forma práctica.
La junta reconoce que las cuotas no son necesariamente la única forma de asegurar la selección de un conjunto diverso de miembros para la junta. Se agradecen las sugerencias de enfoques alternativos.
Resumen de comentarios en curso
El equipo de facilitación mantiene esta sección sincronizada con el reporte principal.
The facilitation team keeps this section in sync with the main report.
Sentimiento: demasiado pronto para saberlo
The majority of participants agree on the importance of having a Board that represents the diversity of the world. The majority of participants also recognize the difficulty of implementing a system of quotas that is fair, effective, and representative. The support to find diversity solutions based on quotas is stronger among participants from emerging Wikimedia communities as well as women and LGBT+ participants.
Some individuals had reservations to express opinions publicly or participate in the Call for Feedback at all. Aspects like gender and cultural background are closely related to people’s identities. In society, topics like social privilege, political representation of women and minorities, or contemporary colonialism are very controversial and difficult to discuss. All these factors were noticeable during the Call for Feedback. We organized targeted outreach to learn more about the opinions of participants in several groups, including Wikimedia LGBT+, WikiWomxn, Les sans pagEs, WikiDonne and Art+Feminism as well as informal groups of women and LGBT+. Some of whom noted feeling overworked by the quantity of discussions about the Wikimedia movement requesting their participation.
There are serious concerns about the implementation of quotas, including among groups underrepresented in Wikimedia. Disagreement about quotas among women and LGBT+ groups tended to be related to unintended consequences like tokenism and potential candidates feeling discouraged to run for “a quota seat”. On Meta-Wiki, a few contributors expressed their strong disagreement on principle, considering quotas discriminatory, and some of them disagree that the Board has a problem of diversity.
Nota: un voluntario ha hecho surgir la idea de puestos regionales. Los comentarios recibidos sobre la representación regional se encuentran en la sección relacionada.
- El tema de las cuotas es muy amplio. Los únicos tipos de cuotas que se discuten son las regionales y las de género. La edad y el color de la piel son otros factores mencionados esporádicamente. Las opiniones van desde una fuerte oposición hasta un fuerte apoyo.
- El equipo ha observado cierto silencio por parte de individuos y grupos, así como ha encontrado directamente reservas para expresar opiniones públicamente. Hemos prestado especial atención a proporcionar espacios seguros y formas opcionales de recabar opiniones sin exponer a los individuos.
Posiciones generales sobre las cuotas:
- Several participants said that the purpose of quotas is to overcome historical and systemic inequities, which the current practice of Board member election makes difficult.
- Many participants in all regions, also in Western Europe and North America, said that quotas may be the only way for certain underrepresented groups to ensure that their perspectives and presence are included on the Board any time soon.
- A Wikimedia Foundation executive noted that women are underrepresented in elected/nominated seats, and appointed seats should not be the only guarantee of balancing diversity.
- Some participants commented that the Board diversity should represent the world’s population composition and not just the Wikimedia community composition.
Negatives
- Many participants said that a representative implementation of quotas may be hard given that there is a maximum of eight seats for community and affiliates.
- Some warned of larger communities overshadowing smaller communities due to influence and noted this may produce a silent minority as has happened in some countries with indigenous communities. For this reason, they say quotas should be based upon population and not the size of the wiki community.
- Several participants from underrepresented groups said that quotas may deter potential competent candidates from underrepresented groups from running for election because they want to be selected on their own merits, without the help of a quota system.
- They fear that these candidates may be judged as only on the Board because of the quota and disregard the experience or expertise of the person. Some said candidates using the quota may get less support because of this.
- Many participants in several regions were concerned about the risk of candidates joining the Board without having the proper skills thanks to quotas.
- Some participants feared that quotas may increase tokenism, that is, an apparent representation of diversity that is more symbolic than effective.
- A few participants said that candidates selected due to quotas may feel public pressure from contributors opposing quotas.
- They mentioned groupthink as a potential side effect, that is, trustees selected through quotas feeling forced to align with the trustees selected without quotas, defeating the point of diversity.
- Several groups from emerging Wikimedia communities mentioned the connotations the term “quotas” have in their countries.
- They described situations where governments are misusing quota-based systems that were created to include minorities, resulting in various forms of corruption.
- Especially on Meta-Wiki, a few users disagreed strongly with any system of quotas.
- One user said that quotas discriminate against certain people by denying them the ability to run for certain board seats based on their innate characteristics.
Other considerations
Regarding gender quotas
- There were many considerations specific to a gender diversity quota:
- Participants in several countries mentioned examples of gender balance laws or campaigns in their countries and considered it logical to explore a similar application in the Board.
- Many participants mentioned concepts like “50/50” or “50%” to refer to a gender quota for women, according to some of them following terms popularized by governments or the media in their countries.
- Other participants including members of the Wikimedia LGBT+ user group complained, saying that these concepts were binary and implicitly biased against non-binary, trans or genderqueer people. The Facilitation team acknowledged this problem and rectified the related mentions in their reports.
- A former trustee suggested the Board be proactive about diverse articulations of gender such as trans and non-binary and also diverse sexual orientations.
- A couple of participants suggested adding limits for overrepresentation instead of minimum quotas, like for instance a maximum of 60% of any gender on the Board.
- One participant suggested that gender representation should not come before regional representation.
Regarding quotas in general
- A few participants have said that quotas should be applied during the nomination process, not the election.
- Some Wikitech participants suggested ensuring that there is a minimum number of candidates from each group rather than having election quotas.
- A member of the Elections Committee considered it is not possible to cover all the diversity of our movement with quotas unless there is a system of short-term rotation.
- A former trustee suggested to look at “underrepresented” as a required expertise to avoid using a plain concept of quotas.
- Some participants said that the Board seats should reflect the current community, not the community that it is desired to become.
- Some participants from the Wikimedia Stewards User Group were of this opinion.
- Others said imposing restrictions on the community seats makes for ineffective representatives.
- A few participants commented that the feedback period was not long enough to discuss quotas.