Dear Wikimedia Editors, Please note: this is not a joke. The 2005 elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will start soon. Right now, we are still discussing the technical details of the vote. It is You, Wikimedians, who will choose two representatives of Wikimedia contributors from around the world. Members of the Board of Trustees are entrusted with the ultimate decision making for the Wikimedia Foundation. The board's role is not website governance. On behalf of Wikimedia project community, today we Wikimedia Election Officials authoritatively and unilaterally announce that we are going to fire Mr. Jimmy Donal Wales from his presidency at the Board of the Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation. According to the discussion of the Election Officials and Board member, we are therefore voting for three positions, including the President. Presidency is lifetime, and other two positions are two years term. In order to vote you must have been with one of the Wikimedia projects for at least three months, and have at least 400 edits in total on the Wikimedia projects. The candidacy of permanently banned users and sockpuppet is decided by declension.the Election officials. The election is run using Approval voting. Each voter will be allowed to vote for as many of the candidates as they see fit for each position. The two candidates with the most votes for will be declared the winners. In the event of a tie, a run off election will be announced. As of yet, we aren't accepting candidates. Interested candidate may fill an entry for him - or herself - on Election candidates 2005 or its subpage(s) starting on Saturday, 0:00 May 28, 2005 (UTC). Next, they will have three weeks in maximum to present themselves to the rest of the Wikimedia community. The translation coordinators will translate the entries to every possible language, and after that, the voting will start. Here's the proposed timeline on this year's election: Candidates accepted and presentation from Saturday, 0:00 May 28, 2005 (UTC) to Friday, 24:00 June 17, 2005 (UTC) Vote from Saturday, 0:00 June 18, 2005 (UTC) to Friday, 24:00 July 1, 2005 (UTC) If you speak another language, please do not translate this announcement. If you would like to oversee the translation of further coming notes, please list yourself on [[m:Election_notice_translations_2005#Coordinators]]. Finally, we would like to wish all of the candidates the best of luck in the election, hoping P*A* be with you, Election Officials, Wikimedia Election Committee Aphaea on Wlly on Wheels!! email: Aphaia @ gmail (not) com