Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2004/Candidates
| 2004 board elections |
|---|
| Translation |
In this space, candidates for election to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees can present themselves. If you wish to be a candidate, please copy the template and fill in the following information. So as not to favor one candidate over another, please list your nomination alphabetically by username, according to the Unicode Collation Algorithm. No votes will be accepted before May 30.
Note that it is not possible to hold either of the positions anonymously, so please stand only if you are willing to make your real name public. Candidates will also be required to identify themselves fully to either User:Danny or User:Imran.
Those candidates whose identity has been confirmed by Danny or Imran have confirmed next to their name. If you're a candidate who has not yet confirmed your identity please contact one of us.
If standing for both the positions of Contributing Active Member Representative and Volunteer User Representative, you need to specify which one you would prefer. If a single user receives the most votes for both positions, this will be used to decide which position they will get.
Quick list of candidates
[edit]Contributing Active Member Representative (9 candidates): Anthere, Christopher Mahan, Cimon Avaro, Eloquence, Marcschulz, maveric149, Michael Snow, TomK32, Shizhao
Volunteer User Representative (8 candidates): Angela, Arno Lagrange, Christopher Mahan, Cimon Avaro, Delirium, Marcschulz, maveric149, Shizhao
User name: ~~~
Real name: xxxxx xxxxx
Location: City, Country
User page: xxxxx
Wikimedia participant since: xxxx
Projects in which I participate: xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx
Languages in which I participate: xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx
Link to user contribution page: xxxxx, xxxxx, xxxxx
You may summarize your contributions in up to 500 characters.
Concerns I hope to address: (no more than 500 characters please)
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: (no more than 500 characters please—additional information can be left on your user page)
For questions, please post here: xxxxxx
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative/Volunteer User Representative/Both.
Note that the 500 character limits are soft, not hard limits. We ask you to respect them but we will not enforce them.
Candidates:
[edit]Angela (Confirmed)
[edit].jpg)
User name: Angela
Real name: Angela Beesley
Location: Slough, England
User page: en:User:Angela
Wikimedia participant since: *February 2003: First logged in edit. June 2003: Admin at the English Wikipedia. November 2003: Admin at Wikisource and Meta. December 2003: Member of the English Wikipedia mediation committee, Admin at the Simple English and Latin Wikipedias. January 2004: Admin at the Arabic Wikipedia. February 2004: Bureaucrat at the English Wikipedia. March 2004: Bureaucrat at the Simple English Wikipedia, Admin at the Korean Wikipedia. April 2004: Wikimedia steward, CVS access.
Projects in which I participate: Wikipedia and Meta. Minor contributions to Wiktionary, Wikisource and MediaWiki development and am a sysop at some non-English Wikipedias.
Languages in which I participate: Mainly English, though I have edited over 100 Wikipedias. See my contributions page for details.
Link to user contribution page: en:User:Angela/Contributions
Concerns I hope to address:
- Improving communication
- Increasing cross project relations and collaborations whilst ensuring their unique needs are met
- Development of print editions
- Cross-project disclaimers and privacy statements
- License compatibility issues
- External promotion of Wikimedia
- Funding, grants, budgets
- Sister chapters [1][2]
- Maintaining freedom and openness
- Managing our growth
- Addressing the risks facing the foundation.
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project:
I want to see continued growth and development of our outstanding open content material, and of the international community, whilst respecting and maintaining our core principles of neutrality, civility, freedom and openness.
I envision Wikimedia expanding to cover innovative new sub-projects. I want Wikimedia to become a household name for reliable, trustworthy, high quality content, which is universally accessible, open and free.
Overall, my vision is for a stable long term future for Wikimedia.
For questions, please post here: en:User talk:Angela/Questions
Position stood for: I am committed to standing only for the Volunteer User Representative as I want to represent all users.
Detailed campaign platform: User:Angela/Election
Anthere (Confirmed)
[edit] |
User name: Anthere Real name: Florence Nibart-Devouard |
- my favorite and major contributions to articles are here.
- I contributed to a certain number of images and logos as well, most being visible here :
- I contribute quite a bit on meta, where I wrote several articles, such as uncivility, help set up and maintain the Wikipedia Embassy, entirely reorganised the Main Page, maintain Goings-on, fixed broken policies, and take care of steward duties.
- I participated in setting numerous policies on fr:, and help the mediation committee start on en:
- I also led the two french international press releases, and participated in a meeting to present Wikipedia [3]
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
Arno Lagrange (Confirmed)
[edit]
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: eo, fr, en, de, meta, wikisource, eo:Wiktionary
Concerns I hope to address: (fill in later) Make caution Wikimedia will be open and multilingual and Wikimedia projects in all languages will grow in quality.
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: Make able for everybody speaking any language to find all knowledges and informations they are looking for.
For questions, please post here: 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)
Christopher Mahan (Confirmed)
[edit]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 contributions
Concerns I hope to address: I wish to help organize some of the guidelines for conduct on wikipedia, and help in the formulation of policy regarding such. It is important also to allow editors and contributors to feel that they have a voice in the direction of the project, and I wish to give them that. I consider this position to be equivalent to that of Obudsman: listening to and investigating the concerns of users. It is of the utmost importance to me to foster a spirit of mutual respect among contributors, and to help alleviate feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment. Ultimately, the gravest concern I have is that contributors will feel unheard and leave. I don't want that to happen. I am very proud of this organization, and think very highly of all the people who have put countless hours of their time into this project as well as money, hardware, coding the software, and dealing with the hordes of vandals.
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project:
I see the Internet evolving, and Wikimedia taking on greater responsibilities in the world at large. The Wikimedia project is going to spend a lot more time in the limelight, with all the good and bad that entails. I see the foundation being an instrument of knowledge accumulation, as well as of dissemination to a greater number of people. This is why I consider it very important to encourage the adoption of traditional media such as print, as well as promoting access to and accessibility from people of diverse ethnic, cultural, and economic backgrounds.
For questions, please post here: my user talk page
Position stood for: Both.
Cimon Avaro (Confirmed)
[edit]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.
Delirium (Confirmed)
[edit]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: English, 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
Eloquence (Confirmed)
[edit]
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: English, 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
- 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
Maveric149 (Confirmed)
[edit]
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: meta, en.wikipedia, Wikibooks
- Nearly 40,000 edits to articles.
- A selection of my contributions is on my en.wikipedia user page.
- Very active in Wikipedia and Wikimedia policy discussions.
- I maintain Wikimedia's donation page, account balances, and PayPal history.
- I'm working on a proposed Wikimedia budget.
- Principal organizer of Wikimedia's first press release.
- With user Karl Wick, helped establish Wikibooks.
- Domains secured by me for the foundation: mediawiki.org, wikimedia.org, [http:wikimediafoundation.org wikimediafoundation.org], wikibooks.org, wiktionary.org, wikisource.org
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
Michael Snow (Confirmed)
[edit]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: [4]
Concerns I hope to address:
- Ensuring that user interests are communicated to the Foundation, and that the community stays informed about important Foundation issues.
- Keeping the Foundation informed about legal issues, such as operation as a non-profit and handling of intellectual property.
- Adding new funding sources, and making efficient use of donations.
- Making sure that projects other than Wikipedia, and languages other than English, have their needs considered.
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: I believe the Foundation and its projects have barely scratched the surface of their potential. As Wikimedia grows and develops its resources, we will be able to expand into other fields, as befits the name "Wikimedia". This should include making images, sound, and video available to enhance our content. It also includes making appropriate use of media such as print, television, and radio to provide open content comparable to what we offer online.
For questions, please post here: en:User:Michael Snow/Candidate statement and discussion
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative
TomK32 (Confirmed)
[edit]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: [5], a few patches for MediaWiki and the HTMLtable2wiki converter for pywikipediabot
Concerns I hope to address:
- Improve the communication between normal editors on one side and sysops and developers and the Foundation on the other.
- Get the webshop running (done) and start distributing things like printed WikiReaders or Wikipedia-on-CD/DVD.
- Run newspapers adds for smaller languages like Česká to get them more editors and readers.
- Hunt abusive proxies.
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
Shizhao (Confirmed)
[edit]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: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]
Concerns I hope to address: To establish communications between the fast-growing, but currently quite unnoticed, Chinese Wikipedia and Wikimedia, especially in regards to unique concerns that trouble Chinese users due to technical and cultural differences.
Vision for the future of the Wikimedia project: Further expansion, more inclusive and global
For questions, please post here: zh:user talk:shizhao
Position stood for: Contributing Active Member Representative and Volunteer User Representative