Dear James,
I don't think the Fram ban has anything to do with this TBH. I
understand that the board is currently under pressure with the two
letters sent by the Congress, and that some people experience fear to
stand for the values of inclusivity the movement professed in our
strategic orientation. The fact remains that a woman has experienced a
smear campaign for expressing concerns about Palestine that were badly
translated from arabic and then used against her. By chosing to expell
her as a candidate and make her responsible for views expressed when she
was not even a candidate, the board takes a position that can be
qualified as non neutral. People either from Palestine or Israel should
not be stopped from becoming candidates.
Wikipedia is not a democracy either, and many people have been harassed
and continue to be without being able to get justice. As for democracy,
the wish for democracy goes two ways : some people representing gender
gap projects have long been pointing the lack of respect for
underrepresented communities and it's not like we are heading towards an
improvement now. The community is not transparent either : pseudos are
not transparent, and nobody in our movement is criticizing this. So
democracy and transparency are arguments that need to be examined in
context.
The foundation is ... a foundation, and is not a democracy either (and
this would not change anywhere else in the world). It has nevertheless
been improving IMO. The balance between the power of communities and
the power of the foundation seems to me to achieve a certain balance of
power, which can be called an imperfect dystopian status, certainly not
a democracy.
I don't think we should be opposing "the community" to "the foundation"
here. There are so many communities in our movement, that there is no
such thing as "the community". There are many different opinions, and
the positive thing is for them to be able to express themselves within
the boundaries of respect.
I understand (even if I dont quite agree) how the board could take these
decisions, but in my opinion this is more a blow to projects wishing for
more inclusivity than to transparency and democracy. It sends an
ambiguous message : you shall not express views that are overtly" woke",
so to speak, or you can be left alone to deal with smear campaigns as
we wish to protect our image. I don't think it is an encouraging view to
pursue.
I can see why the board would fear for their image and want more
discreet candidates, but I think strong experienced candiates are just
what we strategically need now to overcome hurdles, candidates like
Ravan and Lane.
To finish, I will quote a famous francophone Haitian writer, Marie
Vieux-Chauvet " Fear is a vice that takes root once it is cultivated. It
takes time to recover from it". Now is the moment to stand for free
knowledge, to express our concern and respect to each other, as history
of the past shows that progressive movements have always been brought
down by internal divisions, orchestrated mostly by smear campaigns.....
With wikilove to the board, to the communities and to you James !
Nattes à chat
Le 14.10.2025 à 18:53, James Heilman a écrit :
Hey Pete
Am no longer on the WMF board. The statement by the board was the
"Board has unanimously decided that four candidates will be on the
ballot".
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/October_2025_update
I do not take this as implying that there was unanimous support to
remove either of the two candidates. I imagine there would have been
individual votes for each candidate, with greater than 50% support to
remove two of them. Followed by a final vote for the remaining slate
of candidates.
James
On Mon, Oct 13, 2025 at 6:46 PM Pete Forsyth <[email protected]>
wrote:
James,
Thank you for this response, and it is good to see your signature
on Hanna's letter.
I am curious -- it sounds like you are substantially on board with
what Hannah wrote, and do not like seeing the exclusion of at
least one of the candidates. However, the board chair's initial
message stated that the exclusion of candidates was agreed
"unanimously" by the board.
Can you speak to this? Did you initially agree, and then change
your mind? Was the chair's characterization inaccurate? Is there
some other, less apparent circumstance?
I have great admiration for anyone, on either/any "side" of this,
who has the time and energy to invest in an ongoing, substantive
discussion about how things can be improved in the future. That
isn't me at the moment, but I do believe there is much good that
could be done with that approach.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 8:47 PM James Heilman <[email protected]>
wrote:
I am saddened to see the board taking greater authority over
community elections and thus decreasing democracy within our
movement, though its occurrence is not entirely surprising. A
number of members of the board and foundation have for some
time wanted greater say over community elected trustees.
Suggestions have included being able to state criteria or
skills they feel the board needs and making only those they
feel have those skills eligible to run. However part of
elections is being able to support folks who have skills you
as the electorate feel those in authority are currently
lacking. This is especially important in times of crises and
reduces the risk of one of our key movement organizations, the
WMF, being co-opted by those who may not be movement aligned.
We as the communities are far more powerful than we often give
ourselves credit. While technically when on the board one
needs to do what is in the best interest of the WMF, I believe
the best interest of our communities and the WMF are aligned
and inseparable. We are all pursuing the same mission. With
respect to prior community efforts, the protests against SOPA
and PIPA
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA>played
a role in their being shelved. Our efforts around EU copyright
law
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market#Non-governmental_organisations>in
part led to a full discussion by the European Parliament.
Community feedback regarding foundation staff bypassing ARBCOM
in its sanctioning of Fram got the board to intervene in
support of community self governance.
Yes technically we do not have elections, with all board
members in the end being appointed by the board itself. But we
have had an election process that the board has historically
respected. As a parallel, as a Canadian we do not technically
have a full democracy as our Monarch has the ability to
disallow a bill passed by parliament either directly or via
the Governor General. They; however, have never exercised this
power since our country was formed in 1867. And if they did I
imagine significant controversy would result.
As a trustee who was partly removed 10 years ago for pushing
for greater transparency around the proposed Knowledge Engine
(search engine)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(search_engine)>it
concerns me to see a candidate within the election being
removed by the board in part for speaking up for transparency.
I believe we need an independent group of elected community
members, who have signed non-disclosure agreements, and are
provided details by the WMF legal team and trust and safety,
to oversee who is and is not eligible to stand for election.
We can have community elections if we demand them.
Sincerely
James Heilman
MD, CCFP(EM), Wikipedian
On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 9:07 AM Andy Mabbett
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Fri, 10 Oct 2025 at 19:40, Lorenzo
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I want to clarify some details following Victoria's
email as I know it has caused confusion. This email was
not sent in any official capacity - it was Victoria's
personal opinion, as she noted there, it was sent "as a
Wikimedian, relying solely on publicly available information".
Considering the above, I'm confused by the fact that you
are writing
from a wikimedia.org <http://wikimedia.org> email address,
but signing only with your first
name (and with no disclaimer); are you speaking
personally, or in your
official capacity as a board member?
> This email should not be seen as an analysis of the
Board's decisions on the candidates for this year's
elections process.
Is a "Wikimedian, relying solely on publicly available
information"—any Wikimedian—not entitled to offer an
analysis of the
Board's decisions?
> I understand that for some, emotions are at an all time
high, and people will want to fill in the gaps of what can
be shared publicly with their thoughts and opinions
And some have very genuine concerns which are not driven
by emotion,
and which are based on the available facts and evidence.
Please
respect them as such.
> I hope you will vote in the election
I have said for some years that we should stop pretending
that this is
an election.
--
Andy Mabbett
User:Pigsonthewing
https://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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