User:Sean Heron/statement draft

I must begin by saying that I am not highly active on any of the Wikimedia Foundations projects. However I am an avid (replace with simpler) user/reader of the english Wikipedia, and see myself doing more original reporting for the english and german Wikinews in future. Also, I think I should say that I believe that a number of cantidates that are on the list up till now are presumably more engaged, more experienced and overall more competent for the job of Trustee than I am. I like to think though that I might do a better job than some of the other people listed here :D.

Financial viability

Regarding my position towards short term goals that I intend to follow: I believe that the Foundation should give priority to consolidating its current position. I realize that with a constantly growing userbase and increases of traffic this is most certainly easier said than done. Nevertheless, I think that ensuring long term financial viability is of the utmost importance. Financial viability that is without "selling out" to commercial enterprises. I believe that the Wikimedia Foundation should strive to stay as independent as possible from for-profit organizations. The aim must be to have such an capital base that the regular expenditures can be paid from interest (In a way similiat to that of, say, the Rockefeller Foundation).I´m speaking of an [[1]] to be brief. Of course thats a hell of a lot of money I´m talking about, and I therefore think it will be necessary to look into the spending side to look and see where money can be saved. I would not rule out drastic measures, and the least that could be done is to trade in growth for money. A statement made by a different candidate (Kate), that the Foundation should concentrate on Wikipedia, is not one I would necessarily endorse, but which might have its merit financially as well.

Moral

Another large point of interest for me are Projects (especially Wikipedias) repercussions in the "real world". The strongest example, and one of the main reasons for me to run for election was and is the matter of the article on one Boris W. , a German "Hacker", who died (presumably committing suicide) ?? years ago. The mentioning of his full name in the german wikipedia article, after having been done by some newspapers, led to complaints from a user claiming to (and if I know it right actually did) represent the deceased young mans parents. After heated exchanges the parents went on to sue the german wikimedia chapter, with the first court judgement leading to the german portal www.wikipedia.de not being allowed to link to the de.wikipedia. I must say that I found some of the things said in connection with this matter utterly disgusting. The way it was handled by some of the Administrators on the german Wikipedia and by the German chapter was, in my opinion, disgraceful for the entity of the Foundation, and, also in my opinion, morally wrong. To return to the Board of Trustees: As OFFICE action is a reality, I believe that some hard thinking and consequent action must be taken on the matter of personal rights. And I don´t mean the legal rights, I mean the moral obligations of an organisation that has such a "wide spread seen".