Hello Everyone,
We have launched the Election Campaign for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. This is an important step forward in our emergence as a Foundation, and your participation is crucial.
The election is for two seats on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation:
1) Contributing Active Member Representative; 2) Volunteer User Representative.
I quote Jimbo in saying that:
"The role of the board is *not* generally to get involved in the day-to-day operation of the website. The board is a legal entity entrusted with ultimate decision making for the Foundation. Website governance is a different matter altogether. I don't anticipate that the board will be a difficult or demanding position."
In the future, only Members who have paid dues to the Wikimedia Foundation will be eligible to run for the Contributing Active Member Representative. All Users will be eligible to run for the Volunteer User Representative. However, since the dues infrastructure is not yet in place, we have decided that all Users who have been with the project for at least three months will be eligible to vote and run for both seats on the Board. Candidates must be prepared to identify themselves by name and geographic location in order to participate in the election. Verification of their identities will be required to either of the Co-Chairs of the Wikimedia Election Committee. Complete confidentiality is ensured by us.
A FAQ regarding the roles of the Board of Trustees, electoral procedures, and other information is forthcoming.
Elections are scheduled to be held from midnight (GMT), Saturday, 30 May 2004 to midnight (GMT), Saturday, 5 June 2004. All candidates must have been registered by then. midnight (GMT), 29 May 2004. The 24-hour interval will allow us the necessary time to verify the candidates' identities and make a final determination whether they are eligible to run.
This is not a popularity contest. Please avoid adding comments to the List of Candidates Page, such as "Great Contributor!" "Good choice!" "Troll" etc. All such comments will be removed immediately.
We encourage the candidates to create pages where voters can ask them questions.
It is important that participants in all languages and on all projects participate in this election. If you speak a language other than English, please translate the election notice that appears on the top of the English-language "Recent Changes" page and post it in a prominent location on the respective project. There is a link for you to follow in the notice to inform us that you have done so. This way, we will make sure that projects in all languages have been informed.
Apart from the translations, we ask that the Notices not be edited or changed in any way except by or with the express permission of either [[User:Danny]] or [[User:Imran]]. While this is exceptional for Wikipedia, it will ensure that this election is conducted fairly. Please address all your questions and concerns to the Talk Page of the Election FAQ, which is linked from the Notice.
Note that all election materials except for the notices and possibly the candidates' information pages will be located on Meta. This is done so as not to favor one language over another. In the future, we hope to have greater flexibility with regard to other languages, but as for now, initial election information will be posted in English.
More information is forthcoming, both on the Mailing Lists and on the Respective Pages. This is the first time that such an election is being held, so please bear with us.
May the best WikiCandidates win.
Imran and Danny Co-Chairs, Wikimedia Election Committee
On May 4, 2004, at 10:51 PM, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
This is not a popularity contest.
While I don't dispute this statement, it does lead me to wonder: what *is* it? Everyone keeps saying what the positions are *not*. I started to read the bylaws, but I really don't understand such things. What criteria should we use to judge candidates?
On a related note, could people who understand such things work on a lay- translation of the bylaws so the rest of us could understand them? I would find that very useful.
Peter
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--- Peter Jaros rjaros@shaysnet.com wrote:
On May 4, 2004, at 10:51 PM, daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
This is not a popularity contest.
While I don't dispute this statement, it does lead me to wonder: what *is* it? Everyone keeps saying what the positions are *not*. I started to read the bylaws, but I really don't understand such things. What criteria should we use to judge candidates?
I do have an even more accurate question... I hope that Jimbo will bring light on this :-) What are the 2 elected people supposed to do...as part of their mandatory work. And in particular, is there really a difference between the two of them...which mean what is the Contributing Active Member Representative supposed to really do compared to the other one ?
When I ask the question, I expect something a little bit more detailed that the current answer which is "The distinct responsibility and duties of each represenative has yet to be determined", with a bit more which says "Contributing Active Member Representative" will have to care of setting up and controlling member fee system.
If the current definition of the two posts does not make any different *right now*, why should we make a difference in the elections ?
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On May 10, 2004, at 2:42 PM, Anthere wrote:
And in particular, is there really a difference between the two of them...which mean what is the Contributing Active Member Representative supposed to really do compared to the other one ?
Another question. :) It's not really clear from what I've read whether the Volunteer Active Member on the board can be a Contributing Active Member. From the bylaws, it sounds like all Contributing Active Members are Volunteer Active Members.
Peter
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--- Peter Jaros rjaros@shaysnet.com wrote:
On May 10, 2004, at 2:42 PM, Anthere wrote:
And in particular, is there really a difference between the two of them...which mean what is the Contributing Active Member Representative supposed to really do compared to the other one ?
Another question. :) It's not really clear from what I've read whether the Volunteer Active Member on the board can be a Contributing Active Member. From the bylaws, it sounds like all Contributing Active Members are Volunteer Active Members.
Chris Mahan scribbled: The contributing active member rep. represents those who have contributed financially to the foundation. The volunteer member rep. represents those who are volunteers.
The active members are also volunteers, and they get to vote for both.
It is possible that there are cases where financial contributors to the foundation are not actually using the site and volunteering in the projects. For those cases I suppose they would vote only for the contributing active rep.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On May 10, 2004, at 3:39 PM, Christopher Mahan wrote:
The contributing active member rep. represents those who have contributed financially to the foundation. The volunteer member rep. represents those who are volunteers.
The active members are also volunteers, and they get to vote for both.
So even if they are both contributing active members, they have different jobs are representatives of different bodies?
Peter
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On Mon, 10 May 2004, Peter Jaros wrote:
On May 10, 2004, at 2:42 PM, Anthere wrote:
And in particular, is there really a difference between the two of them...which mean what is the Contributing Active Member Representative supposed to really do compared to the other one ?
Another question. :) It's not really clear from what I've read whether the Volunteer Active Member on the board can be a Contributing Active Member.
Yes.
From the bylaws, it sounds like all Contributing Active Members are Volunteer Active Members.
Broadly yes, if you ignore some minor technicallities such as VAM having to have contributed under a username.
Imran
On Mon, 10 May 2004, Anthere wrote:
I do have an even more accurate question... I hope that Jimbo will bring light on this :-) What are the 2 elected people supposed to do...as part of their mandatory work. And in particular, is there really a difference between the two of them...which mean what is the Contributing Active Member Representative supposed to really do compared to the other one ?
Well at a basic level they represent the group that elected them, at a practical level their exact duties has yet to be decided and will probably remain undecided until after we have a full board (i.e. post-elections)
If the current definition of the two posts does not make any different *right now*, why should we make a difference in the elections ?
One important point is that whoever is elected as CAMR will know that come re-election they will have a different electorate to the one that elected them in.
As some people only want to stand for one position or the other, and also as we want the two positions treated distinctly we decided to have two seperate elections.
Imran
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