Jimmy Wales wrote: Hoi, Where you assume that Oscar needs introduction because of him being little known in the English Wikipedia, the same is true for Mindspillage. She is not well known outside of the English Wikipedia. You did both Oscar and Mindspillage a disservice by not properly introducing either. Where you state that some are "entirely unacceptable", you forget that democracy is about the electorate choosing it's champions. It is said that an electorate gets the representation that it deserves. It is for the people that are elected and who are not elected to work together. When this is entirely unacceptable, the notion of people being elected and being able and allowed to make a difference in that role will not be fulfilled. It will be a mockery of democracy. When a person is to be chosen for the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, it has been said that it is extremely important that the notion of the WMF being about the English Wikipedia is a false notion. I am afraid that you damaged Mindspillage by portraying her as an English Wikipedia person. I think all candidates that focus on Wikipedia in their statements disqualify themselves as the Wikimedia Foundation is NOT about Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM

On 16 Sep 2006, at 08:01, Jimmy Wales wrote: Well, I'll start off then. One of the candidates I support is Kim Bruning. He has been willing to honestly engage in a detailed discussion about "free" on Wikipedia and look into my suggestions on improving the encyclopaedia with an open mind. (Some discussions, for example, on your talk page.) One of the candidates I do not support is Kelly Martin. My first experiences of her was her call for my banning on my RfA based on incorrect premise, followed by failure to amend this call when given proof of her misunderstanding. It must be said that my recent experiences have been more positive though.

Since you can tick as many as you like, I ticked 'yes' on any that I knew to be reasonably clueful, and not just on en: Wikipedia. You can go back and vote again if you change your mind before deadline. - d.

On 9/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: Yes, absolutely. I think that's a very important, and valuable, statement. I am on the record as stating that the majority of any future expanded Board should be elected by the community (possibly through a membership model, but not necessarily so). However, in that model, sitting Board members can provide balance and reason by endorsing particular candidacies. Angela has endorsed me, and I think it is vital for you, Anthere and Michael to also share your views on the candidates. I don't think a public, cross-posted mailing list thread is necessarily the best way to do so, as it might turn into an exchange of negativity. In the future, perhaps each candidate statement should have a "slot" for endorsements. That way, Board members and others could easily make their opinions known. I for one welcome and encourage questions and comments about my candidacy at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Eloquence/Platform_2006 For those who do not wish to vote for me, I support the candidacies of Arnomane, Mindspillage, AaronSw, and UninvitedCompany. I do not support Oscar at this point in time; even though he is a very pleasant and experienced person, I think his skills are primarily in the area of diplomacy and negotiation, and will be more useful when the Board is larger and the structures of the Foundation have stabilized. However, I will probably support him for an expanded Board. The voting system used in this election, approval voting, allows anyone to vote for as many candidates as they want, and I would be pleased to receive the support of you, the reader. I would also be happy if one of the other candidates listed above won, as I think that each one of them will do a great job at representing and helping to run and oversee the Foundation in this critical period of its history. -- Peace & Love, Erik