Wikimedia Foundation elections/Board elections/2008/Candidates/Submissions

The election ended 21 June 2008. No more votes will be accepted.
The results were announced on 26 June 2008.

2008 Board elections
Introduction and rules Candidate presentations Questions Vote Results
Organization
Election committee Translation

This page contains candidate submissions. Please do not copy these to the candidate pages or translate them. Eligible candidates will be transferred to each localization page at the end of the submission period, and there will be a week-long translation period.

Candidates: see instructions on the Candidate page.

Candidate submissions

Harel Cain (Harel)

Summary details

Me, attending the annual Wikipedia conference, Herzliyya, Israel. Personal: Name: Harel Cain Age: 29 Location: Jerusalem, Israel Languages: Hebrew, English, German, a little French Editorial: Wikimedian since: September 2004 Active wikis: he.wikipedia, il.wikimedia, and formerly a bit on yi.wikipedia

Statement

I'm a computer security engineer working towards a master's in math, and also a translator of books. I joined the Hebrew Wikipedia more than 3.5 years ago, when it was in its infancy. Over time I got admin, checkuser and then bureaucrat status there. I watched the complex yet fascinating process of a small community evolving into something bigger and less manageable, with all related growing pains. In August 2007 I gave a talk at Wikimania. There I also understood the global aspects of Wikimedia. I was one of the founders of the Israel chapter, and I'm on its control board. I'm very excited about the ways Wikimedian activity can transcend the online world into the real world and how casual readers become active participants in growing communities. If elected to the board, I intend to support: Activities by the board to foster the growth of local communities of editors the world over, even by allocating modest resources to this end. Efforts to reach out to demographic sectors chronically under-represented in WM project, by using novel means such as WM exhibitions. Stricter control by the board over key decisions made by WM employees, esp. hiring of new staff, which seems to be a soft spot. A much better liaison with the press, to try to abate some of the recurring uninformed media hype about the foundation. Strict opposition to paid ads on WM projects unless this is absolutely the last resort before WM goes bankrupt.

Kurt M. Weber (Kmweber)

Summary details

Atop the fire lookout tower at Martin State Forest in Martin County, Indiana Personal: Name: Kurt M. Weber Age: 23 Location: Princeton, Indiana, US Languages: English, Latin Editorial: Wikimedian since: May 2004 Active wikis: en.wikipedia

Statement

Though almost all of my activity has been on the English Wikipedia (with a spurt of activity on English Wikinews in November '05), I have been watching with increasing concern the influence the WMF Board has been exerting over all projects. In the last several months I have become more outspoken about it, to the dismay of many, and giving Mr. Wales a permanent seat on the board was the last straw. The WMF needs the community more than the community needs the Foundation, and I fear the Board has lost sight of that fact over the last couple of years, making itself increasingly independent of, and lording its position over, the various Wikimedia wiki communities. I aim to reverse this trend. As a Board member, I would work towards limiting the role of the Foundation in the Communities to that absolutely necessary to protect the projects from legal liability and to maintain financial security and technical stability. I would also propose to make the Board of Trustees an entirely community-elected entity, eliminating all appointed and permanent seats. The Board should be facilitating the communities, not controlling them. It's time to make that a reality.

Paul Williams (Skenmy)

Summary details

Me at Play.com Live! for Wikinews, 2008. Personal: Name: Paul Williams Age: 18 Location: Essex, England Languages: English Editorial: Wikimedian since: August 2005 Active wikis: en.wikinews, en.wikipedia, meta.wikimedia

Statement

I have a few aims that I wish to accomplish if elected to the Board: Encourage the learning of techniques and methods used to promote and popularise Wikipedia, and use these (wherever appropriate) to promote and popularise sister projects. Promote the inter-working of Wikipedia and its sister projects (transclusion of content, decentralisation from Wikipedia) Reinforce the use of Wikipedia and sister projects as verifiable and trustworthy sources (i.e. in academia) I think that these issues are things that affect the Foundation now that it has reached maturity, and I would be honoured to be a part of the board that progresses the Foundation, and all of its’ projects, no matter how large or small, above and beyond what they are today. I have long been an advocate of decentralisation from Wikipedia, removing content that is not encyclopædic, and focusing this content onto the smaller projects– many of which struggle under the weight of Wikipedia. This has long been a retaining factor on the growth of Wikimedia itself, as well as the growth of smaller projects, and I believe it is time for this to change.

Steve Smith (Sarcasticidealist)

Summary details

File:Sarcasticidealist.jpg Me, evidently finding myself quite amusing. Personal: Name: Steve Smith Age: 26 Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (until August 2008, after which Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada) Languages: English, French (formerly fluent, now merely conversational due to atrophy) Editorial: Wikimedian since: February 2007 Active wikis: en.wikipedia, meta.wikimedia, commons.wikimedia

Statement

I am an administrator at English Wikipedia and a member of the OTRS team, the business manager of a non-profit with revenues in excess of half a million dollars, a former director of three different non-profits, one statutory corporation, and one for-profit corporation, occasionally called upon by these organizations to give presentations on corporate governance, and starting law school in September 2008. I can verify all of the above upon request. If elected, I would advocate for the Foundation-imposed creation of committees in our largest projects, such committees to be empowered to make project-specific policy, elected to finite terms by the community and recallable by same, overrulable by community consensus, authorized to alter their own makeup, and no threat to the Foundation’s Section 230 immunity as a nonpublisher; ensure that the current more rapid growth of expenses than of revenues is merely a symptom of a rapidly growing organization; critically examine the proposed license migration; support the new board structure, except the chapter Trustees ( I would need to learn more to offer an opinion about them); oppose the use of paid advertising on any Wikimedia project.

Ting Chen (Wing)

Summary details

Wing on Wikimania 2007, Taipei Personal: Name: Ting Chen Age: 40 Location: Mainz, Germany Languages: Chinese, German, English, un peu Francaise Editorial: Wikimedian since: January 2003 Active wikis: zh.wikipedia, de.wikipedia, en.wikipedia

Statement

I was born in Shanghai, China. My family lived in Harbin, in the northeast corner of China, where I grew up. When I was 20 I went to Germany and studied Electrical Engineering in Braunschweig. After my study I took a work in a computer company. 1997 I joined IBM Germany in Mainz, where I work and live now. I started Wikipedia five years ago, after I read an article in a news tickel about it. As an editor most of my work is translation, from en and de to zh or from zh to de (occasionaly to en). As such I think I know quite well how the three Wikipedia versions growing, how they become that, what they are now. What is the differences between them and where they are better or less good than the other. I am also an administrator and a bureaucrat on the chinese Wikipedia. Most of my work in these functions are organisational and clean up works. One of my major concerns is from the beginning a communication between the different language communities. The second point, for which I would like to engage is to keep the communities open: Wikipedia is getting better. In some language versions the major topics are already covered very well. So what can a newbie do, if he is not an expert? And in relation with that I would like to see less bureaucraty in Wikipedia and in the foundation.

Template

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