Talk:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2027/Proposed eligibility criteria

A swing and a miss

I appreciate the desire to have candidates demonstrate knowledge of the Wikimedia projects and trust in one's ability to effectively work with other Wikimedia volunteers. But surely being elected is how we demonstrated that? I cannot support a set of criteria that essentially restricts participation from the editing community to functionaries. Even restricting it to administrators or other types of editors with extended rights would go completely against our values. These criteria would be a serious blow to community participation in the Board, at a time when our trust in the elections is already seriously eroded. I cannot understand why it has been proposed. asilvering (talk) 21:56, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Also worried about this. I don't think administrator or functionary status necessarily maps with the qualities sought after for Board members, besides both being positions of trust. In general, while I would certainly like more involvement from editing community, I don't think limiting it to a very specific subset of community members achieves this goal, and it may lead voters to miss on a wide variety of potential profiles. Chaotic Enby (talk) 13:54, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, it looks to me like Bluerasberry would not have been able to run last time, though WereSpielChequers would have, as a crat, but can't now. (Pinging both as I'm quite curious to hear your opinions in specific.) And while there are reasons why any particular person might not trust any particular candidate, including these two, the way they would express that is by voting against them. What I mean here is that trust is decided in the election. What the eligibility criteria ought to do is a) communicate what kind of person would be good in this role and b) attempt to restrict eligibility to that kind of person. I know it's going to be difficult to come up with some kind of objective measure for something that is very subjective. But I think this has probably cut off most people who would be suitable candidates. Can anyone honestly say that Lane does not demonstrate knowledge of the Wikimedia projects and trust in one's ability to effectively work with other Wikimedia volunteers? And he is extremely well-connected as far as Affiliate business goes, unlike most editors. There has to be some way for these criteria to include the people who are actually building the projects. asilvering (talk) 16:13, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Candidates must fulfill at least one of the following criteria by having a total of at least 2 years of experience within the last 6 years, as of the [Date of the applications opening]:

1. ...
2. ...
3. Served in one of the following positions on a Wikimedia project:
   1. ...
   2. ...
   3. ...
   4. Bureaucrat

WSC was a Crat until recently. That would make him still eligible. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 16:42, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. Yes I was a crat when I stood for election, and at present I could probably end my semi sabbatical and resume that role. I'm not sure that currently being a crat, at least on the English Wikipedia is guaranteed to be such a big deal, most were elected as crats over a decade ago. We could in theory have a candidate who was elected a Crat well over a decade ago, had been decratted nearly four years ago for two years inactivity, but would meet the two years out of the last 6 rule, using their inactive two years as a crat. Would that be useful? Likely the community would reject such a candidate if that was their main claim to be active in the community. If you want to show someone is trusted by the community I'd include people who have been elected to Arbcom, or as a crat or as an admin in recent years, and have been active as such for at least two of the last 6 years. Better still, rely on the voters to assess whether a candidate is an active member of the community, I think this is something that Wikimedians are well qualified to judge.

The Second criteria "Served as a member of the governing board of an organization at least 10% of the size of the Wikimedia Foundation (by annual budget or staff count)" is ambiguous. Was it intended to be an organisation within the Wikimedia movement? If so I'm not sure we have many if any chapters that are that close to the WMF in size. But taken literally it seems to be a route in for community members like myself who have board level not for profit experience from outside the movement. I might well qualify on that criteria as I have board level experience from at least two of the last six years on two not for profits that might meet the staff count test (and less recent experience on an organisation that easily exceeds the 10% rule). But as the staff count of the WMF changes, I'd suggest setting a figure, and not using turnover as an organisation in say India with a turnover of $5m could be so much bigger and complex than an organisation in a country with higher labour costs.

More broadly, what exactly are we looking for in board candidates, and what do we want to reject? I thought that we wanted three things, a committed Wikimedian with board experience in the not for profit sector, and we need to filter out anyone involved in fraud and other corporate malfeasance. If so the test for Wikimedia involvement needs to be current or at least very recent, as that indicates current commitment to the movement; while the experience of not for profit board membership does not need to be particularly recent, but it would help if it was long, maybe two terms or more. As for the most contentious thing, the vetting of candidates, I suspect we have a conflict between the Universal Code of Conduct rules about not insulting Wikimedians political affiliation, and the belief by some (probably everyone) that some political affiliations are incompatible with civil society. In any event, the events of last year have left the vetting process as the most contentious part of the whole system, especially if it is true that we have a global organisation that regards certain political views as unacceptable on its global board despite them being the norm in parts of the world. WereSpielChequers (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I thought that we wanted three things, a committed Wikimedian with board experience in the not for profit sector, and we need to filter out anyone involved in fraud and other corporate malfeasance. Indeed. And while it seems like a positive thing to me that the board is willing to understand arbitrator etc work as "board-like" enough to count, I think there must be plenty of people with relevant experience in our editing community, who are being shut out of running as candidates because it is restricted to functionaries and 'crats. asilvering (talk) 12:44, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Hard no to limiting eligibility to insiders, which is what this proposed list would do. Strongly disagree with the idea that being a functionary or part of an affiliate prepares one for board membership. If the CEO doesn't need previous CEO experience, why do Board members need previous Board experience? This really feels like Wikimedia elite trying to limit eligibility to the Wikimedia elite. No, no, no. Levivich (talk) 14:03, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

As somebody who would qualify under these rules (I'm a checkuser), it's hard for me to see how my checkuser experience would impact my serving on the board beyond, as others have pointed out, as a vague indicator of trust. And, to be honest, my time on the Ombuds Commission has put a dent in my assumption that checkusers are guaranteed to be people who can be trusted. My checkuser skills are mostly around my technical expertise: IP addressing and allocation, proxies, user agents and client hints, and all the various ways these things can be obfuscated, spoofed, and abused in various ways. The board deals with things like finance, fund-raising, regulatory compliance, employee relations, legal issues, publicity, and a bunch of other things in which I am woefully unqualified. And of course, all these things on an international playing field.

For sure, not everybody on the board will be an expert in all these areas. One of the strengths of a board is exactly that it brings together diverse skills. Still, I'm just not seeing how my checkuser experience would bring anything useful to the table. RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Experience requirements and eligibility enforcement

First, big thanks on getting this work happening and proposals out in the open!

Regarding experience requirements: IMO there's a significant amount of variance between the acceptable experience roles listed in terms of work and time invested, money and people there's responsibility for, etc, which makes it feel difficult to nail down why specific things are or aren't included. For instance, Wikimedia affiliate board seats count as experience only if the affiliate has full-time staff, which surprised me as I know a lot of affiliates funnel grant work to contractors and regularly deal with employing people through part-time contract work even if they don't themselves have full-time staff; meanwhile being a bureaucrat on a small Wikimedia project earns you the same requirement as being on the Arbcom or the Endowment board. I'm not sure this makes sense, and if these are really meant to be hard requirements you need to think a lot more clearly about what it is you want out of them.

Regarding vetting and enforcement of the eligibility criteria: after last year's controversies I have to say I strongly recommend an independent elections vetting group of some kind. Wikimedia Foundation must not be able to choose who can oversee it; that would be a strong conflict of interest and extremely dangerous to our projects' shared future.

Thanks again for getting the proposals up and seeking comment! brooke (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, For example WMFI target/strategy for WMF grant funding is to secure 0.5 FTE per person as it makes easier to finance self-funding of external external grants when the funding is not tied to single person work. (for example WMFI has 4 employee currently and all of the worked years now) If there is external funding then it is used for raising FTE to 1.0. (this was also our answer in 2023) The full-time requirement would rule out stable and well working chapters just by arbitary rule. --Zache (talk) 20:56, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

---

As I listen to Lorenzo speak about this at Wikimedia, a thought occurred to me. While I do not know that this list will get the right community members with the experience needed on the board itself, I do think that this list could be a good list of who could form an electorate for doing the shortlisting rather than offering each affiliate a single vote. In such a model, the vetting could then be done after the shortlistng vote and before choosing the people for the final ballot to ensure the a full slate of candidates are put forward for the final selection. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:23, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

The opacity is in the vetting

Thanks for trying to make more clear who can be eligible and who not. There can be some nuances (as mentioned above by brooke), but I think those can be better refined. However, the big issue here (and in the last elections) was the vetting process. It's opaque and we can't know what the checks are. So there's a good proposal for knowing who can be a candidate, with very specific requirements, and then there's a process where only those who are currently on the Board decide about the validity of the ideas of one candidate. That breaks all the previous requirements and continues to reproduce the situation we had in the last election. Theklan (talk) 08:18, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The vetting is an undemocratic practice. Imagine an election to parliament where candidates need to be approved by the government or some kind of royal institution. ---<(kmk)>- (talk) 22:02, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

The Board is not a political institution. It is nothing like parliament, and the members are not elected at all. This is not a democratic process. This is a committee deciding who will be on the committee next year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

As opposed to the community it represents? JPxG (talk) 07:38, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

The community does not decide who will be on the committee.

The committee members do not represent the "the community". See, e.g., the Board Handbook, which says "Trustees have a fiduciary duty to represent the Wikimedia Foundation's interests above all during their service on the Board—not just the interests of affiliates or certain parts of the communities" and "community-selected Trustees are required by law to represent the interests of the Wikimedia Foundation". See what the learn.wiki candidate pre-onboarding says about Board members not representing "any of the communities" (Unit 1, "Common misconceptions" slide).

It sounds to me like there is a great desire by a couple dozen people to have the WMF Board represent them, to have a democratic process, to become visibly responsive non-affiliate community members, etc., but such a system does not exist at this time, at the WMF. The Global Council was one attempt to create such a system, but it, too, would have been an entity separate from the WMF's board.

Something I'd suggest to people who want such a system is that they recognize that they do not have the thing they want, so they can decide whether they want to work towards achieving that thing. Telling yourself that you've already got democratic representation when you don't is a certain path towards never having democratic representation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

There is more information about the vetting process and background checks at foundation:Legal:Wikimedia Foundation Board Handbook#Background checks and secondary source review for Trustees. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

within the last 6 years

I believe it is an unnecessary tough demand, within eight or ten ought to be sufficient Yger (talk) 15:35, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

If we are assessing how much someone is currently an active Wikimedian, then experience from 6 years ago has little relevance. When we measure relevant board level experience on a not for profit, experience from a decade ago could be very relevant. Current involvement and past experience are two very different things that should be measured on very different timescales. WereSpielChequers (talk) 06:44, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that "currently an active Wikimedian" is the goal, since being on the board of a non-wiki-related organization is also sufficient.

I agree with @Yger that 8 or even 10 years ought to be a sufficient filter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm also confused about the 6-year window. In a shameless plug, I will mention myself as an example. I've served in the board of an entity an order of magnitude bigger than the WMF (a staff above 5k or 10k depending how you count) some 15 years ago and I will never forget the experience. Forgetting things specific to Wikimedia is more likely. There could be a combined requirements of having at least one of these in recent times, or two across a longer period.

Also from a practical standpoint the requirements are ambiguous. What does it mean to have two mandates in the past 6 years? Does it mean, having completed the second mandate less than 6 years ago? Or started? Or started the first one? Depending on the interpretation and the length of the mandate, this could make a difference of many years. Nemo 12:57, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

That is not the community

The bylaws are already heavily weighted towards allowing the board to appoint itself: just under half the seats are "board-selected" seats. The idea is that those are the seats that are chosen for real-world experience areas as opposed to Wikipedia experience. The (slim) majority are community-elected because they're supposed to represent the community. It's a little infuriating to see this eligibility list: the WMF apparently thinks the community consists of (1) functionaries, (2) affiliates, and (3) people who have been on WMF committees. Everyone else lacks the necessary experience, apparently! Eligibility criteria ought to be things like "has not been convicted of fraud." Trying to limit our choices to elites and insiders is very very much moving in the wrong direction. There's a huge segment of the community that does not want to spend its time on the WMF committees or affiliates or even being functionaries (or even admins, or any advanced permission holders). This segment includes many of our most active and dedicated volunteers. Look at who's writing feature articles on Wikipedia for example: many of them are not admins, functionaries, or part of any affiliate groups or WMF committees. As a person who is part of that large majority of the community who is not a functionary, insider, or elite, I want people on the board who represent me and people like me, not insiders and elites. When group leadership is limited to group insiders, you end up with a shitty group. From the Russian Bolsheviks of the 1920s to the U.S. Democrats of the 2020s, how have we not learned this lesson by now, how is it that the WMF is repeating this obvious and well-worn mistake? Back to the drawing board, please. Levivich (talk) 14:37, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I fully agree. The proposal to restrict the eligible "community" board members to the vanguard, i.e. the most conscious and disciplined among us, would not be in the interests of the Wikimedia mission. Boud (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I want to use my voice to amplify this perspective as well. I also want to point out to any board members reading that you'll probably hear more of this because I was the one who bothered to actually try and tell people about it on the Village Pump (I'm also going to notify the petition signers from board reform shortly). Too many things get hidden in obscurity to people in the know who claim that they're open to having discussions and that everything is supposedly transparent. No, there's a massive problem here, a chasm of disconnect, and ignoring that does not make it go away. There needs to be proactive steps taken to do something to remedy this poor relationship. Many people active on the community side who do not get to be a voice in the rooms where things happen have been upset for years and have become jaded that they will ever be listened to. I implore people to do something as a sign of goodwill. Actions speak a lot louder than words that are corporate jargon and often the antithesis of what people actually want. Clovermoss (talk) 15:58, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I also encourage Jimbo Wales, BMeehan-WMF, SDeckelmann-WMF, and MMiller (WMF) to please pay attention to what people will be saying and keep an eye on it for the next few week(s). If you truly are willing to listen, people have lots of thoughts, and keep hoping for change. Clovermoss (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

@Levivich, I agree with you that "There's a huge segment of the community that does not want to spend its time on the WMF committees". However, you seem to be saying that someone who does not want to spend their time on WMF committees would want to spend time on this committee. Boards are just committees.

Also, "Served as a member of the governing board of an organization at least 10% of the size of the Wikimedia Foundation (by annual budget or staff count)" means that a person who has never served on any WMF committee or held any functionary position in the communities is eligible. If you have made just 20 edits in the last year and (for two of the last six years) you have served on the board of "an organization" with >75 employees (or almost $2 million in revenue per year), you are eligible. That's "an organization", not "a WMF-related organization". From the comments above, they need to specify whether for-profit organizations count, but assuming they do, then the size of corporation we're talking about is a restaurant with three or four locations, or a school with 500 students. This means that the "huge segment of the community that does not want to spend its time on the WMF committees" can still be eligible, as long as they've served on another Board.

Finally, I think that it's important to remember that Board members do not "represent" anyone. By law, every member of the WMF's Board is required to support the organization's non-profit purpose. You can see one official statement of the WMF's purpose in the bylaws. Editors who are disappointed that "supporting the community" is not the WMF's purpose and that the WMF's Board members are not supposed to "represent me" may wish to join their nearest chapter (or to start one). Supporting the editing community is the purpose of most chapters. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:51, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

"Finally, I think that it's important to remember that Board members do not "represent" anyone." Well that's flat not true. Board members represent shareholders (who elect them) in for profit corporations, and the public in non profit corporations, and the Wikimedia community (who elect them) at the WMF. Supporting the community is definitely the WMF's purpose. What do you think "Wikimedia" is? It's the community: the people and what they own (the IP). Levivich (talk) 15:51, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

That's not true, and it's not even logical. The WMF is a non-profit corporation. Why would you say that board members of non-profit corporations "represent" "the public", but that board members of this particular non-profit corporation does not represent "the public", but instead represents you and me?

More to the point, your statement isn't true. A w:Homeowner association is a non-profit corporation, and their board members do not represent the general public; at best, they might represent the needs of their own members. Ditto for a w:Political action committee. (NB that I'm speaking of US law; things could be different in other countries.) If you'd like to read more about this, and possibly untangle some of enwiki's articles on the subject, remember that incorporation (and thus where it becomes a non-profit) in the US happens at the state level, and the main determination of tax-exempt status happens at the federal level. Many non-profit corporations are not tax-exempt. (Being non-profit means nobody gets to take any profits/dividends/unspent revenue home for personal use; being tax-exempt means that the political system has decided your activities are sufficiently worthy that you and/or your financial donors shouldn't have to pay as many taxes.)

Individual board members do not, and legally should not, "represent" us. I'm always amazed at how fervently some (mostly US-based) editors cling to this rumor. Apparently that bit of propaganda started shortly before the WMF was created, but it's just not true. Here's the Florida code outlining the duties of a nonprofit board member. Note particularly 617§0617.0830, which says "A director shall discharge his or her duties as a director, including his or her duties as a member of a committee: [...] (c) In a manner he or she reasonably believes to be in the best interests of the corporation" (emphasis added). "The corporation" is not "the public", and it is definitely not individual editors or "the community". Here's the WMF's articles of incorporation. We're not even mentioned. Here's a link to the WMF's Bylaws. It actually says that representing editors (or politicized factions among them) is not the goal, in Article IV, Section 3, as it states that board members should be appointed to "fulfill the mission and needs of the Foundation" – not the general public, and not the community. The closest we get to a legal basis for the board caring about us at all is that the bylaws say the WMF will do its work "in coordination with" some volunteers and affiliates.

Maybe some day I should create a primer on board membership. It could say things like "Nope, you're not actually electing anyone" and "Nope, the WMF doesn't exist to serve the community". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm not going to pick everything apart, but the reason WMF board members represent volunteers is because volunteers elected them, which makes them the board members' constituency, aka who they represent. Similarly, the trustees of a homeowner association represent the homeowners (who vote for them). When a person is elected to a position, that person is supposed to represent the interests of the electorate. Most nonprofit boards are not elected by the nonprofit's volunteers, so in this way the WMF is somewhat unique (but not alone). Levivich (talk) 02:40, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

@Levivich, the volunteers don't elect the WMF's board members. It's a self-perpetuating board, and the communities and the affiliates just get to provide non-binding opinions. Go read the actual rules.

Pay particular attention to "The Board will appoint candidates who are nominated through this process, subject to Article IV, Section 3(A), and other provisions of these Bylaws". This says that the Board decides who goes on the Board. That bit about Article IV, Section 3(A) is the one that says the existing Board has a moral and legal duty to make sure that the people that they appoint are going to be good for the organization (not "represent volunteers"). "The electorate", if you want to call it that, is the Board members that actually appoint the candidates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:42, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

A few relevant quotations from "WMF Board of Trustees Candidate Pre-Onboarding":

• "Trustees are required by law not to represent one interest group against another, which would constitute a conflict of interest."
• In a section titled "Common misconceptions", it says "You might be surprised that as a Trustee: You don’t directly represent any of the communities you may be a part of".

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Too restrictive

This criteria looks too restrictive. For example, Legoktm a couple years ago was a great candidate, who had worked for the WMF, was an administrator, and was also active in other open source movements, and this criteria would disqualify him. This criteria would also disqualify many experienced community leaders such as administrators who have never been a functionary. I cannot support this in its current form, and I would urge updating or scrapping this proposal. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:31, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I also think the experience criteria are problematic because they only include a small selection of formal leadership roles, excluding many other community members and community leaders who could potentially be effective members of the board.

Here's an idea for a potential modification that I had - would be interested in hearing from you and others here if this could be an acceptable version of the governance experience criteria:

"Candidates who do not meet any of the criteria listed here could still qualify by submitting X letters of recommendation (including at least Y from community member(s) who themselves would fulfill the governance/community experience criteria) who attest to the candidate's knowledge of the Wikimedia projects and trust in the candidate's ability to effectively work with other volunteers (wording of the letter of recommendation requirements is a very rough draft)" Jackattack1597 (talk) 17:13, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it necessary to create extra hoops like this though? What types of recent candidates are we trying to filter out, and would letters of recommendation accomplish this, without over burdening good candidates? –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:13, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think the criteria are trying to filter out any recent candidates. I think they might be trying to get candidates who need less basic training in ordinary Board operations. For example, they seem to be looking for more candidates who already know how to read a balance sheet, who have a track record of protecting confidentiality and privacy, who don't think that being on the Board confers individual/personal power, or who have some experience with negotiating the wording of an official statement from the group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:08, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something I would've still been eligible under this criteria because I've been (and still am) a bureaucrat on a Wikimedia project. I agree though that adding the normal administrator role would be a good idea and at the same time I don't really understand what problem this is solving. Just let the voters decide!! Legoktm (talk) 22:55, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Last month I became admin on glk-wp, a wiki where I now have 55 edits. In my RfA, nobody supported me, but also nobody opposed me, so I got the admin flag. [1] Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 23:12, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

So? You've been on ArbCom, a CU, and ElectCom. I think you're more than qualified to run for the board! The eligibility criteria should be a low-level filtering mechanism. If an unqualified candidate slips through, that alone isn't a major issue because voters will reject them. Legoktm (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I've been a Wikimedia contributor for over two decades. I'm a top 300 new article creator in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, and have uploaded over 5,000 Commons files. But with the proposed rules, I couldn't apply to the Board.

I was a deputy board member of the longtime defunct Wikimedia Uruguay chapter. The Wikimedians in Uruguay user group (which I never joined) is not a legal entity and obviously has no employees, so there's no viable path there.

And if I ever wished to get elected as admin of the Spanish Wikipedia (currently 52), Wikidata (63) or Commons (172), it wouldn't count either.

So what's the point of kicking out people like us? Moreover, what's the point of having community-elected seats, if regular longtime contributors (or outreach volunteers, etc) can't apply? In any case, people with formal experience can already apply for a direct or affiliate seat. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:31, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

We don't have any "community-elected seats". We have a process by which the communities (including both individual volunteers [e.g., me] and affiliates [e.g., Wikimedia Deutschland]) can nominate or suggest a candidate to the Board, and the Board appoints them (or doesn't, at its discretion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:58, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's the main problem: The possible complete detachment of the board from the Wikiverse.

They have proven in the past, that they give a f*** about the people, they are supposed to represent, the communities (and that goes for all and every board member), like with Arnnon Geshuri, or the vile ditching of Doc James at the same time. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 06:59, 26 July 2026 (UTC) (I know, this is in the past, but these restriction reek a lot like the detachment from the real Wikiverse like at that time. The WMF is not the Wikiverse, it's just a burocratic body unfortunately needed for distribution of the donations.

Under the current system, I doubt that we would see the "complete detachment of the board from the Wikiverse": editors and affiliates are unlikely to recommend candidates who know nothing about the editors and the affiliates, and the Board might be embarrassed to appoint someone to a community-recommended seat over the community's objection. However, it is possible, and it would be legal.

I would rather avoid talking about individual cases, as they are always more specific and complex. However, I think we can learn things from them. For example, the first might be when the WMF learned to do a media check. A media check appears to be what disqualified one of the candidates last time (based on her public comments). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

It's reasonable to tell people the WMF Board should not be your introduction to high-level governance, but the wording is too narrow

The criteria seem to boil down to:

"we don't want the board of trustees for a major public good -- the organization responsible for maintaining one of the most important websites in the world -- to be your introduction to board-style governance, so as a bare minimum you should have some demonstrable experience being on a board, involved with some nonprofit governance, etc. even if it's unrelated to WMF. Short of that, you should at least be able to demonstrate a high level of trust for moderation via access to the most advanced permissions."

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Know a good candidate? Why can't they get involved with an affiliate, run for steward, volunteer on one of the various committees, etc., then join the bigger board in a couple years? I absolutely support increasing the role of the editing community on the board, but board governance is very different from voicing opinions on-wiki, and comes with a lot of legal obligations, bureaucracy, etc. that do seem like they're best learned at a lower level before joining the WMF board.

All of that said, I do agree that the current wording is constrictive in a way I don't think is desirable, and I think most of the objections here could be resolved by changing this existing text:

We welcome people's interest in becoming members of the Board of Trustees. We encourage those who do not meet the criteria to express their interest, consider leadership training and ways to gain relevant experience in order to be eligible in the future.

to something like this:

In rare cases, experience outside of the desired timeframe or roles not named here can provide sufficient evidence of governance experience and community trust to qualify, to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. We encourage those who do not meet the criteria to express their interest, consider leadership training and ways to gain relevant experience in order to be eligible in the future.

Those cases might be tricky, but I'm sure the folks on the board can imagine highly qualified candidates that don't meet the strict bounds of these criteria. My impression from the wording is the board really wants the criteria to be clear/binary for the sake of accountability, and adding a "case-by-case" clause does get away from a purely objective measure, but at least it constrains the outcomes of the "case-by-caseness" to "the governance experience you provided was not at the level we expect for the WMF board" -- something actionable/improvable rather than an opaque overall denial.

Getting into concrete examples is useful for discussion, I suppose, even if it's unrealistic for the board to comment on specifics. IMO Bluerasberry is a great example of someone who has a ton of knowledge about nonprofit governance, helping out various boards even when he hasn't formally been a member. Legoktm, mentioned by Novem above, is another great example of someone who can show governance knowledge, experience, and trust from multiple organizations/communities and at multiple levels. If either of them were to be disqualified, it certainly shouldn't be for "governance experience" reasons, and the criteria should reflect that.

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:23, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I find it odd that global sysop and bureaucrat qualify, but sysop does not. These all seem to be in the same category to me. It makes me wonder if we are reading the motivation correctly. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:16, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

If I had to hazard a guess, it would be because enwp's RfA process, with its high degree of participation and scrutiny, does not reflect every project, and thus adminship on a tiny wiki may not signify nearly as much in terms of trust and experience. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:46, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Ditto cratship on a tiny wiki, though, especially ones that were given crats before MVR. Ditto crathsip on MediaWiki.org which makes many developers ex officio crats. And I'll meet these criteria starting in November 2026 (although I have no plans to run for the board) based on my MediaWiki.org cratship. And even though my role there isn't ex officio and I do make frequent use of that right there to promote new admins it's primarily a mechanical role with no judgement involved and I think it says quite a lot less about my suitability for board than my experience on enwiki does. * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 19:48, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I hold crat rights on wikimaniawiki, but it certainly does not lend much credibility given that the admin role assignment is generally an once a year affair there (with the changing of COT each year). Robertsky (talk) 20:41, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Yep, that's entirely fair. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:16, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Strongly agree, though I'd say it may be both too narrow and too broad, in line with Pppery's reply above.

A number of people have complained about overly restricting the number of people eligible, but I assume that is intentional, and part of the stated goal of Reduced need for shortlisting. See also Barkeep49's proposal last month which involved a different approach but the same effect. It's difficult to predict how many candidates would actually materialize under X set of eligibility criteria though, so it might be better to just let the community handle shortlisting itself through whatever mechanism.

I think the bigger question is what kind of experience is necessary to be an effective trustee for the community? I would argue arbitration and dispute resolution matters a lot more than what tools someone has, just as good judgement matters a lot more than edit count for prospective admins. In both cases, it's easy to focus too much on the more quantifiable and "objective" metric. Rutebega (talk) 20:42, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

bigger question is what kind of experience is necessary to be an effective trustee for the community - It's a good question, and one that I haven't see addressed directly. So an idea for current and/or past board members: what's your "day in the life of a WMF board member"? What kinds of activities are required, practically (not abstractly like "fiduciary responsibility")? What skills or personality traits make for a good board member? What can be learned "on the job" and what cannot (or should not)? Maybe someone at the Signpost can solicit responses from a half dozen past or current board members and compile them in an upcoming issue? That might help to fill in the "why we have these requirements" and it's an activity that doesn't require disclosing any sensitive information or getting into the weeds about specific candidates. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:16, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites, I like your idea of a general outline that says nothing about any specific candidate. I'd be interested in hearing what was particularly hard (a friend rejecting you? Understanding how being a Board member is different from having personal power? Maintaining confidentiality when critics are telling half of a story? Understanding finances, how laws differ between countries, technical jargon?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Since excluding Lane is one of the issues that started this whole controversy, I think it is obvious that any criteria which excludes Lane should not be the proposed criteria. Czarking0 (talk) 00:45, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

If our CEO doesn't need prior CEO experience to be CEO, then why should Board members need prior Board experience? Levivich (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, but I cannot support this

Let me preface this by saying that, while I have disagreed with the WMF on a few things recently, I want to see them succeed in general and hope that the WMF and the community can one day have a better relationship.

That said, while I can understand the thought process, this proposal is a step in the wrong direction. Like has been said by Levivich, the WMF itself already appoints roughly half of the board itself, and that represents board experience. What we need to see more representation of is the community and its perspective on issues. Limiting eligibility for the community seats in the proposed manner will have the opposite effect.

First of all, the criteria themselves are rough. Board members and members of Affiliate Boards are already insiders and are taken from a small subset of the community. Including ArbCom was a very good decision, of course, but not sufficient by itself. Finally, crats, CUs, and oversighters are trusted positions, but they do not correlate to leadership, and I am wary of encouraging people who don't plan to use CU/OS tools to request them for the purposes of becoming eligible for the election.

It also excludes leadership positions that are less programmed-in than the aforementioned but more indicative of leadership experience. I'll be writing this part from an enwiki perspective, of course. Positions like the Featured Article Coordinators who run the FA process, and the Editor-in-Chief of The Signpost who runs the English Wikipedia's internal newspaper, demonstrate actual experience in leadership to a higher degree than crats and oversighters, which are more technical positions. If this proposal is to go forward, there should at least be a clause saying that unlisted positions can be considered by the Board on a case-by-case basis.

However, I find there to be a more pressing issue at hand, and it is the reason I would support dropping this entirely over a mere amendment (although the amendment would be acceptable as a compromise). The elected slots in question are the representatives of the community in governance. They are how the community makes its voice heard in executive decisions. Limiting the community's choice to a small subset of people in high-up positions approved by the existing decision-makers has the effect of telling the community that they can only make their voice heard if it's a WMF-approved voice. Restricting our representation in this way would do further damage to the already-strained relationship between the WMF and the community. I don't want to see that happen, so I will end with this request to the WMF: please, for the good of the community, do not proceed with this proposal.

Thanks, QuicoleJR (talk) 18:42, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's true that "The elected slots in question are the representatives of the community". For example, the bylaws say "The Board shall be composed of Trustees with a diverse set of talents, experience, backgrounds, and competencies that will best fulfill the mission and needs of the Foundation, as determined by the Board". They say nothing about Board members "representing editors" or "supporting the online communities" or other terms we use to describe advancing the goals of individual volunteers. In fact, we have forced Board members to resign from affiliate boards and other groups, and the reason we've given for this (for at least 15 years) is to make clear to both voters and Board members that if the president of the "Wikimedia Chapter X" or a prominent member of the "$language Wikipedia" gets elected to the WMF Board, that person is not supposed to act like "the Board member representing the X community"; they are supposed to support the WMF and its global goals.

Perhaps that's something that should be the subject of an educational campaign before candidates are encouraged to apply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:14, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Community election versus community representation

I boycotted the election last time (I tried a write-in vote for Fram and WSC, but I assume this was not counted). What I am looking for is not the ability to vote in an election among people pre-selected by the PartyWMF, but I am looking for the best possible community representation on the Board. We have an extremely diverse, international and highly capable community; the proposed criteria will make it difficult to get any of that diversity represented on the Board. Please go back to the drawing board: with extremely limited and pre-vetted candidates, the elections become worthless. I am also more and more convinced that a US nonprofit is a poor choice of governance model for an organisation supporting a movement that is as extremely international as ours and would appreciate reforms that move away from this model, not attempts to streamline the Board membership to fit with that previously made poor choice. Kusma (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Additional eligibility criteria suggestion: 10,000 edits x 3 = community/governance experience

I suggest adding one additional eligibility criteria. Call it a 10, 10, 10 Standard. If a User is in good standing with 10,000+ edits on Wikidata, 10,000+ edits on Commons, and 10,000+ edits on a Wikipedia project, that should count for governance and community experience. If they can make it to 10k in three different projects without any issues, they are highly likely to be experienced in community and governance dynamics. Under this proposal, a relatively small number of highly experienced Wikimedians would be additionally eligible to run for the board in addition to those currently allowed by the proposed guidelines. I believe this would address issues of exclusion that @Novem Linguae, @Rhododendrites, @Clovermoss, and others brought up above. - Wil540 art (talk) 19:20, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

10K edits on Wikidata? That seems like kind of a niche area from my perspective, i.e. it could be overly restrictive. Is there a way to get statistics on how many Wikidata users have passed the 10K threshold? (Disclosure: I have >40,000 enwiki edits, 427 Commons edits, and 89 Wikidata edits.) — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 19:45, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

It adds a small group, intentionally so. Making 10k edits on three different projects requires dedication, flexibility, and commitment.

I don’t have the data but I imagine it’s less than 50 people who would reach the 10 10 10 standard. - Wil540 art (talk) 19:54, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

10k edits on Wikidata is a grave misunderstanding of Wikidata's mission. Since it's a machine-readable database it's very pointless to have such limits – it would only take a night of adding any attribute to a few thousand items automatically. And most of my WD edits are either from creating or removing interwiki links since I'd find it distasteful to run automatic tools from my account on such projects. Best, A09|(pogovor) 21:02, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I see Wikidata is a sticking point. What if we broaden the criteria slightly to 10k on Commons + 2 other projects or 10k on any three Wikimedia projects? - Wil540 art (talk) 21:05, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it'd prove any understanding of the community since you can dwelve on about any project and just do categorisation work and come to similar numbers in a few years. Edit count doesn't indicate the "governance experience" WMF is so eager to re-orientate after – actually I've seen more bad takes by users with thousands of edits than those with a few tens (bar complete newcomers). A09|(pogovor) 21:14, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Only 69 Edits left on commons for you to qualify Special:CentralAuth/Wil540_art. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 20:16, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

That was on my mind, thanks for bringing it up. I should have made this disclosure and a COI pledge with the proposal.

(Disclosure: I have >12,000 enwiki edits, 11,700 Commons edits, and 9,931 Wikidata edits.) I acknowledge this makes me close to eligible by my purposed criteria. This is not motivating the proposal. I pledge not to pursue a WMF board seat, now or in the future, to avoid any appearance of a COI on this proposal and others. I have never intended to run for a WMF board seat. Additionally, if I wanted to run, which I don't, I think I would have been eligible via my 2 + years on the Wikimedia NYC board.

Can someone generate a list of the users my proposal would make eligible or point me in the direction of how I can do so? - Wil540 art (talk) 20:48, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

10k on Wikidata, no thank you Isderion (talk) 19:14, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I do like the idea of having been active on multiple WMF projects as one of several qualification routes for a candidate. But I don't think we should be specific about any one project. Wikidata, commons or Wikipedia, and I don't think it should be three equal counts. Looking at my own Special:CentralAuth/WereSpielChequers I wouldn't pass that 10, 10, 10 test now as I only have 143 edits on Wikidata, and certainly not when I was a WMF candidate. But I would have passed the test of over 10,000 edits on two different WMF Wikis and over 1,000 on a third and indeed a fourth. That said, I'm not sure people on either WikiVoyage or WikiBooks would regard me as a member of their communities just because I've fixed some typos there. How about a 1k,1k,1k, admin/FA test? 1,000 global edits in the last 12 months, 1,000 global edits on at least 3 WMF wikis, and one wiki where you have either elected wikirights, functionary wikirights, or featured content. I would pass under that test, and I suspect many others would. If you want 10k, then if we include other accounts such as Special:CentralAuth/Jonathan_Cardy_(WMUK) I think I just about meet the criteria of 10k edits on at least two different wikis (or phabricator) within the movement and 10k across wikis other than your two main ones. WereSpielChequers (talk) 06:19, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

FA is content and project-specific badge so I'd oppose that as well. You can't have an FA on Wikiquote, and having an FA doesn't show expertise in the movement policies or affiliate experience. Can't argue against other listings. A09|(pogovor) 12:39, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

There is about 1100 users with 10k+ edits in Wikidata, Commons and any other wikimedia projects. Clovermoss, Novem Linguae and Rhododendrites have only 10+ edits in two projects (usually local wiki + wikidata) --Zache-test (talk) 21:54, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

OK this test might have lots of candidates. Though I wonder how many of those are currently active (say 500 global edits in the last 12 months). But are you measuring 10,000 edits in any two Wikimedia projects or 10,000 in Wikidata and 10,000 Commons and also one other project? I'd personally meet the test of 10,000 in Commons and 10,000 in another Wiki (for me EN Wikipedia). If we use edit count, (itself a flawed metric, I'm sure there are people with a million fewer edits than me who have spent more time editing), we shouldn't insist that every candidate have been active in any one project, whether that one project is Wikidata, Commons or Wikipedia. If we were looking for a candidate for a by election, and we didn't currently have a board member with significant involvement in a particular project, then I could see a case for saying that for this particular election we want candidates who are active in that project. In a normal election where we have four vacancies, I could see a case for making sure that there was at least one candidate in the election who was active in Commons, Wikibooks, Wikipedia, Wikidata, WikiSource, WikiVoyage, Wikispecies etc, and a diverse group of four Wikimedians would hopefully cover most of these, even if no individual was active in more than three projects. I think that would be better than insisting that all "community" members were active in the same two community projects. WereSpielChequers (talk) 05:58, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Global sysop but not sysop

One of the criteria listed says that one should be a member of a group.... Global sysops are mentioned but local sysops aren't. Should sysops be included, or global sysops be excluded, because both can't co-exist at once. ToadetteEdit (talk) 21:53, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

The two criteria can exist side-by-side, if they so choose. They can keep the "global sysops" bullet and add a "local sysops" bullet.

A Wikimedian can be a member of both user groups (global sysop and local sysops), just one of them, or neither of them. There is nothing mutually exclusive.

I would support adding a "local sysops" bullet. Without it, we are excluding many community members with leadership experience, which is likely to result in a board that is not representative of the community that elects it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

At some of the tiny wikis, it's very, very easy to become an admin. It's not always even necessary to speak the local language, or even to have made 100 (one hundred) edits there. I would not support this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Currently, no GS-sysop isn't a local sysop elsewhere and these groups aren't exclusive nor should become one. A09|(pogovor) 12:44, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

If you also add a test of "currently active", as measured by 500 global edits in the last 12 months, you would rule out lots of sysops on the English Wikipedia and I suspect a lot of people on other projects as well. I doubt that anyone would stand for a trusteeship as a community candidate if they hadn't saved 500 edits in the last 12 months, but if you are counting how many people could potentially be candidates, I think you should filter out people who are inactive or not very active. WereSpielChequers (talk) 06:11, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Abolishing the Board of Trustees -- that would be more honest

The Board of Trustees selects 50% of its membership without any community or other legitimate oversight. Why not just abolish the community-vote altogether and end the charade of being democratic? That would be more honest, than the arbitrary restrictions on community candidates or opaque vetting processes that eliminated candidates before the community could opine. I naively thought the appointed Board of Trustees were meant to fill the gaps that community seats left, not to sabotage the community. Shushugah (talk) 22:35, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

i also support dissolving the board, who seem to collectively dodge the will of the community. ltbdl (talk) 06:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

+1. Let's end the game. It's not fun anymore. — L'embellie @ 10:37, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

"Abolish the board" is an obvious non-starter position. And abolishing the community vote would make it difficult to restore on fair terms. If you have a democracy in trouble, you don't just give in to the autocrats and let them abolish elections. Now, might there be campaigns of election boycotting? Sure. But outright abolishing elections is very counterproductive. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:29, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Preliminary ruling on my eligibility under criterion 5

I've been rather curious about this criterion, which has changed significantly since the 2025 version:

old (emphasis mine):

> You must not have been removed from a position at a non-profit organization or company because of mismanagement or misconduct;

new (emphasis mine):

> 5. Have not been removed for cause or departed after inappropriate conduct as a staff or Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Endowment, or other Wikimedia affiliates

Is "inappropriate conduct" things like embezzlement or sexual harassment? Or would that include things like "management said your emails critical of management were unprofessional"?

I'd hate to get all the way to the 2027 elections and discover this phrasing was tuned to exclude me for my internal activism while at WMF. I would like to ask for a preliminary ruling on my eligibility under this criterion; I'd be happy to share any information about my case with the elections committee privately. brooke (talk) 08:18, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

•  Support I support this request by Brooke Vibber. The request is voluntary and public. Boud (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree that inappropriate conduct is too vague. Czarking0 (talk) 00:41, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd like to see to re-orientate "inappropriate conduct" with U4C guidelines as we all have to follow them and also excludes largely subjective judgments like "overly-critical emails" that cannot be properly vetted by the community. Definitely sounds like corporation-speaking. A09|(pogovor) 12:42, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that limiting this to the Universal Code of Conduct is sufficient. The UCoC is primarily concerned about inappropriate communication, and we also want some candidates excluded for non-speech problems. Setting the office on fire wouldn't be a UCoC violation, for example, but we don't want convicted arsonists on the Board.

Despite my sympathy for the instant case, I do think that when the communication between a staff or Board member and "management" has deteriorated to the point that someone leaves their job on bad terms, that person – even if I believe they were 100% correct and 100% justified in every word they ever said – will unfortunately be ineffective at the job of working with the WMF's "management", which is the Board's main activity.

Thinking outside the instant case, I'd suggest that long-time Wikimedians think about some of the individuals formerly in "management" whom they would never, ever want to see on the Board because of their behavior, and ask yourself what descriptive language you would use to exclude them. "Inappropriate conduct" seems to me to cover all of them. "Not eligible for rehire" would probably work, too, though it might not be broad enough. "Would be a public-relations disaster" would cover at least two. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:19, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

A suggestion for a simple condition: Former employees of the WMF should be excluded. This would avoid having shills for the WMF and those who have an axe to grind. Tough for a potential candidate who is neither one nor the other, but at least it's a bright line. Kudpung (talk) 23:59, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

If you put a time limit (such as 5 or 10 years) on that, rather than a lifetime ban, I might support that. OTOH there are several current and former staff from WMF Legal that I'd be happy to see turn into Board members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

This criterion seems to be extremely difficult to apply, as most organisations (and potentially individuals too) will probably be prevented from sharing the circumstances of someone's departure. Is the WMF willing di waive its own NDAs for the purpose of third-party verification of departures from the WMF? Has a legal review been conducted on what jurisdictions would make such a third-party review difficult or impossible? Nemo 13:01, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Nodding sagely... I talked briefly with Kathy at the Wikimania session on board election reform, and she confirmed that a) she had received my request and b) that answering it clearly may be difficult due to "legal questions".

So if I don't get a clear answer, I'll assume that it lands somewhere in "running would require forcing an awkward conversation" territory, and make my decision on whether to try running (and thus forcing that conversation) based on how difficult that looks to resolve and what I'm trying to accomplish by running, versus what I could accomplish by endorsing someone else with a simpler eligibility profile. :) brooke (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Will there be a shortlisting process in the next election?

To be honest, I don't really have any objections to this proposal, because the issue of the last election wasn't the eligibility criteria, but rather that WMF disqualified some candidates without providing compelling reasons. Even if we establish reasonable eligibility criteria this time, how can we ensure that qualified candidates won't be removed from list for unreasonable reasons? Steven Sun (talk) 13:42, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

@Steven Sun, did you see what @WereSpielChequers wrote in #Public Vetting is wrong below?

Imagine that someone was disqualified, and the reason was personal, such as a criminal conviction for drunk driving. Or they've been lying about where they live, to protect their own safety. Or maybe they posted inappropriate comments on social media. Maybe they have financial problems, which could make them a corruption and bribery risk. Or maybe they live in a corrupt place, and if they're elected, they could get kidnapped. Do you think it would be fair to the individual to have that personal information posted in public on the internet forever?

I think we cannot have public information about why anyone is disqualified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Would board appointed seats also have to pass these requirements?

Czarking0 (talk) 00:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

@Czarking0: Affiliates get to show their "governance experience" (this is supposedly the rationale to limiting candidiates to functionaries) in other ways, although I don't remember the exact requirements from the board reform session by the trustees. Maybe someone else who attended does. The session wasn't recorded, which is typical of these things, to my long-term frustration. I would like to assume board-appointed candidates would have whatever they're looking for in that sense by design given that that's supposed to be the point of the appointed seats to begin with. Clovermoss (talk) 18:17, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Served in one of the following positions on a Wikimedia project...

... like A member of one of the Arbitration Committees, Global Sysop, Steward, Bureaucrat, CheckUser, Oversighter. Not sure why that should be a criterion. First the skills for those roles don't really correlate with skills required to supervise a large organization; secondly the chance of getting one of those roles differs widely depending on the project. Isderion (talk) 20:07, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

On the other hand we cannot have clearly unexperienced folks running for the highest office in the broader WM community. I am glad to see this being a criteria as it limits users with clear CIR issues running for other positions (ie. U4C) elsewhere. A09|(pogovor) 12:47, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Overall the criteria seem to be too exclusive.

My criticism with the above-mentioned criterion is also that it would exclude a lot of good people. You can do a lot of good in a Wikimedia project and don't want to get one of the above-mentioned roles. It's not a RPG where you automatically advance to one of those roles eventually. ;) Isderion (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Sysop only is way too low of a bar, IMO. Heaps of problematic sysops I know from all kinds of projects that I don't think would be a particularly good fit for what is the highest office. //shb (t • c) 00:14, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Public Vetting is wrong

If you apply for a post and are rejected by some sort of vetting you should be entitled to that being confidential, not listed on some public website where it could be an obvious question at job interviews decades later. Elections are different, I first stood for public office in 1986, I can't remember that result ever coming up in a job interview nor would anyone be bothered that I lost an election decades ago. Losing a vote is something clear and understood. Being vetted for vague reasons when the vetting could be for serious criminal things but wasn't in the two cases last year? That's a big deal that could be a problem for the rest of someone's life. If we are vetting candidates, especially vetting candidates not just for fraud and some global issue such as our UCOC but for acceptability under some very corporate USA specific criteria, then that step needs to be before candidates are publicly listed. I.E. it needs to be a process where the candidate can email a designated WMF account and either get the reply sorry you don't meet the criteria 800 edits in 6 months is insufficient for this year's election; or yes you meet the criteria and we are vetting you and your vetting result is x. I have concerns as to what the vetting looks for, but even if the vetting was entirely a legit process, it needs to be before someone is known to be standing. There are plenty of jobs I have applied for in the last 45 years, but if I get rejected it is private between me and the organisation concerned, any pre appointment vetting in our system needs to be on the same basis. WereSpielChequers (talk) 07:30, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

While you have a point I don't think the community has enough trust left in the board to respect "somebody isn't qualified but we can't tell you why" without a riot. Pppery (alt) (talk) 00:19, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

I think that most of the community does accept this, and I think that more people would accept it if we did a better job of advertising the reasons for the impersonal decision to protect candidates' privacy. Consider, e.g., the fact that when someone is banned via office action, almost nobody says "I can't trust this WMF ban on this Commons user, because they didn't prove to me that it was necessary", and those few who do are considered naïve by the rest of us, since we know that sometimes that silence means "and the user won't need this account anyway, because they were arrested this morning". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:42, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

Risk of amplifying gender inequalities in governance

While the proposed eligibility criteria for new trustees include different forms of governance and community experience, it's important to note that the latest Community Insights Survey states that "Women were less well represented among Admins, of whom only 7% identified as women." Is there similar data on the participation of women and gender-diverse Wikimedians across the other eligibility categories, such as committee service?

More importantly, how was the risk of reinforcing the Wikimedia movement's long-standing gender gap in participation considered and addressed during the development of this proposal?

Finally, systemic issues should be treated as such. The question is not whether individual women have managed to overcome structural barriers and be elected to the WMF Board of Trustees, but how those barriers continue to shape participation and governance across the movement as a whole.

(resharing: this comment/question was posted on Wikimedia-l on July 21st, 2026)

Contaminadas (talk) 11:25, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Fails utterly

So the logic provided for wasting money on Abstract Wiki is that it can help outside the Global North and that the RFC is too focused on the Global North. However the very first requirement is that they be fluent in English? Please explain why someone who is poor, but passable in English can't participate, or why English even comes into play here? There's no reason for that. What you also ban deaf people who can't communicate via audio, or someone like Stephen Hawking who would be slow to respond in real-time conversations due to needing an interface? Just hire a translator.

As for experience: 1, 4, and 5 need dropped. Don't want WMF stuffing. Show you're a member of the community. Jerodlycett (talk) 10:08, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I would agree with 5, but the English requirement is ok. The elected person needs to communicate with fellow trustees and senior WMF staff and this will happen in English as the de facto lingua franca. The point about persons with handicap is valid though and I would welcome a clarification in that regard. Isderion (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't define a particular level of fluency. I'm "fluent" in German at the CEFR A2 level. Would you call that "passable"?

At the most, I'd add a comment or a note somewhere that explains how Board members use English. My guess is that the main uses are:

• reading documents and e-mail messages in English (sometimes including technical or legal terminology),
• speaking in individual and group discussions in English (including all-day meetings and unplanned discussions), and
• listening to what others say in English (without needing frequent repetitions, explanations in simpler language, or pausing the discussion to use translation tools).

The reason this matters is because a person who can't communicate easily in the shared language usually withdraws from conversations ("I'm so tired after spending all day listening to English that it's not worth figuring out how to say my idea...") or gets left out by others ("Conversations with him are so slow because he has to look up so many words to understand what I'm saying. I think I'll talk to someone else instead"), so they end up being ineffective in the role. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

So, someone like me, who is nearly deaf and worsening should also be disqualified by that, as I will eventually require an interpreter.

As for fluency what you linked to is about proficiency, that's my issue. From en:fluency "someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears fluid, or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use." From that link I'd say you (assuming you've been tested and shown at the A2 level) do have poor but passable German. You can understand and be understood.

My main issue with it is representation. If we're limiting it to those who can speak highly proficient English then we're sort of pushing it towards native speakers. Jerodlycett (talk) 00:56, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think they want to exclude Deaf or blind people. Becoming hard of hearing doesn't interfere at all with reading documents and e-mail messages in English, so you're set for the first use of English. I think you have a realistic understanding of the challenges for spoken English.

BTW, if you haven't found Deaf Wikimedians and w:en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Deaf yet, I'm sure these small groups would appreciate having another knowledgeable person around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

AFAIK, US employers can stipulate a minimum level of English proficiency in job ads, provided the requirement is directly tied to the effective performance of the specific position. Under guidelines from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), language rules must be justified by business necessity and assessed on a case-by-case basis. Under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)the appropriate international language level for a senior executive role is considered to be C1 (Advanced/very near native) or C2 (Proficient/near native). The CEFR criteria are widely used outside Europe . However, the real or video job interview does not rule out whatever decision the interviewer(s) might reach and their reasons for not hiring. Kudpung (talk) 07:47, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Wie viele Sprachen sind das Minimum?

OK, Englisch wurde genannt, aber das ist ja nur eine unter vielen Sprachen des Wikiversums, fließend Englisch zu sprechen ist nett, aber nicht mal ansatzweise hinreichend. Das hier ist ein internationales, multilinguales Projekt, also finde ich, dass ein Minimalkriterium für gesprochene Sprachen mindestens auf einem gehobenen Smalltalk-Level wichtiger ist als besonders flüssiges Englisch.
Monolinguale Anglophone sind in jedem Fall vollkommen ungeeignet. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:03, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

How many languages are required?
OK, you mentioned English, but that's just one of many languages in the Wikiverse, being fluent in English is nice, but not even remotely enough. This is an international, multilingual enterprise, so I think minimum requirement for languages spoken on a level sufficient for talking comfortably with other Wikimedians is more important then very fluent English.
Monolingual Anglophones are for me a complete no-go. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 15:03, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Die WMF erfordern das nicht, aber ich hoffe, dass die Wähler mehrsprachige Kandidaten wählen.

(The WMF isn't requiring this, but I hope that voters will choose multilingual candidates.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Wenn ich diese Antwort so ansehe, scheinen einige Boardmitglieder keine Probleme mit einer derart massiven Eingeschränktheit zu haben. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 07:32, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

If I look at this answer, some board members seem to have no problem with such a massive limitations. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 07:32, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The bureaucrats problem

I appreciate the fact that bureaucrats were included in the eligible community roles, because that expands the list of potential candidates, and particularly expands it into communities that operate in non-English contexts.

However, 'crat roles were handled very differently at the Spanish-language Wikipedia.

• At the English Wikipedia, there are 15 bureaucrats (out of 816 admins).
• At the German-language Wikipedia, there are 4 bureaucrats (out of 161 admins).
• At the French Wikipedia, there are 6 bureaucrats (out of 145 admins).
• At the Spanish Wikipedia, there are 45 bureaucrats (out of just 52 admins).

Those last three wikis are all about the same size into terms of the number of editors, but eswiki has roughly 10 times as many bureaucrats as would be expected. In fact, looking at the 10 biggest Wikipedias by active user count, that one Wikipedia has almost as many 'crats as dewiki (4), frwiki (6), itwiki (5), jawiki (5), ruwiki (4), zhwiki (8), ptwiki (9) and Commons (6) combined.

I don't exactly object – Spanish is the second largest native language in the world, so having a Spanish speaker on the Board would be appropriate for a global movement like ours – but I think we should acknowledge that this difference exists and that even though it has the desirable effect of including more people, ineligible candidates from some other communities might see it as unfair to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

that is basically what I wrote above in #Served in one of the following positions on a Wikimedia project... ("the chance of getting one of those roles differs widely depending on the project"), but you proofed it with the example of the bureaucrats Isderion (talk) 21:43, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: On eswiki, sysops are also bureaucrats and are referred to as bibliotecarios ("librarians"). With the exception of a system account, all those who aren't bureaucrats were automatically removed from the group for not having 2FA enabled. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 22:30, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with this, though I don't exactly know what the solution should be for eswiki and iswiki, where bureaucrat by default is given to all sysops. //shb (t • c) 00:12, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Solutions for bias against the editing community

The community seats should be a reflection of both the editing community and the affiliates. The proposed rules seem to build in an inadvertent bias towards affiliates. The overall pool of people that are eligible via either route may seem similar, but the pool of willing folks from either stream is likely very different. When you've been on a board already, it's more likely you'd volunteer for a different board position. Being e.g. a checkuser (a technical role) or a bureaucrat (a minor role) does not correlate much with willingness to stand for the board, nor the skills needed.

Editors with skills of tact and governance required for the board are likely those who navigate difficult discussions, who tend to close discussions, who steward processes of policy changes through difficult communities and who have a good understanding of the inner workings of the Foundation. These skills are often present in Arbcoms. But these skills are also present in many without any extended rights and admins.

There are many ways to include suitable editors (or suitable admins) without enlarging the pool with inexperienced admins.

1. My preferred option is to require endorsements from communities. That is, if you do not have the obvious governance experience from listed roles, you should first get 25 endorsements from established users, perhaps outside of your homewiki.
2. An option that is simpler, but gameable, is to require admins to have at least 5,000 or 10,000 edits. That excludes admins that are relatively new to the movement, even if edit count is a very imperfect measure.
3. A final option, and perhaps the most complicated, is to make the requirements for admins hybrid. That is, admins are only eligible if they've been on a board of an organisation with a budget of at least say half a millionwith a size of at least 0.5% of WMF.

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:03, 26 July 2026 (UTC), amended 17:07, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Hi Femke, good ideas, but can we not make the test of organisational side financial. Half a million, whether you are talking Pounds Stirling, Euros or US dollars goes a lot further in some parts of the world than others, I would suggest Full Time Employee equivalents (FTEs), but including any full or part time Wikimedians in residence who are supported by the chapter. By support I mean anything from the chapter mentoring them and having a member on the interview panel to the chapter part funding the role. WereSpielChequers (talk) 09:33, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I quite like option 1 – with the caveat that the endorsements are from regular community members outside your home wiki, not just anyone (maybe a defined edit count, like 500 local edits?). //shb (t • c) 09:41, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Fully agree that the size thing should be measured in a more fair way. I've amended to be similar to the wording about the "10%" for people outside of the movement to be eligible (it's a strange one as a criterion anyway, as these are meant to be community seats). That means if either budget or staffing is at that size, it counts. Some organisations might be almost fully volunteer-run, and FTEs might underplay how big they are and how much experience they have. Fully agree these endorsements should be from established users. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:07, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't like any of these.

Your #1 is biased towards larger communities, since endorsements are generally based on personal connections, and a lot of the wikis don't have 25 "established users". In other cases, a disreputable "unblockable" could find 25 "established users" who would endorse them. Think about the enwiki admin who was a sock of a banned editor: they probably could have found 25 "established users" to endorse them. Additionally, it's very susceptible to short-term, single-issue thinking: Endorse me, and I will force the WMF to change this policy/software/decision/fundraising banner that we're all mad about this week!

For #2, it's very easily gamed, especially for an editor with some moderate technical skills. I could be an admin at htwiki just for the asking, and I could easily make 42,000 edits with a simple script there (to move a template from the top of an article to the bottom).

About #3, an organization that is 0.5% the size of the WMF has just three or four employees. That's not very useful for understanding how a medium-sized organization works. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

These are low criteria on purpose. I understand that the previous criteria may have been too loose, leading to a high number of unsuitable candidates, but this is an overreaction imo excluding too many folks. If you take your experience with governance on Wikipedia, around writing policies and guidelines, that is much more relevant than the experience of a bureaucrat in a project without reconfirmation who no longer does crat business.

The criteria 3 is still stricter than what the affiliates need: being on the board with at least 1 FTE of paid staff. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:06, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The experience that would be more relevant for me being on the board is that I've spent half of my adult life dealing with non-profit boards. I'm happy to provide feedback on proposals such as this one, but I'm not joining any more boards, thanks.

Speaking of the fact that policy writing is hard, the "1 FTE of paid staff" is unclear. The proposal says the affiliate needs to be "employing full-time staff", and it's unclear whether two half-time staff = one full-time equivalent for the purpose of this rule, or if they actually mean having at least one (or even more than one) full-time staff member. The requirement should be clarified to avoid disputes over eligibility.

(It also matters in a changes-your-perspective way:

Having "1 FTE" in a volunteer-driven environment could mean paying a couple of people a tiny bit of money, knowing that these 'employees' are not relying on this income to feed their families, and that they would probably do the work as a volunteer if the funding went away. This can be a stage between an all-volunteer organization and a professionalized one. This gives the board, e.g., some familiarity with labor laws and practical experience with organizing a budget, but it doesn't engender a sense that people are relying on you for their livelihood.

Having a "full-time employee" usually means that the organization is 100% responsible for whether the employee's livelihood, which gives you a different perspective. As an former co-worker said to me years ago, in most small non-profits, the easiest way to turn someone into a fundraiser is to make them do the bookkeeping, so they know exactly how little money is available, and precisely how soon you'll have to fire the one employee if the next fundraiser falls through.

Knowing which one they pick could tell us something about what their hope is with this requirement.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Proposed eligibility criteria

This appears to be yet another step in the wrong direction.

As anyone who has ever had a job knows, being a suitable candidate on paper and performing well in a role are often (usually?) not correlated.

The proposed criteria select for bureaucratic experience, not for the qualities that actually make a good trustee.

I strongly agree with Novem Linguae and others that the criteria are too restrictive. The best course of action would be to scrap this proposal or edit it to address the valid concerns raised.

As Sohom Datta pointed out, the community asked the board to allow more mission-aligned people to run.

The board has responded by retaining the heavily criticized shortlisting and vetting processes with an extremely restrictive set of eligibility criteria that further limits who can run in the first place.

Community-appointed (not just selected) trustees should be the majority on the board.

If the board continues down this path, it is abandoning its mission. Polygnotus (talk) 10:31, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I am also slightly confused that these proposed criteria do not even acknowledge or attempt to prevent what actually went wrong in 2025. The board removed two shortlisted candidates from the ballot days before voting began, based on misinformation and faulty reasoning, including Victoria Doronina's public characterization of a candidate's call for financial transparency as intent to leak confidential information.

The proposed criteria impose ever more restrictions on who can run, but contain nothing to prevent the board from repeating the same behavior: no limits on last-minute disqualifications, no independent oversight of the vetting process, no requirement that removal decisions be explained in a substantive and timely way. The problem in 2025 was not that the candidates were unqualified. The problem was the board's and specifically Victoria Doronina's conduct. Polygnotus (talk) 11:58, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

See #Public Vetting is wrong above.

Imagine (this is completely hypothetical) that a bureaucrat offers to serve on the Board. His real name and employer is not known to the community. During the vetting process, the WMF discovers that this person is a manager at an AI company, and – in their corporate social media accounts, but carefully separated from the movement – they have advocated for goals that would help the AI company but that most editors would disagree with. Let's say he thinks AI-generated content should be strongly encouraged in Wikipedia and that his job is to lobby legislatures to re-write their copyright laws to permit AI-generated derivatives of anything. The WMF has some reason to believe that his employer is hopeful that they, or their industry in general, could gain an advantage if he is appointed to the Board.

This would be very bad, right? But a "substantive" explanation would require the WMF to doxx the editor, which would violate the Universal Code of Conduct (3.1 and elsewhere) and other policies.

Or imagine a more benign scenario: The candidate is 17 years old. A "substantive" explanation would be that the candidate did not meet the age requirement. But it would be very bad, and in several countries potentially illegal, to post in public that a given user is a minor.

We cannot both protect a user's privacy and also give substantive explanations about why that user's private information makes them ineligible or unsuitable for serving on the Board. Sometimes we have to pick either privacy or public explanations. The movement has picked privacy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. What I mean is that the board should be required to explain potential future election removal decisions in a substantive and timely way to the candidate.

The community is, generally speaking, not interested in people's private information. But candidates deserve to be told in some detail and in advance (not 2 seconds before an election) "sorry, this is not gonna work, because... %insert reason(s) here%". Polygnotus (talk) 20:25, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think this should be always true.

I also don't think that editors should be gullible enough to believe candidates who publicly tell us that they did not receive a private explanation, or that the explanation wasn't "substantive".

I'm sure you've seen this sort of exchange on wiki:

• Spammer: I think you've blocked me just because you don't like me.
• Admin: I'm blocking you because you blatantly violated six different policies to spam garbage about this company into dozens of Wikipedia articles.
• Spammer: That terrible, horrible, no-good, very biased admin blocked me only because he doesn't like me! He had no valid reason to block me.

This has happened (within my own knowledge) with blocks, community bans, enwiki ArbCom bans, grant restrictions, and even office bans (though in the last case, the policy says that information "may" be given to the banned user, which means that it sometimes "may not" be given, so the claim of not providing a reason could be true there).

I therefore think it is reasonable for us to assume that a similar thing could happen with a board candidate:

• Candidate, privately: I think you're disqualifying me because you don't like me.
• Board, privately: We're disqualifying you because you're involved in four separate lawsuits involving your prior Board experience and also being investigated by the police. Also, that gap in your editing history a few years ago was because you were in jail for drunk driving. We won't post the evidence on wiki to protect your privacy, but you will not be appointed to the Board. We will send a very brief official letter of disqualification after this call. Again, to protect your privacy, none of the reasons will be listed in the official letter. Do you understand?
• Candidate, privately: I understand that the Board has some very serious reasons for not accepting my application. Thanks for considering me.
• Candidate, publicly: They never told me any substantive reason for disqualifying me. They had no valid reasons at all. See, here's a copy of the letter they sent me. There's not a single reason given in the letter. You should be outraged about their arbitrary and capricious interference in the will of the voters!

What's important in my made-up story isn't whether this has happened yet. What's important is whether you and I, as people who have not seen/heard any of the private communications, could actually tell if the candidate's public statement is true or if is a big, fat lie. If we believe the candidate is truthful, then we might think the candidate has been disqualified based on "misinformation and faulty reasoning". But I think we don't have any way to know whether the candidate is being truthful in this particular instance. Therefore I think we should not judge any disqualification as being based on "misinformation and faulty reasoning". I think the most we could say is something like "based on what the candidate has publicly said in their defense, it appears to be based on misinformation and faulty reasoning". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I don't think this should be always true. There are very few rules, even good ones, that I can't find possible exceptions for. But that doesn't mean that I think that all rules should be abolished.

I also don't think that editors should be gullible enough to believe candidates who publicly tell us that they did not receive a private explanation, or that the explanation wasn't "substantive". Agreed, but that is not what happened here.

But I think we don't have any way to know whether the candidate is being truthful in this particular instance. Therefore I think we should not judge any disqualification as being based on "misinformation and faulty reasoning". In Bluerasberry's case people are not relying on a candidate's (possibly self-serving) account of private communications.

Victoria Doronina, who is a board member, publicly posted on Wikimedia-l, writing I'm writing this as a Wikimedian, relying solely on publicly available information. Later they apologized.

So my judgement of "misinformation and faulty reasoning" is not based on anything Bluerasberry wrote, but on what a member of the board wrote. Polygnotus (talk) 22:57, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I have wondered for a long time whether "relying solely on publicly available information" means "I am only going to talk about the public reasons; there are additional confidential reasons that I will not mention". Therefore I cannot agree with you that that is not what happened here. I can only agree that there were some public reasons, and that I do not know whether there are any confidential reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing But my that is not what happened here refers to and was written in response to your quote I also don't think that editors should be gullible enough to believe candidates who publicly tell us that they did not receive a private explanation, or that the explanation wasn't "substantive".

I agree with the general sentiment. But my judgement of misinformation and faulty reasoning is not based on anything Bluerasberry said, but on what board member Victoria wrote, publicly.

Hypotheticals about other editors' gullibility, or about undisclosed private reasons, are speculation. Neither of us can read minds.

She listed specific objections publicly and called them my objections to the Lane candidacy. Later she apologized for that post. In that apology she again stated I wrote a message to explain my personal reasons for my vote. I don't think Victoria was lying (by omission or otherwise), and if you disagree I would like some evidence, as a skeptical person. Polygnotus (talk) 22:49, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

It was a while ago but the Signpost has posted a helpful summary over at en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2025-10-20/Special report that may be of interest. Polygnotus (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

And why hasn't broader input been sought? It would be interesting to get input from the wider community, especially those who are familiar with the context like @Silver seren, Kudpung, and Bawolff: and others. I want an explicit assurance that Lane Rasberry meets whatever criteria are ultimately adopted. As written, the proposal is vague enough to justify excluding virtually anyone. I'd also like to know: which of the current board members would fail to meet these proposed criteria? If the answer is none of them, then the criteria are clearly not capable of preventing the kind of problems we saw last year, and should be scrapped. Polygnotus (talk) 16:41, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

The discussion on the proposed eligibility criteria has been prompted by the events surrounding the 2025 Board of Trustees election, which the Foundation can hardly ignore.

As the proposal appears to have been drafted by the WMF itself, its underlying philosophy is open to different interpretations. It could be seen as an attempt to make the process more democratic and community-driven; alternatively, as an effort to justify the Board's pre-election rejection of certain candidates; or as a means of ensuring that future candidates meet more stringent requirements, potentially excluding individuals who may be less inclined to support all motions brought before the Board.

Whatever the outcome, as with many WMF consultations, I expect the results of this discussion to be treated as advisory rather than binding. To answer your question, I suspect that is also why broader community input has not been actively sought. I regularly follow Meta discussions that interest me, but unless I missed something, I only became aware of this one because I was pinged above. Ideally, everyone who signed the petition initiated by Clovermoss should be invited to participate through a Mass Message. Kudpung (talk) 08:46, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

After the closing of Wikinews, I was worried that my time there as a bureaucrat was pointless. Now that i know that it would allow me to run for board, i can rest assured that it was all worthwhile. (In case my sarcasm isn't clear, i think this reform is bad. If the problem is that the community is voting for the wrong people, you cannot solve that and still be democratic). Bawolff (talk) 18:15, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

Age

The age limit is set at 18, but I think this is too low. In some parts of the world, including one US state, people aren't even legally considered adults until age 21. I'd prefer a minimum age of 25. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

I can certainly concur with that. Employers in the United States are generally permitted to stipulate a minimum age in job advertisements. It may be wise however to examine if such an age limit, like gender/LGBTQ etc, is not discriminatory in some jurisdictions. Requiring minimum qualifications however (possibly a more appropriate threshold), such as a recognised university degree is of course permissible provided the requirement is genuinely related to the position and consistent with business necessity. Kudpung (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

A lot of neuroscience research says that humans are still adolescents until at least age 25. Most US car rental companies won't let you rent a car until you're at least 25 years old. I don't think it makes any sense to put someone who generally isn't trusted to rent a $30,000 car for a few days in charge of a nearly $200,000,000 annual budget. If we want youth involved, let's create a youth advisory board. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I note there had been an Advisory Board. Speaking as someone who has a little personal experience with a youth board (albeit not with the WMF), real responsibility is needed to effectively learn and practice how boards operate, not a tokenistic position. But this particular organization is trickier than most to learn the ropes, although I don't think that justifies exclusionary tendencies broadly. Arlo Barnes (talk) 21:50, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_matures_at_25_myth Polygnotus (talk) 08:55, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Kudpung, I wanted to come back to your idea of a university degree. As that can be a class-based privilege, I don't like the idea of it being mandatory. But if there were alternatives ("university degree or equivalent work experience" – here in the US, eight years' work experience is considered the equivalent of four years at university), then I would have no objection. The movement is generally anti-credentials, so I don't know what other people would think, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

By what reasoning are those very restrictive rules by one country of any value for our considerations? In Germany the voting age is on a state level usually 16. Only the Bundespräsident has to be above 40, I'd like personal qualities to be more important then such random numbers. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 07:54, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

"One" country? There are eighteen (18) countries where people must be 21 years old to be considered adults.

In Germany, some minors are allowed to vote, but they're not legally adults until they are 18. And the w:neuroscience applies to all humans, everywhere. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. The other criteria make it implausible that 18-year-olds can meet the eligibility criteria. If there is ever a 18 or 20 year old that does meet these criteria, I'd be very happy to have them in. Having a young person's perspective, however unlikely we'll find someone that talented, is something that should be encouraged. If we're talking neuroscience, it would be unfair to discriminate against young people without also discriminating against older people. I think we should do neither. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:52, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

All you have to do to meet the criteria is:

1. Become an admin at eswiki. (They require that accounts be at least 1 year old, but there is no minimum age for the person.)
2. Enable 2FA, so they'll automatically make you a bureaucrat.
3. Wait two years. Voilà, you are eligible to be appointed to the WMF's Board.

Enwiki has had teenaged admins before; it would be surprising if other wikis didn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Aaron Swartz run for the WMF board when he was 20 and he already had significant "corporate"/organisational experience back then. Of course WMF was much smaller 20 years ago, but should we rule out such a candidate based on their age only? I do not think so. If the other requirements are too lax, that should be fixed instead. Nemo 13:31, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

He also came in 6th in an election for a single seat.

I think it is entirely reasonable for the current WMF to want a certain amount of life experience and personal maturity (which correlates with age – after all, nobody becomes less experienced as they get older), or at minimum to be certain that no matter what country the candidates are from, they're legally considered adults. For that matter, it would be reasonable for the board to require that the 2+ years of experience happen as an adult. That suggests a minimum age two years older than the legal age (e.g., age 23). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I don't see how a university degree can can be a class-based privilege. In fact AFAICS most of the board members have one and most of the are PhDs.

When laying out their intended criteria, IMO the WMF is putting the cart before the horse in order to draw attention away from where the real problem lies. At the end of the day, the most important thing to do first is to get an equitable electoral system rolled out that permits the board to be truly representative of the main stakeholders: the volunteer editing communities and the curators of the quality of the articles - something that the WMF conveniently 'forgets'. I don't believe the electorate is going to be silly enough to vote for a fully unsuitable candidate. IMO the entire business of short lists, run offs, transferrable votes, etc., is just a circus to make the WFM come across as professional, which the community at large is well aware is not the case. Individual employees may take their jobs seriously, but seen from the perspective of the volunteers, the actual organisation of the movement is chaotic . Kudpung (talk) 10:15, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

University completion is a class-based privilege because most people from poor families in most of the world (i.e., in countries where tuition, housing, food, and other expenses have to be paid directly out of your own pocket) don't have a practical chance to attend university, or they get started and then have to drop out to get a job to take care of their families (because the primary social safety net is your family, rather than taxpayers). https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdis20/42/1 and other easily located sources provide more information if you would like to read more about this. Additionally, even if the principle is unimportant to some people, there's a long history of successful tech folks being college dropouts, including the founders of Microsoft, Twitter, Square, Spotify, and Uber. One might or might not wish to have a tech billionaire on the board (I don't), but it would be silly to reject them over a lack of a university degree.

I doubt that the WMF would say that "the volunteer editing communities and the curators of the quality of the articles" are "the main stakeholders". I think they would name the volunteers as one stakeholder, the affiliates as another, and possibly place as "the main" stakeholder our readers (a group that certain editing communities sometimes sometimes appear to 'forget').

I don't think that the business of short lists, etc., is meant to make the WMF look like anything. I think it is partly responsive to the complaints from those very same "volunteer editing communities and the curators of the quality of the articles" that (a) having the affiliates recommend a candidate separately from the individual editors is unfair to editors [so we have a hybrid process now] and (b) having to fully investigate all the candidates [there were ~20 in several elections prior to adopting this system] is an unreasonable amount of work for individuals [so we have a shortlisting process]. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Former board members

I think if someone was on the board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation or the Wikimedia Endowment for four years there should be a break of at least the same amount of time until the person can be a candidate again. From my point of view sharing power is very important and this can be reached through introducing a limit a person can serve on the board. This requires changing the eligbility criteria for Board members of the Wikimedia Foundation or the Board of Trustees. There are enough people who can fulfill the criteria and who have enough trust to be a member of the board. Outside of term limits I support less criteria and think the voters should decide and I trust they will select person who are good trustees. Hogü-456 (talk) 19:50, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Current rules which are not to be changed https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:Wikimedia_Foundation_Bylaws#(C)_Term_limit. :Trustees, excluding the Community Founder Trustee Position, may serve a maximum of three consecutive full terms (that is, nine years). After having served any consecutive nine years, a Trustee shall not be eligible for appointment to the Board again until a period of at least 18 months has expired. Der-Wir-Ing ("DWI") talk 21:04, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for this link what explains the current rules. I think the current term limit is not restrictive enough. The period until a former trustee should be allowed for appointment to the board should be longer. I think it should be at least one full term and better more. From my point of view there are enough people who can be board members and so it is better to give others the chance to be a board member. Hogü-456 (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Proposed eligibility criteria - allow Sysops

The proposed criteria are far too restrictive and will prevent many strong candidates.

The simple fix to this is to allow sysops to run; if you are concerned that on the smallest Wiki's this may not provide sufficient experience, then require them to by a sysop on a Wiki at least 10% of the size of the English Wikipedia, by active editors. BilledMammal (talk) 02:54, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

There are only six (6) communities that meet that size requirement: Commons, Wikidata, and four Wikipedias (dewiki, eswiki, frwiiki, and itwiki). And if you exclude Wikidata contributors who are only adding interwiki links and getting an automatic 'edit' to Wikidata because of moving a page at their home wiki, then I'm not sure that Wikidata would still meet the cutoff. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Does anyone really think, some unknown admin from some extreme small Wiki will get enough votes (and yes, that are votes, not just recommendations) to be elected?

And bureaucrats are just some small subdivision of admins, only for menial tasks, not really more rights, at least in the deWP, being that is no meaningful criterium whatsoever. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 07:51, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I would not expect "some unknown admin" to be a popular candidate, but it is possible to be (a) a very well known editor in the global movement, and (b) an admin at an extremely small wiki. For example, some years ago, enwiki was mad at someone, and a friend of his, who was a bureaucrat at a small wiki, made him an admin at that small wiki as a symbolic show of support and defiance. With a rule that accepts any admin at any wiki, that editor would have been eligible, solely because he had one friend with bureaucrat rights. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

rather by size, if to include sysops, they should be active at least in the last two immediate years with a minimum number of admin actions (self-deletion exclude, including deleting materials that were imported by oneself). There are hundreds of admins on enwiki, but not many are particularly active and some inactive admins had gotten defrocked when returned because they were not really up to date with the new social norms. Robertsky (talk) 15:11, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

enWP ist nur ein Projekt unter vielen

Die Ganzen Kriterien (und auch Diskussionen) sind viel zu sehr auf die enWP fokussiert, am Besten wäre, diese mal komplett außen vor zu lassen, sie ist schließlich nur ein Projekt unter vielen, und darf in gar keinem Fall zu dem bestimmenden Projekt werden. Allein dadurch, dass hier andauernd auf Englisch diskutiert wird, entsteht schon ein ungerechtfertigter Bias zugunsten dieses einen Projektes. Am besten wäre es, wenn für mindestens 2 Sitze keinerlei Erfahrung in der enWP Voraussetzung wäre, vielleicht auch gar nicht erst englische Sprachkenntnisse. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 10:56, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Ich stimme dir zu, dass die ganze Diskussionen viel zu sehr auf die English Wikipedia fokussiert ist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Nun, das en.Wiki ist doch wohl die treibende Kraft hinter der gesamten Bewegung. Obwohl das deutsche Wiki nicht zu den größten zählt, gehören seine angeschlossenen Gruppen im gesamten deutschsprachigen Raum zu den aktivsten und einflussreichsten. Es wäre ideal, wenn jemand die Initiative ergreifen und diese Diskussion innerhalb der Bewegung weiter verbreiten würde. Nicht einmal alle Mitglieder des en.Wikis sind sich dieser Diskussion bewusst. Wüssten sie es, gäbe es sicherlich einen Ansturm der Beteiligung. Ich selbst habe nur durch reinen Zufall davon erfahren. Kudpung (talk) 07:18, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Die monolingualen Anglophonen und die sonstigen enWPer haben sowieso schon viel zu viel Einfluss im Wikiversum, etwas, was primär an der Nutzung derer Muttersprache als lingua franca liegt. Wer nicht Englisch kann, wird untergebuttert.

Eigentlich sollte es mal ein Board komplett ohne enWPer geben, das wäre mal erfrischend und würde diese unberechtigte Hegemonie eventuell etwas aufbrechen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 09:36, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Untergebuttert? I wo! Hier ein paar Statistiken für dich:

47 % der Europäer (rund 210 Millionen Menschen) geben an, sich auf Englisch als Fremd- oder Zweitsprache unterhalten zu können. 7 von 10 jungen Europäern (15–35 Jahre) können sich auf Englisch unterhalten, was auf deutlich höhere Sprachkenntnisse in dieser Altersgruppe hindeutet. In nordeuropäischen Ländern wie den Niederlanden, Schweden und Dänemark sprechen große Teile der Bevölkerung nahezu muttersprachlich Englisch, mit Konversationsraten von über 85 % bis 90 %.

Weltweit sprechen 1,53 Milliarden Menschen Englisch – auf allen Sprachniveaus. Kudpung (talk) 10:11, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Das heißt, 53% der EuropäerInnen werden untergebuttert.

Und die absurde Fixierung auf die enWP andauernd ist ja nun auch nicht von der Hand zu weisen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 11:00, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Clarification

Going to slide on in and make a comment on wording while everyone else is discussing more substantive matters.

"Candidates must fulfill at least one of the following criteria by having a total of at least 2 years of experience within the last 6 years, as of the [Date of the applications opening]:"

What this says is that a criterium is met if you have 2 years of experience within the last 6 years serving in positions that fall under that criterium, and that you are eligible if you meet one of the criteria. However, this means that an someone who, for example, was elected to an ArbCom for a one-year term two years ago, served the term, and then became a member of the Languages Committee, would be ineligible. They fail to meet criterium 3 as they only have one year of experience as an Arb, and fail to meet criterium 5 as they only have one year of experience as a member of the Languages Committee.

Perhaps the reason it was worded like it is has to do with criterium 4 involving serving two consecutive terms on a governing body, which itself is a bit confusing. Why do stand-alone terms not count as experience? If someone serves multiple single terms that add up to over 2 years of experience within the last 6 years, why shouldn't they be eligible?

I don't see why it wouldn't be alright for it to just be something like "Candidates must have a total of at least 2 years of experience within the last 6 years in the following positions, as of [Date of the applications opening]:" ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\vee$investigateᛅ} 11:18, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

For an organization's board, knowing something about the annual cadence of an organization is desirable. If you have spent a total of 2 years on a board, but only for a few months at a time, and never during budget season, then you would not necessarily learn much about boards.

Or imagine someone who joined three groups a few months ago, so now they have "a total of 2 years of experience". It would look impressive to say "is currently a bureaucrat at Small Wikipedia, is the new chairperson of Small Affiliate, was a member of ElectCom for a few months two years ago, and recently joined AffCom". But bouncing from one place to another is not the kind of experience that IMO we need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

I make no recommendation to have it be counted triple if you hold three positions at once. Also I wouldn't really say it's bouncing from one place to another if you get elected to a one-year term, serve it and then decide to work for a committee instead. This is something to be judged on a case-by-case basis by voters. It is, after all, the election that is meant to select who gets the job, not the criteria. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley$\vee$investigateᛅ} 21:59, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Response from the Board Governance Committee to community feedback

Thank you for all the comments here on-wiki, various other venues and the engagement at the Wikimania session. And apologies for the delayed response; we’ve all been immersed in Wikimania.

We have heard a lot of feedback on this proposal and are going to take some time to revise the proposal based on what we've heard. Our goal is a process that produces a pool of candidates who have knowledge of and experience within the Wikimedia Movement and know how it works, as well as the experience working with others to advance common goals. We realize that our proposal needs more work to achieve these goals.

A few of the things we have heard:

• The eligibility requirements are too specific and narrow to produce a slate of candidates who would serve the Board and the Wikimedia community well as Trustees.
• People want to see more detail from the Board with a clear process for the election.
• What the Board does and what specific skills are needed are not clear to many.
• We should be clear about what is covered in the vetting process, but results from the vetting process should be known only to the candidate, inspired by this suggestion from a previous candidate.
• It is helpful to have a clear pathway to the Board outlined, despite this particular proposal needing work.
• People would like to have more resources for leadership development throughout the movement. This includes gaining more skills in general, not just ways to become a WMF Trustee.

We heard many other comments and will continue to review as we rework the proposal. As a Board, we would like to thank everyone who has participated in this process - either by taking the time to write or voice feedback to us. Nadzik (talk) 15:32, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I suggest that, if possible, the board prioritises improving the knowledge of what the board does and what skills are desirable (and why those skills are desirable) before getting into the detail of eligibility requirements. That way the community will be better able to evaluate how well different rolls correlate with the desired skills. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 15:49, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I am glad the board is continuing discussions after the feedback received both here and at Wikimania. I think these bullets are reasonable places for the board to continue its discussions.However, the specifics are really going to matter. I do like Thryduulf's ideas of perhaps breaking out refinements into more than one stage. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I presume these are sorted out by priority? Most of the feedback above seem to be focused on the first point (the eligibility requirements), so that would presumably make sense.

I'm not too sure about what is meant by the last point, People would like to have more resources for leadership development throughout the movement. This is interesting but appears to be quite removed from Board elections, and it would be interesting to go in more concrete details there. Also, is there a subtlety I'm not grasping between the second and fifth points? Chaotic Enby (talk) 16:25, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I read 2 as "the board provides details about how the election process works, so everyone understands" and 5 as "people should be able to figure out what they need to do to be qualified to run for the board (not disqualified during vetting)". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I read 2 as "some editors want to be able to tell, in advance and based solely on publicly available information, whether their favorite WMF candidate will clear the vetting process, even though they don't actually know the person well enough to know what a criminal background check would turn up, so we need to give them a lot more information about the process in lieu of a short, simple statement like 'We dumped this candidate because he's got multiple convictions for drunk driving, and we have to think about our reputation'."

Speaking of which, @Nadzik, the minimum requirements should contain a note that candidates, if appointed, will have to publicly disclose their full legal name (even if that's a deadname or would be expected to facilitate stalking), and that Board members are expected to travel internationally at least twice per year. This is mentioned in the learn.wiki program for potential Board candidates, but it may surprise some candidates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @WhatamIdoing, we will be also updating other publicly-facing materials. For example, we found that some people are unaware of how much time commitment is actually needed, your mention about travel, what rules for COI are there etc. I recommend looking at the Legal:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Handbook. If you have any questions or suggestion as to what should be presented there. Thanks! Nadzik (talk) 08:28, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby, I gather that the meaning of that last one is something like "we need to work on the governance pipeline". I can't speak for how things work on affiliates or other wikis, but I'm very concerned with this on English Wikipedia and it's good to see it echoed by a board member. asilvering (talk) 17:37, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby: no, this is not by priority. These are things we have heard in the feedback. I confirm @Asilvering's statement that we plan to work on how to help community members to develop skills, on how to get better in the things the Movement requires. Cheers! Nadzik (talk) 20:04, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

I've seen job applications whose list of requirements basically includes only one or two candidates; the job description basically was the hiring process. Is this really what we want, when powerful individuals want to do away with the Foundation's charitable status? Bearian (talk) 20:55, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

The Wikimedia community is more than capable of determining the appropriate eligibility criteria (including "categories of governance or community experience") for community-selected Board seats, without Board interference. A request for comment should be held on Meta-Wiki for the community to make this determination. — Newslinger talk 07:05, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better Buidhe (talk) 05:00, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

+1. More and more, these seem to be community-selected seats in name only. Please reverse course on this. Andreas JN466 18:01, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Edit requirements and timing

The requirement "Be eligible to vote" sounds simple enough but the timing of the election may determine whether one meets the requirement of 20 recent edits. In 2025, the applications started in June but there was time until the end of July to make the edits. So it would be good to specify that if one is not currently eligible to vote it will be enough to cure the lack of eligibility by the beginning of the election. Nemo 16:30, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

How to get better candidates

I appreciate that the board is thinking carefully about what qualities are a minimum necessity for someone to be a good board member. However, the way that this set of criteria is written feels wrong in a few different ways. Above, my colleagues are making an excellent case for why many of these criteria are unsuitable, unhelpful, or even harmful through side effects.

Of course, the board should avoid the impression that it is selecting politically convenient candidates for community seats. The whole point of this process is for the community to constructively intervene when the Foundation goes in the wrong direction—by electing someone who brings a missing perspective. The first set of minimum requirements may make some sense insofar as they are legally sensible and enforceable: age, standing etc.

The more fundamental problem I have with this approach is that it focuses on filtering people out based on their historical opportunities rather than lifting up candidate with potential. Given the proposed list of qualifiers, this will disproportionately exclude people outside the demographics that are already overrepresented. It should be obvious that this list favors people who look and sound like me.

After a long list of gatekeeping positions (how many sub-Saharan African admins do we have on English Wikipedia?), there is one sentence that gives a little bit of hope that your intention is genuinely to improve board quality long-term: "We encourage those who do not meet the criteria to express their interest, consider leadership training and ways to gain relevant experience in order to be eligible in the future." In its current phrasing, this is an empty promise, but it signals a shared goal where we might actually find common ground.

I propose that the board flip this logic: focus first on building capacity in candidates who bring vital viewpoints, experiences, or community representation. Rather than cutting people out, let's help them gain experience proactively—before they even stand for election, not after.

We should not assume that any of these roles automatically confer all the qualifications you are looking for. Holding a committee role neither guarantees that someone is qualified for the board, nor should we incentivize people to treat committee seats as mere stepping stones for a board run. We should not incentivize communities to lower the thresholds for some positions, because someone may want to run for election in the future.

I hope the Wikimedia movement can establish a serious governance learning program to help future leaders acquire the exact skills the board deems necessary. I would love to see a cohort of 20 to 25 Wikimedians each year complete rigorous courses through an accredited institution—with real coursework, real commitment, and exams that prove mastery both to our movement and to external employers.

This will require the Governance Committee to take a step back and explicitly define the skills they actually need. What skills do you expect someone to learn on the Elections Committee or the Language Committee—and what is the best way to teach those skills at scale? I hope that you will agree with me that completing a well-selected educational program will probably achieve that goal much better than sitting in many of these roles.

And let's be clear, I expect that such a program, if we take it seriously, will require a serious time investment. If we actually want people to learn about finance, negotiation, collaboration, in a board setting, and maybe even some legal skills, that takes time. I would not be surprised if that would take you 10-15 hours per week for 6-9 months. And to the community members that feel that this might be too much demand from a potential candidate, I would ask: How much time do you expect a board member will spend once elected?

Let's start by defining those core competencies and building effective pathways to teach them. And then as a fallback, we can allow candidates to demonstrate how they have acquired those skills through prior experience. Let's lift the quality of governance experience throughout our movement rather than filter out all the people that have not had the chance to gain some proxy for that experience because of the language they speak, the country they were born or the committee they chose to serve on. Effeietsanders (talk) 22:01, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps you have something like https://boardsource.org/board-support/training-education/leadership-certificate-programs/certificate-nonprofit-board-education/ in mind? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

that would in part depend on what kind of criteria would actually satisfy the concerns. I think there are multiple versions of implementation that are much better than both the current situation and the proposal, and this certificate is at least on the right direction. Effeietsanders (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

@Effeietsanders, @WhatamIdoing. Board members of non-profits are generally not remunerated. I can't imagine anyone complet[ing] rigorous courses through an accredited institution—with real coursework, real commitment, and exams that prove mastery both to our movement and to external employers, just to obtain a place on the WMF's BoT - unless it's for the junkets that go with the job. That said, I don't believe Wikipedia is the best place to learn on-the-job either. Kudpung (talk) 10:22, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree that most people would not want to do this just for a chance to join the WMF's board. However, I think that some people on affiliate boards might want this kind of training anyway. Perhaps affiliates should be encouraged to request grant funding for this kind of training.

I also think that some formal, external training should be offered to all incoming WMF board members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Agreed strongly with the encouragement of:

"a cohort of 20 to 25 Wikimedians each year completing rigorous courses through an accredited institution—with real coursework, real commitment, and exams that prove mastery both to our movement and to external employers."

The same applies for things like professional translation and simultrans experience (which we sometimes currently pay outside organizations to do). We should be encouraging and providing training for people within our movement to master essential skills for our work. –SJ talk  14:33, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Should earlier adminship experience in a project be a criterion?

I looked on the proposed criteria and one of these, that the candidates should fulfill (at least one) include that the candidates be an admin or an UWER in at least one Wikimedia project.

I think that this criterion is not necessary. And the reason is, because there are many movement leaders who have joined the movement not from the editing side, but as affiliate staff or directors, which means that they probably havent held UWER permissions. They have a lot of experience that they could potentially contribute to the BoT from the experience they have leading their chapter or user group, or other organisations outside Wikimedia.

So, I think the criterion regarding earlier UWER permissions should be discarded. NikosLikomitros (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Hi User:NikosLikomitros: you're in luck. The only editing experience that is required of all people in the proposed criteria is (a) having an account for 4 years and (b) be eligible to vote (i.e. have at least 300 edits, 20 of which need to be a bit older). Adminship is not required. At the moment, it's not even considered sufficient to be an admin, even if you are one of one of the bigger projects. One route for affiliates or hubs is that you have to have board experience there, either as a chairperson, or as a normal member of the governing body for 2 terms. Another one is to be on any of the grant-making bodies, or BoT committees. Note that there are five categories of experience, and editors only need to meet one to be eligible to stand. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:37, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Better background section and change how you talk about the "vote"

If this document is iterative, I suggest you add a paragraph near the top explaining the board, what part this plays in it, and the process. Also, throughout if you can link to parts of the bylaws each part comes from, or at least say (see bylaw #x). To begin with, the board is self perpetuating, right? So put this all in that context, with cite to the bylaw.

As I understand it, this is for the whatever the number of so-called "community seats" are, so say that and the number. (and a brief mention of other board seats)

As I understand this, these seat selections begin with a self declaration to stand by the candidate and you want them to have certain experience (I'll let others talk about what good experience is.) Just say up top this document will describe those minimum qualifications. Is there then a period where you just knock out the ones that don't meet the minimum criteria if need be?

As I understand this, there is then a period of serious vetting by the board (so just say up top you need this period and this document will describe the vetting in more detail) at the end of which, more candidates might be eliminated.

We then come to the "vote", I think too many people don't understand what they are voting to do. As I understand it, we are voting to make a recommendation to the board, for the board to decide to seat the recommended. So, I think you need to talk about the vote that way, something along the lines of "vote to recommend" in introduction, and repeat that every time you say vote. And again refer the the bylaw citations. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:42, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

There are no "community" seats. There are now up to 8 "community- and affiliate-selected" seats. AIUI this is because a few "community" members objected to the idea that affiliates could have an election in which the non-affiliate members didn't get to participate. To avoid having these community members feel excluded from some elections, the Board merged them all into "community-and-affiliate" seats, and the same "community" members have since clarified that what they really meant was (I paraphrase very liberally) that they object to the idea of the affiliate organizations getting any say at all, because only editors should be allowed to vote for anyone.

I agree with you that the language around "voting" is misleading people. I think wholesale language change would be more appropriate: It is not (and never was) "an election"; you are "recommending" instead of "voting", etc. I might add that this is likely surprising and unexpected to European editors, because many of them are members of their national chapter, and the Board elections for the affiliates all run by popular vote. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Regardless, they should explain how this fits and what seats it's talking about. I think I would recommend keeping "vote" and its variant's in there in a clarified form because, you'll get 'they took away the vote!' hue and cry, when it needs just to be clearer what it is for. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree with you that if we remove the "voting" language, it will probably be noisy, but I think that will be temporary, and then maybe in the future, we won't have so many individual editors who don't understand what their actual role is. I'm thinking that we could have short-term pain and long-term gain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Or they could move slowly and minimizing pain. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:58, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

• Also, emphasize up front that all members if the board are volunteers no matter how selected, this too, I think many may be confused about. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

  It could become a sort of eligibility criterion, e.g., Able to serve for two years without any pay or even Able to dedicate approximately 200 hours of unpaid volunteer time to the Board per year, including international travel at least twice a year. (Necessary travel expenses will be reimbursed.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Union experience missing

It is clear from this debacle that experience with trade unions could have saved the Board of Trustees some elementary-school level embarrassment. I have not see more incompetence, ignorance and or lying in my 11-years of editing. If Foundation itself was handling it well, that would be one thing but with a rogue Foundation, the Board needs to rebuild the trust and that is something User:Bluerasberry could have provided before he was disbarred last year and seemingly again for next year should this go through. Shushugah (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, first know that this is not a trade union, it is a service or general union. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:38, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

A general union is a type of trade union, according to en:trade union. I've never heard the term service union, but Shushugah is our local expert on the topic. I think trade union experience is very valuable, as it gives people very good experience in governance, as well as legal issues. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 22:04, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I think every country has not just its own terminology but also its own rules. Consequently, I am not sure that knowing one country's labor system is very useful for preventing errors. It could even lead to errors, since one might be "confidently wrong".

A Wiki Loves Labor campaign could be useful to the world, especially to get a non-US focus into English Wikipedia articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, If you want to get a non-US focus into English Wikipedia articles, you'll need to change the spelling 😉. Thank you. Kudpung (talk) 22:39, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I'd be willing to consider adding a few unnecessary u's (colour, honour, favour...), but I draw the line at "chatting to" people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Not usually in the US, a trade union is focused on one trade. A service union is focused on service workers, which may have a more office worker cast. And a general union cuts across occupations (other types include craft union and public union). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker, what Shushugah is calling a "trade union" is what Americans know as a "labor union". It's not a misunderstanding of how unions work in the USA, it's just an ENGVAR difference. asilvering (talk) 04:45, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing, we're organising a big cross-language edit-a-thon on the topic for September, in solidarity with WWU, see Event:WikiProject Organized Labour Month Online Campaign. You're very welcome to suggest a broadening of the topic, as we've so far selected areas that have been part of the WWU debate, so focused on the UK and US. Having a wider scope will be useful, especially for other big countries that the WMF hires from and that try to form unions. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:01, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

There is a mixture of country specific article suggestions like en:NLRB procedure while other topics en:Union busting or en:Union recognition must be globalized.

As for terminology, international English studies tend to use the term "Trade Union" because it is unambiguous compared to plain "union" which can refer to EU, USSR, etc and spelling is unambiguous compared with the American, British and Oxford English variations of Organized Labor, Organised Labour and Organized Labour.

The NLRB refers to worker organizations in its formal writings, but uses union in vernacular usage. Shushugah (talk) 11:19, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

So glad to hear this event is planned! \o/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

"A member of the governing body of a recognized regional or thematic hub"

The proposal includes the option: "A member of the governing body of a recognized regional or thematic hub." Is there an official list of recognized regional and thematic hubs anywhere? The term "hub" is used for various entities, depending on how broadly it’s defined. Wikimedia Europe is sometimes included in this category, even though they don't necessarily view themselves as a hub. Either way, in my view, experience on the WMEU board clearly satisfies the governance experience requirement for the Board of Trustees elections. It would be helpful to get some clarity on which specific entities qualify here to avoid any confusion later on. Gdarin | talk 14:53, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I assume it includes every organization in Hubs/Ongoing Activities, but I don't know what other organizations (if any) are included. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

"Served as a member of the governing board of an organization at least 10% of the size of the Wikimedia Foundation (by annual budget or staff count)"

Valuable organizational management experience can be gained in entities smaller than 10% of the Wikimedia Foundation's size. Setting the threshold this high excludes people who have led smaller organizations with budgets under $20 million and teams under a few dozen employees. The Wikimedia movement itself is the best example of this, but even beyond it, there are hundreds of such organizations that deserve great recognition—as do the people running them. The community should be allowed to evaluate during the elections whether a candidate's experience is sufficient or not. Gdarin | talk 15:19, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

We need a threshold that differentiates what we want (e.g., a formal organization with significant structure) from someone who has his own business and hires his nephew part-time during school breaks. Smaller Wikimedia affiliates already count. IMO very small businesses shouldn't. Where would you draw the line?

BTW, the reason we have the current system and these proposed changes is because "the community" declared very loudly during the recent elections that it did not want to evaluate a large number of candidates. There may be hundreds of great organizations, but editors don't want hundreds of candidates, or even dozens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

In my view, the current draft disqualifies too many valuable potential candidates: under these criteria, a longtime community editor who serves as a Wikipedia administrator and has spent many years on the board of a major established NGO is ineligible to run for the WMF Board. By contrast, a bureaucrat or checkuser who has never managed anything beyond their own salary remains eligible. Gdarin | talk 07:05, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Does your idea of "a major established NGO" include those that have fewer than 75 employees? For comparison, a single coffee shop, which nobody would describe as a "major" business, might have 10 employees. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:21, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Many NGOs rely primarily on their members and volunteers, with paid staff playing merely a supporting role. Consequently, even with a small paid headcount, such an organization can be highly active and thriving. Gdarin | talk 07:41, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Many NGOs rely entirely on volunteers. However, managing volunteers does not help you understand labor law, especially when those volunteers tend to be extremely part-time. (Imagine an editor running an edit-a-thon and saying "Look, there were a lot of volunteers for my "active and thriving" month-long event, so that's the same as being on the Board of an organization with 100 paid staff and 1,000 volunteers – right?")

Similarly, managing a small number of paid staff does not help you understand how to direct a hierarchical organization. It really is a different thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:04, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Running a large volunteer-run organization does give you a lot of experience that would be invaluable on the board. It teaches you how to be tactful to keep morale up, it teaches you how to deal with unrest when making changes to the organization, how to deal with people being angry at you if it's an organisation with similarly opinionated people. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:55, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Or it teaches them to get rid of you as soon as your two-year term (a typical term length for NGOs) has expired, because volunteers were quitting, the organization was splitting, members were boycotting, etc. The history of the w:Sierra Club could be instructive as a list of problems (e.g., internal factions) caused by well-intended, mission-minded people that we wouldn't necessarily want to have in this movement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

After all, it's not hard to find examples of things going wrong in different organizations as well. If we are so afraid of applicants who only managed "a single coffee shop", let's at least make an exception for NGOs. And again, if the concern is that someone's organization is too niche, we could set the threshold at, say, 10 employees. I think we need someone like that far more than a board member from Tesla or Amazon. ;) Gdarin | talk 09:40, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Why 10, and not a bigger number? Ten employees is small enough that a single person can manage them all. That is not going to give the person experience with an organization that has (and needs) layers of management. Managing multiple individuals is not the same skill set as managing multiple teams. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

The organisations I can think of that are most similar in their mission to the WMF both have under 40 employees (the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons). I would rather have someone who served on the board of one of these than someone who is inexperienced with volunteers (say, someone from Google or Meta or other for-profit tech companies). Kusma (talk) 07:09, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

What threshold would be low enough for you? The WMF is still pretty small, but big enough that it is quite difficult for someone without prior experience to effectively manage the WMF ED. It's hard to say what's the WMF staff count at the moment but the latest form 990 says 394 employees. How many organisations exist with 40 employees or more? For how many otherwise eligible wikimedians would it be impossible to find such an org in their area, if they wanted to gain the required experience? In the EU I see there are about 200k medium-sized SMEs (50-250 employees). Nonprofits with at least 40 employees are harder to count though there might be sources. Maybe the WMF could send out a survey to past candidates and board members to see how many would be able to find such opportunities and if not why/where. Nemo 12:21, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The threshold is, these are the community's seats. The threshold is: You run, and the community says "Yes, you are the candidate we want to select". I would not have a problem with a few disqualifying criteria (I think I've proposed it before, but some possibilities might be convicted of a felony within the last X years; convicted of any crime involving theft or dishonesty within the last X years; terminated from or resigned in lieu of termination from a position for theft or dishonesty within the last X years; substantial misrepresentations in one's candidate statement, stuff like that.) But other than that, the criterion is "You ran for the position and the community selected you for it." Seraphimblade (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Ok, so you want WMF to switch to actually binding elections and ditch the whole concept of qualifications for being a board member. That's fine but not quite what is being discussed here.

Disqualification criteria are also an important conversation to have; currently they seem to have been left for WMF legal to figure out. Nemo 19:18, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I would. Importantly, I would not want any disqualification criteria to be "The candidate said something on Twitter we don't like." Diversity of opinion on the board is critically important, and we saw that be a major problem during the last election. The Board itself should absolutely never be able to disqualify a community candidate; that should be left to an independent body. Seraphimblade (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

If the WMF's Board were to get a new member who had tweeted something like "Scientific evidence proves homeopathy works" or "Claims of Sexual violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel is fake news" or "Wikipedia needs to give equal validity to Christian nationalist viewpoints", then I would expect an enormous amount of hostile media attention directed to the WMF and Wikipedia because of that. I think that would be bad for both the WMF and for Wikipedia. Do you disagree with me? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Judging the popularity of a candidate's ideas does not strike me as something that we need the board to decide on. Nemo 06:21, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Each of those views is popular in some parts of the world. However, what I mean is that I think the Board should judge whether the candidate's appointment would produce problems. That's different from whether their views are "popular". Given a choice between:

• we appoint someone, and we predictably get a distracting media circus about that candidate's non-WMF, pre-appointment statements, or
• we appoint someone, and don't get a media circus,

then I pick the "don't get a media circus" option. I would choose this for both the short-term and long-term reasons: In the short term, this would avoid the immediate problem. In the long-term, well, a person who says stupid stuff on the internet shortly before they are appointed would probably say stupid stuff on the internet during their tenure, too. Appointment to the Board doesn't give naïve people a magical amount of discretion. I understand that a lot of people have 'liked' or forwarded content on social media that, in the sober light of day, they did not actually agree with, or even understand. That's not okay for a Board member.

Also, if you're promoting anti-science, counterfactual, or anti-NPOV claims on social media, I would, in the enwiki jargon, probably conclude that you're w:en:WP:NOTHERE for the movement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The purpose of the qualification criteria is an attempt to ensure that all board members will have two qualities that I hope everybody can agree are Good Things for a board member to have:

• An understanding of what the job actually entails
• Competency undertaking the duties of the board

I don't think the criteria as originally proposed do a great job of achieving those aims, but that's not a reason (imo) to not attempt to achieve them. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 00:59, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree, with one small amendment: the eligibility criteria should not aim to prove that the candidates definitely have such qualities, or that they're the most qualified. They should help the voters make such a determination. The current proposal might help achieve such a result, if we get more experienced candidates than before and if we stop throwing out experienced candidates (and still end up with a reasonable number of candidates). Nemo 06:21, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Most qualified, no, that should absolutely be for the voters. As for definitely have such qualities, an understanding of the job should be definite, competency should be something like "there is a good reason to believe they will be competent". Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 09:13, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

And if you feel that those things are important, you are certainly welcome to vote accordingly. What you shouldn't be able to do is prohibit others from voting based upon different criteria for the candidates they want. Ultimately, you should get one vote, cast based upon whatever criteria you see fit to use, and everyone else should get the same. Seraphimblade (talk) 17:42, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

So... if the voters want to stick someone on the Board whose behavior will interfere with the Board's work (e.g., by attracting a media circus over their non-Board social media posts), then you'd tell the Board to just "Suck it up, buttercup", because the sacred will of the voters is more important than having a functional Board that's focused on its job? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Ironically, permitting open elections gives the Board the perfect response in the event such a thing should happen: "We do not choose members for the community seats; they are elected by a vote of Wikimedia editors. The opinions expressed by any Board member are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the rest of the Board or the Wikimedia Foundation." Leave it at that, go on with whatever you need to do, and then the media can do their thing. Ultimately, we can't stop them from writing about whatever they want to anyway. But we shouldn't let "The media might be mean to us!" determine what we do or don't do. Seraphimblade (talk) 21:25, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The opinions expressed by any Board member are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the rest of the Board or the Wikimedia Foundation. except that's not true. Statements by board members do represent the board. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 23:04, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I work for an employer. Obviously, I'm not going to dox myself here by saying exactly who that is, but let's say someone found out. Would me saying what I say here mean my employer supports that view? Of course not. Even when you and I were on ArbCom, we understood that individual opinions of arbitrators were not necessarily the opinion of ArbCom, unless ArbCom actually formally voted on and ratified them. Seraphimblade (talk) 23:07, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

That only works for lower-level employees. It does not work for CEOs, Board members, business owners, judges, army generals, presidents, etc. Depending on the subject, it may not work even for a lower-level person. If an employee said something appalling about a legally protected characteristic like race or sex, the corporate response would be "You're fired" instead of "That's just their personal opinion, and it doesn't necessarily reflect the views of their employer". See, e.g., w:Central Park birdwatching incident.

But let's imagine that the Board did issue such a disclaimer. The next step in that conversation would sounds like one of these two options:

• "Aren't you embarrassed to be serving next to such a horrible person? I'd quit in protest" or
• "I wonder why you haven't kicked them out. Your bylaws say the Board can do this. If there aren't enough votes on the Board to expel that person, then that shows that the Board actually does support this view, at least to some extent. Even the US Congress has expelled legally elected legislators, and if they can, surely some mid-sized non-profit organization could do the same."

WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, in Colorado at least, the response to that "You're fired" would be "You're sued." Colorado has a law prohibiting any employer from firing an employee for legal activities undertaken off work time and work premises. And expressing an opinion, even an odious one, is a legal activity. (And as WMF is based in California, there's a similar law there.) Seraphimblade (talk) 21:32, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Board members aren't employees, so none of that applies.

Even if it did, under California law, there's an exemption for "any conduct that is actually in direct conflict with the essential enterprise-related interests of the employer", and I understand that such a provision is pretty typical. This is the provision that says if you're the CEO of an anti-tobacco charity, you can't moonlight by encouraging tobacco sales and then claim that it's just your protected personal political opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:17, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

+1. The qualification criteria should be things like, "is an adult," and "is not a registered sex offender," etc. In other words, the kinds of people that nobody should be allowed to vote for. Beyond that, it's up to the voters to decide things like: how much experience is enough experience, and what kind of experience, etc. Levivich (talk) 18:11, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

If an objective qualification criteria could filter for sufficient knowledge and sufficient competency, then we wouldn't need to have elections at all: anyone who passes the objective criteria and has sufficient knowledge and competency should just be put on the board. Of course, the problem is that no objective criteria can sufficiently filter for knowledge or competency. That's what you need voters for. Levivich (talk) 02:22, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

That's true only if there are a small number of people who are sufficiently knowledgeable and competent. In reality the first is an extremely low bar that nearly everyone who is legally qualified to serve on the board can pass if they want to. The second bar is higher, but still low enough that you'd end up with a board of many tens of people on it if those two and expressing a desire to be on the board were the only requirements. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 10:04, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Sure, if there were many tens of candidates, but in the last few there were 12 total (before shortlisting). I think 19 was the most in recent history? My point is: voting is the yardstick by which we measure knowledge and competence, and it's a necessarily subjective yardstick. If it were possible to objectively measure such qualities, we wouldn't need a subjective yardstick (voting). I submit it is not possible to objectively measure knowledge and competence (beyond too-broad-to-be-very-useful categories such as "some" and "none"). Prior experience isn't an accurate measure of either. (This is one thing I've learned from hiring people IRL: resume is a terrible indicator of performance.) Levivich (talk) 13:57, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

"is elected by the community"

This is the only relevant eligibility criterium. So why is it not on the list?

In the past few years, there have been several crises that have made it increasingly clear to me: the biggest problem on the board is not a lack of professional expertise, but rather a lack of community representation and control. I am a steadfast proponent of that - you can speak to James Heilman for more details (I've not consulted with him in advance but I'm sure he'll tell you about my concerns about the "professional" board members who don't seem to have our values at heart.) I am deeply concerned about the tone of some of the latest proposals from some quarters: a reluctance to be firmly clear that community control - in the form of voting and not just some vague "community-sourced board members" language that might mean anything or nothing - is not negotiable.[2] -- Jimbo Wales

I think the board should voluntarily or otherwise step down and be replaced by a fully community elected group. Polygnotus (talk) 19:23, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

It's worth noting for context that the cited quote is from 2020, and so may or may not reflect Jimmy's views regarding the present board. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 21:08, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

@Thryduulf Time is a flat circle. Polygnotus (talk) 21:45, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Aren't all circles flat? Levivich (talk) 01:15, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

the Bavarian Circle wasn't flat. Thryduulf (talk: meta · en.wp) 10:13, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Vicious circles usually spiral. Polygnotus (talk) 10:43, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, election is the next step. (But I appreciate the link and sentiment.) We certainly don't want new rules that would exclude community members with competence, vision, and energy. Proxies for competence that actually exclude some of our most-experienced governance experts in the community are not a good idea. When it comes to that experience, dropping the "last N 6 years" and lowering the "x% of the size of WMF" to a more descriptive level that includes all of our allies and fellow travellers in the 'Big Open' free knowledge movement, seem like minimum improvements. –SJ talk  14:41, 17 August 2026 (UTC)