Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2006/Candidates/en

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• Collaboration. Our problems can't be solved by giving power to the right people, companies, or countries; instead, we will need everyone's contribution. Readers should be encouraged to become editors, editors should be encouraged to be policy people, policy people should be encouraged to help set the agenda for the Board. As a Board member, my job is representing the community: publishing details of what the Board is actually doing and soliciting the community's opinion about what it should be doing.

• Innovation. Software isn't neutral; its design shapes how you use it. Until now, we've been busy just keeping the software running. We must also work on improving it: getting more people involved, adding features the community wants, and making it easy for everyone to fully use. Since, in a very real way, the software controls the site, whoever controls the software has tremendous power. We must make sure the community, not private companies or individual people, decides how it develops.

• Growth. Alexa reports that 5% of all Web surfers visit Wikipedia. On the one hand, that's pretty impressive. On the other, that means 95% do not. That's a lot of people to bring on board. But even of those who read Wikipedia, few really understand that they can write it, let alone do any of its other tasks. At the same time, though, what we've done is now a model to the world. Leaders in every field hope to apply Wikipedia's magic to their own tasks. Such jobs may require new organizations, new software, or new structures, but our grand goal remains the same: radical collaboration to give everyone unrestricted access to all the world's knowledge.

More on all these points...

About me: Over six years ago, I built my first web application. I called it theinfo.org, but it was basically the same idea as Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, it didn't take off, but I never stopped thinking about the problem. Since then, I co-authored the RSS 1.0 spec, worked on the specifications for the Semantic Web, and was an early employee at Creative Commons. Most recently, my startup Infogami merged with Reddit, which, after one year, is already in the top 1500 sites on the Internet (according to Alexa).

Vikivortaro (eo:Wiktionary), en :Wiktionary

• Linguistic diversty
• Halfway thoughts

secondary: User:Arnomane, w:en:User:Arnomane, n:de:Benutzer:Arnomane, w:ar:User:Arnomane

Some of my sub projects (or projects I'm heavily involved in) beside admin work...

German language Wikipedia:

• mainly articles on natural science and technology (main focus Astronomy & Space Exploration), printed Wikipedia (see my WikiPress book Solar system)

Wikimedia Commons:

• Wikimedia Commons interface and complete user guide redesign (see e.g. Help page maintenance and Tool integration), Wikimedia Commons policy issues (like media file licensing e.g. Licensing), requests to third parties for freely licensing their media

• Cross-project communication: Currently many things get solved independently over and over again in our diverse wiki communities. I met quite some people who created nice stuff that just works in one community. Thatfor I want to increase cross-project communication so that the communities benefit from each other. As well I realized the limited technical possibilities for easy communication from inside Commons towards the other communities and thatfor wanted to lower the tensions between projects and get people together. That's why I wrote the very first (now replaced) version of the now central Commons tool "CheckUsage" (see User:Arnomane/Image usage) and together with Duesentrieb I had the "CommonsTicker" idea (of course solely coded by Duesentrieb, please have a look at User:Duesentrieb/CommonsTicker if you still don't know it) among other things.
• Community board member: My self-conception is that I want to be a community board member. I want to communicate problems and solutions out of our diverse communities to the board. Of course I can also contribute quite some own experience, like for example on "printed Wikipedia" - one of our main goals. So I don't want to be there in order to make "big politics" as I believe in division of work among board members and in open-minded (not group-think) meritocracy in online projects.
• Empowerment of participation: I believe that equality among our diverse language communities can only be reached by active participation and with the right free software tools. For me all languages and cultures are equally welcome but we cannot achieve working equality by board declarations. So IMHO the current main task of WMF towards equality of communities is (beside local chapters) to ensure that future MediaWiki versions take an even greater emphasis on features that enable people getting more easier in touch across communities and languages.

I come without any specific template for the WMF. For manifesto, I would say that we still have to match up some things. Implementing the best distance learning experiences, when we know that factual content is a Long Tail phenomenon (to speak modishly), means we have to be both cumulatively smart and better in the humanities. The aim is to become comprehensive, but also comprehensible and comprehending on a global scale. These are ambitious slogans.

Background: I had 10 years post-doctoral experience in academia (1978-1989), at the University of Cambridge, with years in France and the USA. After that I have been a voluntary worker in a number of contexts, including publicity work and raising sponsorship. I have written two books (one conventional, one with a Korean friend published online), and over 100 articles. I have travelled, outside tourist bubble-wrap, in Japan, South Korea, and recently Uganda, where in June I gave a well-attended lecture on Wikipedia. I speak quite reasonable French, and some Russian. I have been a married parent through all this time.

The role of the Board: what other online extended community gets to hire its own support staff? The Board has stewardship of the most important piece of hypertext ever. Some intangibles, such as 'wiki culture', 'motivational working atmosphere', 'adding worth', matter as much as money. The scale of Wikimedia projects now means that straight management sometimes applies, but the biggest challenge remains the harnessing of the folk writing on the wikis to projects in the larger scheme. In the day-to-day operation of the sites, this means not losing sight of the old-school way of thinking.

In short, I have outside experience, communication skills, and a traditional wiki approach.

We must

bridge the chasm between the WMF & the communities. I will be on IRC channels and E-mail, and mailing-lists to make it so. I will talk with people who value the mission of WMF, one on one .

I edit

primarily on the english WP, contributing by starting the en:WP:BITE guideline and"Cleanup". My edits won't last; they will.

In prior elections

first time I kept the debate cordial, and elevated it. The health of WMF needed a challenge by good candidates in the second election. A position is open, so now we shall campaign upon the direction of our mission to benefit mankind.

Long term

The WMF projects will arc over centuries; all squabbles subsiding into footnotes on the way to their inspection by eternity. WMF is dominant on the WWW, and how we lead, will influence it; ours is benign; "making the Internet not suck". Continuing, we will join force with groups who guard its futurity; such as EFF, FSF, SFLC, and CC.

WMF

shall "do no evil". Custodially it oversees resources & assets that are entrusted to it; including trademarks of the foundation and the projects & the emblems identifying the body and work, guarding from abuse and dilution. Licencing these should be done on a case by case basis, slowly, sensitive to local cultural/legal frameworks, not presuming any sole model.

The committees shall be overseen by the board, so they conform with our mission.

Initiated Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons; lead developer of WiktionaryZ/Wikidata; co-initiator of the Free Content Definition; international speaker and published author about wikis; extensive social network to many organizations and individuals; years of contributions and leadership in many Wikimedia endeavors. See my "Wiki CV".

Endorsed by: Angela Beesley (outgoing Board member; Vice President, Wikia), Erik Zachte (inventor of WikiStats, EasyTimeline, and other goodies), Sheldon Rampton (author; founder, SourceWatch; expert on the PR industry), Evan Prodromou (founder, Wikitravel), and others

Statement of goals:

Detailed campaign platform , including an interview with the candidate ;-)

If you don't want to vote for me, please consider voting for Arnomane, AaronSw (yes, he's young, but very clever), Mindspillage, or UninvitedCompany. Note that you can vote for multiple candidates, though only one seat is open for election.

As a board member, the issues I would focus on issues in three broad areas:

1. Building community

• Peer review is what makes wikipedia great. Petty infighting is aggravating and drives people away. I would work on ways to prevent conflicts
• Admins and sysops are a great group of people. We need to promote their work by improving the ways they are selected
• Promote communities of individuals with interest and expertise in specific topics. This in turn will improve article quality.

2. Promoting articles that expand knowledge, are accurate and fair

• Promoting interlanguage coordination – reducing the difference between articles in different languages and strengthening the projects with a smaller number of articles by making translations easier.
• Building partnerships with verified resources (encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.) to improve the accuracy of articles and improving the reliability the information
• Promoting groups of technical experts in key areas (like copyright issues). Improving the brain trust involved in key issues will help with reducing conflicts between contributors.

3. Building a strong financial base for the foundation

• Increase the financial stability by expanding the donor base of the foundation. This includes promotion of an endowment.
• Work to recruit volunteers and donors to the foundation and acknowledgement of those donors.
• Explore ways that we can use technology to improve how information is delivered.
• Build our technical infrastructure

I have the experience in non-profit management and the technical knowledge to contribute to the wikimedia foundation.

Ideas:

• Establish an endowment for the foundation to provide a financial cushion from fundraising efforts
• Seek out sources of funding that don't require us to fundamentally change our no-advertisements, open nature
• The board should continue to be conservative in official day-to-day action on the wiki, reluctant to act except when it is necessary for the good of the project
• Be skeptical about accepting new recurring costs and "hard" infrastructure without a strong justification, in order to make certain that the project remains solvent, noncorrupt, and flexible
• Explore ways to present the data we have so far in more formats than the web (e.g. TTS, mobile devices, etc), for the benefit of humanity
• Take great care to avoid risks that may place the project in legal jeopardy
• Continue efforts to reunify Encyclopedia Libre and the Spanish Wikipedia, as well as encourage/establish outreaches for projects in different languages, to work more closely with other language Wikis to try to prevent similar problems, ensure legal compliance, and share ideas on policy

My platform:

• Ensure the Foundation remains accountable to its supporters and users;
• Build the infrastructure we need to respond to the massive increase in public attention Wikipedia gets, and to leverage this public interest to the benefit of the other projects;
• Improve communication within the Foundation, between the Foundation and the projects, and between the projects and the developers;
• Recruit volunteers, and when necessary, staff, to ensure that things that need to get done get done right and get done on time;
• Cultivate partnerships with others who will respect our core principles and benefit our mission; and
• Work toward reasonable growth and economic sustainability in a manageable timeframe.

Conflict statement: I am not, nor have I ever been, an employee, officer, or agent of the Wikimedia Foundation; Wikia, Inc.; or any entity organized as a Wikimedia chapter organization. To the best of my knowledge, neither myself nor any of my past or present employers has directly or indirectly done business with any of the above entities, except that I am an occasional donor to the Wikimedia Foundation, and my housing at Wikimania 2006 was obtained by payment made through Wikimania's organization.

I am a contributor to wikimedia projects because I strongly believe in copyleft and free/open content.

Some people here bring impressive resumes to the table, or have made interesting election promises. I'm only going to make a small number of big promises, because each of them would be difficult to achieve in real life. If I only pick a few, I'll have a realistic chance actually achieving all of them.

Note that with approval voting, you can simultaniously also vote for other candidates with similar programs. If you like a particular idea, please also vote for those other candidates with that program.

• Internal communications: Currently, wikimedia is very fragmented. I'd like to get all those fragments talking with each other, I hope to achieve this by weaving a web; one link, one person at a time. I could do this without being on the board, but the additional opportunity for communication a board member is exposed to makes this much easier. If you'd like this to happen, also consider voting for AaronSW, Arnomane, and Oscar.
• Transparency: Right now, particular parts of the foundation have closed doors and are essentially running without proper community oversight. Some things have to remain secret, but there's decent methods to allow people to even check private processes. Only the board can actually force people to apply these methods, so someone on the board needs to take up this task. If you'd like this to happen, also consider voting for Eloquence and Improv
• Long now: Wikimedia should be around for at least 100 years ('till the year 02101). One way to ensure that is to establish an endowment. Encouraging individual wikis to look at the way they are managed also goes a long way. Running the Foundation in a lean and efficient manner (with as little money as possible) also ensures longetivity If you're interested in this, also consider voting for Improv
• Finishing the term. I promise to stay on the board up to the end of the term, to ensure continuity.

My platform:

• Advocate for Wikimedia project users in cases that require Board attention;
• Help shape how the world views Wikimedia projects so that public enthusiasm expands;
• Provide a "for the people" viewpoint to the Board;
• Cut bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape as to make the projects more productive;
• Reaffirm Wikimedia's, and especially Wikipedia's, underlying goal of building an encyclopedia
• Serve as a conduit for ideas, concerns, and suggestions

My objectives:

• Increase communication between the worldwide community and the WMF, maintain contact with and participation in the community of editors, and consider the concerns of all projects.
• Establish clearer guidelines on the relationship between WMF and community and their roles and responsibilities
• Seek out skilled persons for needed tasks
• Take an active and responsible role in WMF decisions
• Encourage research in order to better focus our efforts
• Develop partnerships between the WMF and organizations who can help further our mission
• Support and defend our mission to provide and produce free copylefted content
• Inform the worldwide community about Wikimedia and its mission and projects through public involvement

(Of course, I have more to say, but as the guidelines suggested keeping this short I have attempted not to go on at the length I would like! Please ask anything else you would like to know on my candidacy discussion page.)

• editor and bureaucrat at nl.wikipedia and other dutch-language projects, few other edits scattered over various projects.
• as a steward since may 2005, i've endeavoured to help and advise many projects in many languages, for example i developed a good contact with and love for the turkish language vikipedia and its community
• i am a member of the special projects committee and currently chair of the dutch chapter. having already talked my candidacy through with the dutch chapter's board members: i will step down as chair if elected for the board of trustees.

1. the deadline for the candidates' statement being a bit awkward for me, i am writing this from a camping in the auvergne, france.
2. i am sorry to have witnessed angela's resignation, i greatly value her contributions to the projects, which i am happy to hear will not cease. in view of a temporary replacement being absolutely mandatory however, i decided to volunteer despite my busy life, since there is a lot of work waiting to be tackled as well as many problems waiting to be resolved by the wmf-board; solid decisions need to be taken rather swiftly in my humble opinion. i decided to volunteer, but not after first having consulted some of my fellow wikians, whose comments and views on this matter i greatly value and respect, so here i am: my candidacy should not come completely unexpected.
3. please see my dutch userpage for some of my personal views; please bear with me, this is no scientist (nor technician: i confess to sometimes still struggle with codes), but rather an artist speaking...
4. i am a professional composer and teacher at the rotterdam conservatory. even as such, i do not believe in copyright, especially not in copyright on ideas, and have long resisted joining the copyright organizations of which composers have to be a member of. finally i had to submit, since i found out that without joining it is virtually impossible to publish one's works, especially on cd. i am a firm believer in copyleft in general.
5. prior to having become a professional composer, i worked as a manager in corporate life, with experience in both profit- and non-profit organizations in the netherlands ('87-'95). i discovered britannica (oops, wrong text, should i mention this at all??) at the age of 10 in 1968 and have been in love with the gathering and spreading of knowledge all my life :-)
6. i am an advocate of real-life meetups whenever feasible, which in my small country have proven to be relatively easy to arrrange (i organized the rotterdam symposium where in september 2004 jimbo, anthere and angela for the second time met irl), and actually believe that, next to regular conferences on irc, the wmf-board should meetup in real life at least three times a year at the present state of things (not to mention meeting at wikimania as well), in order to be able to work most efficiently.
7. i am rather quick at learning languages and would not mind at all to learn some more along the way...
8. whether we are constructing an ark of noah for human knowledge, or "just" boldly working at the gradual completion of the tower of babel still remains to be seen, but i strongly believe that such is in our own hands for a larger part than could "reasonably be expected". please let it be clear that it is for this very reason that i most emphatically believe in the importance of the wmf's mission, and have been devoting most of my free time for 2,5 years now to the consolidation and further development of its projects and communities. i will continue to do so, no matter the outcome of these elections.

endorsements: jimmy wales, elian, Absar.

• To set up a decisionmaking structure rather than to make individual decisions itself
• To review financial, legal, and personnel matters on an ongoing basis
• To respect the independence of each project and language
• To refrain from major changes that could jeopardize the success we have already achieved
• To advise officers, paid staff, and volunteers working for the Foundation

I believe the role of the foundation should be:

• To provide a financial and legal framework for the operation of Wikipedia and its sister projects
• To serve as a single voice to the public in matters such as press and donor relations where unity is important
• To support and empower appropriate leadership within each project while maintaining our community-driven traditions

If elected, the first things I would advocate as a board member would be:

• Identification of one or more "foundation contacts" for each project in each language
• More extensive and more organized use of volunteers to deal with the daily work of the Foundation
• Increased focus on accurate and timely internal communications

With regard to non-English projects, I believe that:

• Most such projects should ultimately become independent of the U.S.-based foundation (in 5-10 years)
• Trusted leadership in each language should be cultivatived, that shares the core values of freely redistributable content, NPOV, and openness

The background I bring to the board includes:

• Three years of participation in the English Wikipedia including an ongoing interest in policy and governance
• Prior participation in the board of directors of the Wesleyan Broadcast Association, Inc., a non-profit corporation that operated radio station WESU-FM
• Prior paid employment as a corporate officer in a U.S. business which gave me a degree of familiarity with the legal, financial, tax, and corporate structure issues that face the Foundation
• Some prior international travel, mainly in Spain and Mexico since I speak some Spanish
• Technical background in software development and IT

Some things I wish I could bring to the board but can't:

• I respect the international nature of the Foundation and wish I could speak fluently in languages other than English
• I dislike travel and live in an out-of-the-way place. Though I am prepared to engage in some travel if elected, I may not be able to attend all board-related events in person
• As important as Wikipedia is to me, I cannot let it become my full time job.

Every challenge has been a new one and because of that we have had to create new ideas to resolve them. The task has neither been easy nor problem free, like the Spanish Wikipedia fork issue. I arrived at the Spanish Wikipedia project after the split when there were almost no native speakers contributing. That situation was very extreme, at odds with the diverse spirit that is the foundation of our projects.

It is because of that diversity that I'm running as a candidate. Wikimedia Foundation is beginning a new age: our communities are starting to get interested not only in the creation of content, but in projects that will allow that content to be seized by professors, students and the world at large. Our volunteers seek to eliminate the language and geographical barriers that split us, as is shown in the recent participation in Meta.

With my candidacy, I want to express the new age that is upon us, conscious of my coming from a diverse project, with language barriers that cannot be disputed and with a geographical gap that could be seen as a hardship, but that it is also an advantage because it lets me see the project from a different perspective. I'm aware that there are several candidates whose ideas, resumes and virtues put them at the top of the preferences, and the elected candidate among them will make an excellent member of the board. But I'm also concerned that these candidates lack the diversity that should characterize us: almost all of the candidates come from the anglo-saxon or European world. If our ideal is to create content that can benefit all the corners of the world, then, is it unrealistic to dream of representing a community from one of these corners?

I see my chances of being elected as very slim, but my candidacy goes beyond election: it is a reminder that our projects are built upon a foundation of diversity and that we should take pride in that. If you are interested in my vision, please see my ideas in detail here.