Talk:Election Rules

Number of Directors

How many should we have? AndrewRT 00:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Voting system

Should we use approval voting? AndrewRT 00:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Majority criterion

Should we only have directors elected if they get more than 50% approval? AndrewRT 00:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Proviso for one director

If all the directors get less than 50%, should the highest placed candidate be elected notwithstanding this? AndrewRT 00:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

In my email on the subject I supported this idea, but I've been thinking since and I'm not sure how it would work. It takes an ordinary resolution to appoint a board member, that means 50% support. We could propose a motion at each AGM saying "This meeting resolves to hold an election by approval voting, appointing the top five of the following candidates that receive 50% approval. If less than five candidates receive 50% approval, only they will be appointed. If no-one receives 50% approval, the top candidate will be appointed." (We can have a Rule that says this motion must be put forward at every AGM, and before any other motions regarding director appointments are considered.) We would, however, have a problem if that motion failed to pass (effectively, a mass vote for "none of the above"). Subsequent motions to appoint directors individually could be considered, but the notification requirements would prevent anyone not already on the list from being considered, so that wouldn't work. There could be a motion to re-appoint the old board, but that could also fail (or the old board could be unwilling to stand). This is another problem with having the whole board resign at once, if the meeting fails to appoint anyone, we end up with no board (there will be something in legislation to deal with this scenario, I'll take a look...). --Tango 13:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't find anything relevant in the legislation beyond a power for the Secretary of State to direct a company to appoint a director if they don't have one. After looking at our articles and the model articles, I thing we need to make a slight adjustment (a little later than ideal, but nevermind) to Article 16.2 to add "unless by the close of the meeting the members have failed to elect sufficient Directors to hold a quorate meeting of the Directors. Any elections at the meeting remain valid, notwithstanding any maximum number of directors." That should deal with any problems other than all the directors resigning by choice simultaneously, and there's not a great deal we can do about that. --Tango 14:26, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

As one of the directors said at the time we were drafting the Articles, if we get to that stage I'm afraid the problem we have is a lot bigger than one which can be resolved by the careful drafting of some rules! Ultimately I think we would have a political problem either caused by a massive loss of confidence or because of factionalism. The first priority would be to craft a compromise - perhaps a new Board which brought all the factions together and addressed the underlying issues. Once you had a solution that had broad appeal you would then look at how to legally implement it - a Written Resolution under Article 12 which (a) suspended the Election Rules and then (b) appointed the consensus Board would be my first thought. Given the amount of time that was spent debating the Articles, I'm not sure there's much appetite for amending them now!

As to the AGM resolution itself, I've started drafting some resolutions for the first AGM here (input gladly received). What I had in mind for the actual Resolution appointing the new Board is generally along the lines you said, although I shoudl stress these are my thoughts and not those of the Board which has not really discussed these issues. Bearing in mind many if not most votes will be by proxy, I would expect most people to vote yes to the resolution before the winners were announced - as I said if they didn't our problems would be much bigger than a simple drafting issue! AndrewRT 21:27, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The law requires there to always be at least one board member, though, so we would be in violation of the law while we were trying to come up with a compromise. Something in the articles to deal with that would be good. I would expect the vote for the resolution about the election to be held before the election itself - a) there's no point holding the election if it's not going to be accepted and b) having the election results known may cause people to oppose the motion because their chosen candidate didn't win. Also, if you haven't seen it, I've suggested a resolution on that page regarding the chapter agreement, I'd appreciate comments. --Tango 23:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Any other changes

Do we need to specify anything else in the rules? AndrewRT 00:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Answering this question myself, I wanted to put a suggestion regarding minority languages.

Most of the people active in Wikimedia UK seem to be active in the english Wikimedia projects. However, there are some other smaller Wikimedia languages where UK editors form a vital part of the editing and readorship base. I'm thinking particularly of the native languages of the UK such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and maybe Irish, Scots/Ullans, Cornish, Manx etc.

As well as recognised the diversity of the Wikimedia community, there are also significant public funds available for promoting these languages which could be used by us to support these projects.

The Board has already reached out to these projects by asking if the newsletter could be translated into these languages. My suggestion is we set aside two reserved seats on the Board for people who actively contribute to at lease one wikimedia project in a minority language of the UK.

What do you think? AndrewRT 00:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Election committee

Is an election committee required? It will just be a vote at the AGM, what would the committee do? --Tango 23:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)