Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2004/Candidates

Real name: Florence Nibart-Devouard
Location: Clermont-Ferrand, France
User page: main ones are Utilisateur:Anthere, User:Anthere and User:Anthere
Wikimedia participant since: February 2002, admin on fr: in summer 2002, on meta: in january 2003, on en: in may 2003, member of the mediation committee in january 2004, and steward in april 2004.
Projects in which I participate: french Wikipedia, english Wikipedia and Meta.
Languages in which I participate: French, English
Link to user contribution page: : on meta, here.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: : I would like Wikimedia projects to fully develop along the vision offered by Jimbo. The Internet really blossomed in the 1990s, but has reached little of its potential. It is now undergoing a revolution which will help humans control their own lives. I see Wikimedia playing a major part of this revolution by challenging current resources (copyrighted, poorly updated, expensive) and changing human habits toward more cooperation. Wikimedia projects will become the resource for information systems all over the world.
See here as well : Vision

Concerns I hope to address: :

• listen and report community concerns to the board (e.g. copyright issues)
• inform the community of topics discussed on the board
• organise the Foundation democratically and with delegation of authority (corps of officers, working teams -> see my proposition official position)
• set up sister non profit organisations, with their moral, legal and financial affiliation (currently working on fr one)
• increase the visibility of the Foundation and its projects (redesign Foundation main page, mission status, PR activities)
• raise funds, in particular from charitable associations
• make efficient use of donations.
• preserve principles of freedom, free of charge, openness, respect, civility and collaboration

For more, please see : How I plan to help

I would like to make mine as well, part of two comments made by other candidates; I would like that we build a Wikimedia-wide culture of love and respect; and, whoever the candidates elected are, I hope that most people listed here become active participants of the Foundation itself.

For questions, please post here: Ask a question or offer a comment
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative

User name: ArnoLagrange
Real name: Arno Lagrange, Home page (eo fr)
Location: Toulouse, France
User page: eo:Vikipediisto:ArnoLagrange
Wikimedia participant since: 19th December 2002, Administrator on eo, Stewart on meta.
Projects in which I participate: Vikipedio, Wikipédia, Vikifontoj (eo Wikisource), Wiktionary
Languages in which I participate: eo, fr, en, de, af, bg, ca , cs , da , el , es , et , eu , fi , ga , hi , hr , hu , is , it , ja , ko , la , lt , nl , no , oc , pl , pt , ro , ru , sk , sl , sq , sr , [[:w:sv:Anv%E4ndare:ArnoLagrange|sv]], sw , tr , uk , wa , zh
Link to user contribution page: fr, de, wikisource, eo:Vikipediisto:ArnoLagrange/Kandidatiĝo_ĉe_Wikimedia
Position stood for: Volunteer User Representative.

I was told I had to confirm my candidature phoning to Imram. But I never knew Imram's phone number and he didn't either answer to my e-mail. Perhaps I'm not confirmed as a candidte because of that, however I see myself as a candidate. Arno Lagrange ✉ 22:13, 29 May 2004 (UTC) [reply ]

User name: Christopher Mahan

Real name: Christopher Mahan

Location: Nortridge, CA, USA

User page: Christopher Mahan

Wikimedia participant since: February 2002

Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia

Languages in which I participate: English (Can read and write French)

Link to user contribution page: my user talk page

Position stood for: Both.

User name: Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick
Real name: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Location: Helsinki, Finland
User page: en:User:Cimon avaro; fi:Käyttäjä:Cimon Avaro
Wikimedia participant since: 14th April 2003
Projects in which I participate: Wikiquote, Simple
Languages in which I participate: English, Finnish
Link to user contribution page: See User pages.
Concerns I hope to address: If other trustees agree; appointing working groups of qualified people to prepare workable choises (in consultation with both the board of trustees and the users of the various Wikimedia projects) for policies and institutions that the users may adopt through either consensus acclamation or if neccessary, qualified majority voting.

These working groups consisting of 3 to 5 appointed members and 1 to 3 trustees from the board of trustees.

Suggested (incomplete) list of working groups:

• Copyright and intellectual property licencing policies.
• Member association structures and bylaws.
• User community institutions and policies.
• Crossproject integration.
• Steering committee. (This including the whole Board of trustees and a number of appointed members determined by the Board.)

The board holding legal title of trademarks and other assets; ensuring sound stewardship of revenue, and beneficient disbursment of the funds generated.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: That every person on the globe who has watched a television broadcast, will have read a wikipedia article, fully knowing that they have the power to edit it.
For questions, please post here: User:Cimon avaro/empty
Position stood for: Both. If I come first for both positions, will serve as Volunteer User Representative.

User name: Delirum
Real name: Mark Nelson
Location: United States—Claremont, California; Houston, Texas; or Atlanta, Georgia (varies)
User pages: en:User:Delirium, el:User:Delirium
Wikimedia participant since: January 2003
Projects in which I participate: Mostly Wikipedia; sometimes Wikisource, Wikiquote, and Wiktionary
Languages in which I participate: Mostly English (en); sometimes Greek (el)
Links to user contribution pages: Greek

Concerns I hope to address: I hope to keep the Wikimedia Foundation useful in serving the needs of all its projects, but without becoming a top-down means of hierarchical central control of the projects, which so far have been remarkably successful in managing their own affairs. In short, the Foundation should be there to help the projects (both the various-language Wikipedias and the other projects), not there to tell the projects what to do. In particular, it should help with coordination so that everyone in the various projects across various languages is actively involved in the project, both in terms of decision-making and in terms of knowing what is going on in other projects and languages.

I do think the foundation can be particularly helpful in starting up new projects and providing them with early support. I am particularly interested in starting new proposed Wikimedia projects and in providing support for the start-up of Wikipedias in smaller languages that currently don't have many editors (or any at all) so they can become self-sustaining. I'm also interested in providing support for user-started initiatives, such as WikiReaders (and anything else that might come up). Finally, I think that Jimbo Wales' leadership of Wikimedia over the past several years, and his personal investment of tens of thousands of dollars in the project, gives him substantial credibility, and so I hope the board will serve as a way of offering new ideas and giving voice to new concerns, without damaging the effective leadership of the past few years.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: I see Wikimedia as starting out with Wikipedia as the flagship, prestigious culmination of many peoples' work, and going from there out into similarly-prestigious contributions to other forms of media. Wikimedia has been at the forefront of collaborative use of the internet, which I expect it to stay a leader in, but simultaneously to branch out into other forms of distribution, such as printed and CD-ROM versions of some of its projects. Most importantly, I would like to see Wikipedia have a worldwide reputation for quality, neutrality, and integrity, flying in the face of the conventional wisdom that only large corporations (and not an ad hoc group of individuals) can produce quality informational materials. That's something I think is already well on its way to happening.

For questions, please post here: en:User talk:Delirium
Position stood for: Volunteer User Representative

User name: Eloquence
Real name: Erik Möller
Location: Berlin, Germany
User page: w:User:Eloquence
Wikimedia participant since: late 2001
Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia, Meta, MediaWiki development
Languages in which I participate: English, German
Link to user contribution page: German
My main contributions:

See my user page for a list of non-minor article, code and policy contributions. Some non-article contributions:

• suggested and set up first fundraising campaign which brought us 40,000ドル
• organized international logo contest
• created #wikipedia and #mediawiki IRC channels
• implemented the current English Wikipedia Main Page, which inspired international redesigns
• implemented section editing, TOC, "Go" button, edit toolbar, "ancient pages", subpages, anon talk pages, other MediaWiki features
• promoted Wikimedia/MediaWiki in articles, interviews and on conferences, will moderate WOS3 panel

Concerns I hope to address:

• Launch effective fundraising campaigns, online and offline
• Develop foundation organizational structure (chapters, bylaws, officials etc.)
• Be responsible stewards of donor money, but do not create special privileges
• Get Wikimedia involved in political and legal issues that affect us
• Create guidelines for starting new projects
• Balance project/language autonomy and Wikimedia-wide policies
• Improve intra-/inter-project and project-to-foundation communication

Above all, ensure open and democratic processes.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project:

• Get Wikimedia content into every medium, every world region, integrated into other websites (IMDB, book sellers ..)
• Launch new projects, especially:
  • Wikimedia Commons - shared repository of free media for all wikis, single login
  • Wikinews - crack media concentration with international open content news reporting
• Our next joint Wikipedia press release should be "100,000 peer reviewed Wikipedia articles in 50 languages"
• MediaWiki usability testing, bounty system for key development tasks

Above all, protect and build a Wikimedia-wide culture of love and respect, but not without rules.

Detailed campaign platform: w:User:Eloquence/Platform

For questions, please post here: w:User talk:Eloquence/Ask the candidate
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative

User name: maveric149
Real name: Daniel Mayer
Location: Sacramento, California, United States
User page: meta, en.wikipedia
Wikimedia participant since: 2 January 2002
Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia, Meta, Wikibooks
Languages in which I participate: English (at one time, Spanish)
Link to user contribution page: en.wikipedia, en.wikipedia user page.

Concerns I hope to address:

I wish to help:

• Develop a comprehensive budget and plan ahead for funding needs. See Wikimedia budget
• Ensure that donor money is spent responsibly.
• Keep community and membership informed of all activities
• Consult the membership and community on important decisions.
• Defend our copyrights and Wikimedia's trademarks.
• Establish a representative group of leaders from each Wikimedia project to act as liaisons and counselors to the board.
• Draft a GNU Free Content License and migrate to it (the FCL would be freer than the GNU FDL and compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license).

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project:

My five year master plan:

• Establish a Wikimedia Chapter (member association) system
• Put Wikimedia content on donated computers.
• Distribute approved Wikimedia content on CD and paper.
• Cultivate translation/content creation partnerships with colleges and direct that effort toward smaller Wikimedia project language versions.
• Charter a Wikimedia University.

For questions, please post here: platform and questions
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative (prefer in tie) or Volunteer User Representative

User name: Michael Snow
Real name: Michael Snow
Location: Seattle (Washington), United States
User page: en:User:Michael Snow
Wikimedia participant since: December 2003
Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia, Meta
Languages in which I participate: English (I also speak French and German)
Link to user contribution page: For questions, please post here: en:User:Michael Snow/Candidate statement and discussion
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative

User name: TomK32
Real name: Thomas Roland Koll
Location: Berchtesgaden, Germany/Deutschland
Contact: tomk32@gmx.de or +49 8652 657819 (I don't care about weirdos calling me)
User page: de:Benutzer:TomK32
Wikimedia participant since: January 2003, Admin at de: since April 2003
Projects in which I participate: german Wikipedia, WikiReader and currently maintainer of the Webshop
Languages in which I participate: German, rarely English
Link to user contribution page: Česká to get them more editors and readers.

Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: Like Jimbo I have the vision of print, not a complete encylopedia but only small topics like we are doing with the de:Wikipedia:WikiReader. I've done German one on "Internet" and will distribute 1000 printed copies in June, it's only a first test but if it succeeds we're one step nearer the printed Wikipedia. Aside this I hope to get the spoken Wikipedia project running, at de: we did a few but lost interest.
For questions, please post here: User:TomK32/Ask the candidate
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative

User name: Shizhao
Real name: Shi Zhao (时昭 in Chinese)
Location: Beijing, China
User page: zh:user:Shizhao
Wikimedia participant since: May 2003
Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary, Meta
Languages in which I participate: zh (as an admin and bureaucrat), en
Link to user contribution page: [7], [9], zh:user talk:shizhao
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative and Volunteer User Representative