Board elections/2007/Candidates/en

I currently study marketing and management at the Wrocław University of Economics and work as a freelance English-Polish translator (I've done for Microsoft and Adobe).

I want Wikipedia to still be open and free, which means that I support limiting the use of non-free content (e.g. fair use pictures) to a minimum. I also generally support Wikipedia's sister projects, but on the other hand I think that some of them were bad ideas from the start, so I don't think all of them deserve the same level of attention. I also strongly believe in multilingualism and in supporting local communities and involvement of more people from outside the US and Western Europe in Wikimedia affairs.

In November 2006, the Board, office staff, and chapter representatives met in Frankfurt for three days to plan for the future of the Foundation.

Seven months later, what has been achieved? True, the staff has grown, but that makes the questions even more acute: Where is the fundraising strategy? Where is the technical road map? What is the plan for sustainability? International expansion and partnerships may be more exciting, but the role of a Board is to focus on the core issues, to protect the basic assets, and to ensure that the project remains vibrant and relevant. I hope to concentrate on that.

As a registered user on Wikipedia since early 2002, I helped to shape some of the basic guidelines. I have raised money for the Foundation, and opened doors for more money to come our way. I have also spent almost twenty months working in the Foundation office, and know the inner mechanisms intimately.

In my personal life, I have worked in various media for both the profit and non-profit sectors, and have even edited print encyclopedias professionally. I am proud to state that I am still an active editor on various projects.

My biggest Wiki-wide goal is an attempt for users on various project to work together on certain issues and ideas and to help in developing new ways in gathering information and more efficient ways of delivering that information to the world.

I believe all Wikimedia projects should get the same attention when decisions regarding policies/finance/etc are made and that those polices should conform to the needs and goals of each project whenever possible. I also believe that the community of each project should be more involved in Board decisions that would drastically change the operation of their project(s).

• defined our mission and vision clearly,
• strengthened our commitment to free culture through a project-wide, consistent licensing policy,
• expanded the Board with two community seats, giving the community a Board majority for the first time,
• formed a distinguished Advisory Board, which has been consulted regularly
• conducted the largest fundraiser in the history of Wikimedia,
• ensured proper review of all WMF finances, including the release of the first audited financial statements,
• substantially expanded our international staff, including the new position of Volunteer Coordinator to better work with our global community.

Progress on other fronts has been heating up (license compatibility, institutional partnerships such as the Encyclopedia of Life, search for a permanent Executive Director, plans for the next fundraiser, and so on). I hope I will be able to continue my work in these and other areas. :-) Please see "9 months of wiki madness" for a more personal view of my time on the Board so far and my hopes for the future. Thank you!

I've some basic points and ideas:

• WM projects must remain free and open
• we have to share knowledge
• WMF is a world wide organization
• our communities are both precious and different
• as a chapter member I see every day which are WMF problems: for instance, internal and external communication, clearness on which is the purpose of chapters, relationship with communities, donations and donors follow-up...
• according to my experience, sharing free knowledge requires that you have something to share, and it's not so obvious: the world is full of unknown knowledge. A first step is to recognize this knowledge and making it accessible.
• I'm convinced that WMF should invest in promoting and allowing further improvement of its own projects other than Wikipedia, especially in creating and growing these projects in disadvantaged areas, for instance Africa.
• WMF has got an enormous potential, still used only in part. Until and unless WMF doesn't have a well defined structure, and an organization chart that includes the Board, the Communities and the Chapters, it will be difficult to handle.
• Chapters are essential to the Foundation and they have to be properly used and strongly supported.

I will reduce our overhead to a bare minimum, using as many of our assets as possible to support our Internet hosting concerns. I will explore additional funding sources besides user donations, such as grants, sponsorship and advertising.

I will improve our technical competence though a variety of means, such as hiring additional technical employees, and ensuring we have a clear idea of how we will expand to fill the demand for our content.

I have been a MediaWiki developer and Wikimedia system administrator since 2004, and I believe this gives me a unique insight into how our organisation works on a technical level, and what changes need to be made to ensure our continued success.

For the foundation, the issues of day to day management, servers, and continuity are important. I think we all agree on that, so let's look at a different issue:

There are currently 700 wikis in over 250 languages across many projects. Communication between those wikis is practically none-existent, making it hard for people to learn from each other.

Examples:

• One wiki was banning admins from a different wiki
• Several wikis don't use consensus
• One wiki had a POV-violation in the site-notice
• Many wikis have never heard of Assume Good Faith

We also need to think more about talking with other non-profit organizations. They may have already learned lessons that we are still struggling with.

So day to day management, and improvement of internal and external communication is what I'd like to work on these coming two years. If you want to help me achieve that, please vote for me, or contact me, or both!

As a Board member, I will advocate a roadmap for our future development. I will also focus on expanding our reach outside Europe and North America, and improving collaboration and idea-sharing between wikis. We have much to learn from each other! I will respectfully promote my view that all board members should be elected.

I have been a Wikipedian for 2 years. I'm an administrator on the English Wikipedia, an AWB developer, and I have co-written several Featured Articles. I have experience at a similar level to this role, having been a member of the Student Union Council and the Finance Committee at Brunel University. I live on a small farm in England.

This is a condensed version of my personal statement. Per the election rules, I have prepared a private personal platform statement which I invite all voters to read. Thank you.