Our remaining chats with our new Board members, Andrea Horbinski, Eylul Dogruel and Franzeska Dickson are coming up. The meetings are open to all of our members and to the public. They will be held in the OTW public chatroom.

And now for (some of) the news you've all been waiting for: the details of the OTW's 2012 Election Season.

We have great news for you: three fabulous people are joining the OTW Board! Because only three candidates came forward, we won't be holding a contested election this year. However, they are all awesome and eminently qualified for Board service. Without further ado, let's introduce them (in alphabetical order by given name).

* Andrea Horbinski
* Eylul Dogruel
* Franzeska Dickson

OTW elections have always been a bit complicated given the challenges of both preserving voter privacy and ensuring that elections are fair with an entirely virtual organization. We've implemented procedures surrounding our election technology to assure that the results of the vote are verifiable, that there are multiple corroborating sources to disallow any possibility of tampering, and that we have created an audit trail.

The OTW has developed a tradition for elections, that we run a couple of public chat sessions with all the candidates. The transcript is posted afterwards for those who missed it. We'll be changing the format slightly this year. As the org grows and the number of voters increases, we need to make sure everyone gets a fair chance to participate.

The timing of the chat sessions is determined by the candidates themselves. Depending on their availability, the Elections Officer picks the best time that suits as many of them as possible. Each chat will last one hour.