Election Reminders

[nelliemuller]

Greetings,
I would like to remind members of Wikieducator that the election
campaign will end at 17:00 on August 31, 2008. Voting will commence at
9:00 on September 1, 2008 and will end at 9:00 on September 15, 2008.
The results of the election will be announced on or before September
30, 2008. Please note that the time relates to Standard Pacific Time.

I would like to invite members to post general questions here, on the
main list, or to the candidates on the talk pages associated with
their campaign pages.

Please follow the links below for further information:

The announcement:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:First_Community_Council_Elections

The election procedures:

http://wikieducator.org/Election_procedures_for_the_first_WE_Council

The policy:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Policy_for_Community_Governance

and the candidate page:

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:First_Community_Council_Elections/List_of_candidates

Thank you.
Nellie

[James Neill]

will electees become sysops / bureaucrats - or is that a separate process?

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[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

James,
Is this a general question? Can you clarify what you mean so that everyone understands exactly what you mean?

Thank you.
Nellie

--
Nellie Deutsch
Doctoral Student
Educational Leadership
Curriculum and Instruction
http://www.nelliemuller.com
http://www.integrating-technology.com/pd
http://www.building-relationship.com/education
http://blendedlear.ning.com

[James Neill]

Yes, this is a general question. Will those elected become sysops or bureacracts? Or is there a different process for becoming sysops or bureacrats? I'm a bit confused about how WE is administered/managed and what the roles, responsibilities, and tools of those elected will be:
e.g., see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator

Does this help to explain?

NELLIE DEUTSCH wrote:

 
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[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

James,
I suggest you read the following to get a better idea of the roles members of the first council election will have:
http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Policy_for_Community_Governance#WikiEducator_Community_Council

Thank you.
Nellie

[James Neill]

Hi Nellie,

I searched the governance policy pages, etc. and WE more generally for info on syspops/bureaucrats/administrators, etc. and couldn't find much. I'm bit puzzled about a possible sudden increase in those trying to govern, yet there seems not so much about training/mentoring/developing much in the way of technical/skill responsibility, etc. What's the role of council members in terms of site development? My sense is that two (council/admins) should both undergo active development e.g., otherwise there is a considerable risk of council making decisions which are technically inappropriate/not ideal, etc. - such as premature use of LQT, etc.

Sincerely,
James

[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

James,
You are asking excellent questions. I suggest the candidates running for the first council elections answer your questions.

Thank you.
Nellie

[Steve Foerster]

James,

That's a great question.

If WE is truly to be community governed, then assigning
responsibilities like administrative permissions needs to come from
the Council. I foresee that once the Council is in place, that
through resolution they can appoint people or rescind administrative
permissions or any other responsibilities.

There should also be a "WikiEducator:People" page that has a list of
those with administrative permissions and other responsibilities so
that the community knows who to contact for help with specific
issues. (Perhaps there's already such a list elsewhere and I'm just
not aware of it?)

-=Steve=-


--
Stephen H. Foerster
http://hiresteve.com
http://wikieducator.org

[Minhaaj ur Rehman]

very important thread i must say. I would add one thing to what steve
said. I believe newly elected council should be given their specific
email addresses for example stevef...@wikieducator.org. This would
really create a sense of belonging and pride that we all should have
as WEs. I am all for steve's idea about WE should be totally community
driven with periodic online meetings and face2face meeting once in a
while. I believe election is just an initial phase of what i see as a
revolutionary change in WE. I have been talking to a lot o WEs and
election candidates and everyone is full of ideas just waiting to be
heard and discussed :)

[Savithri Singh]

Dear All,

Exactly.  We need an elected Council such that these decisions can be made in a democratic manner. Till now we were functioning in a 'situational - as the need arose' manner - we needed a Board of some sort - so an Interim Advisory Board was created; some people had to have admin rights so some people were given these, and so on....and Wayne was taking most of the decisions. Of course, WE have been doing well even while functioning this way <smile> yet now that we have so many WEducators and so many opinion makers and opinion seekers it is essential that we structure ourselves to function better. 

Obviously once the council is formed members, within the Council different people will have to identify different primary responsibilities.  As WE grows there are going to be several more issues to discuss and resolve - a democratically elected body could ensure democracy in functioning further too.

Lets hope we do a good job of electing good people!!

Savithri

2008/8/20 Minhaaj ur Rehman <min...@gmail.com>

--
Dr. Savithri Singh
Principal
Acharya Narendra Dev College
(University of Delhi)
Govindpuri, Kalkaji
New Delhi 110 019

Tel: 2629 4542, 2629 3224, 2641 2547
Fax: (011) 2629 4540
Res: 2584 8151 2584 9786 2584 3496

http://andcollege.du.ac.in

http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:First_Community_Council_Elections/Savithri_Singh#Why_support_me_-

[NELLIE DEUTSCH]

Hi Steve,
I noticed your name on the following page: http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Advisory_Board#Board_members

Would this help:

General responsibilities

The WikiEducator Council, hereinafter referred to as the Council, has the responsibility:

• to guide and support the WikiEducator community in achieving its aims in accordance with the community ethos and values.
• to model good governance through transparent reporting. Agendas of meetings must be posted on WikiEducator at least two (2) days prior to the date of scheduled meetings and corresponding minutes must be posted within fourteen (14) days of a scheduled meeting.
• to ensure that policies and activities meet the requirements of the essential freedoms defined in the http://freedomdomdefined.org Free Cultural Works Definition].

Powers

The Council has the authority to:

• approve policies, bylaws and amendments that have been developed transparently within the WikiEducator community;
• nominate members to serve on the Council in accordance with this policy;
• establish sub-committees and working groups for specific purposes of the Council, including an Executive Committee as described below;
• call and administer due process for elections of the Council;
• remove members of the Council in accordance with this policy
• to elect the Officers of the Council.

Warm wishes,
Nellie

[vmensah]

Hi James and All,

This tread has perhaps sorted all the questions from James.

One thing is for sure, the "situational nature" of handling issues on
WE may not be helpful to all of us in the long run. Having a standing
council always helps as we will all (through participatory democracy)
decide on what course we want to chart as members of this community.

Being awareded sysop and b'crat rights also comes with a lot of
responsibility and hopefuly, when the board is in place, we will be
able to agree on the criteria as well as responsibility scope for all
of these.

James, I hope this and all the preceeding comments have not made it
worse <smile>.

regards,
Victor.


http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Victor.mensah
http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:First_Community_Council_Elections/Victor_Paa_Kwesi_Mensah

On Aug 20, 7:24 pm, "NELLIE DEUTSCH" <nellie.muller.deut...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Wayne]

Hi James,

The WikiEducator council is a governance body and technically speaking should not get involved with operations management of WikiEducator.  The prime purpose of the council is to ensure good governance -- not technical operations management.  So for example, this would entail ensuring that democratic procedures are adopted for the development of policies  or developing policies that will promote accountable operations management without interfering in the day-to-day technical management of the site.

To date -- we do not have a written policy on who is awarded sysops/bureaucrats/administrator status.  So far I've been a " benevolent dictator"  in awarding these privileges based on a "web of trust" model and my experience of the community. However this will need to change given our community growth.

My interpretation of the council documents (which will need to be ratified by the first council) is that elected and nominated officials would not automatically qualify for sysops/bureaucrats/administrator as this is an operations matter.

Hope this helps -- there are still lots we need to get sorted to ensure a successful and sustainable project.

Cheers
Wayne