I agree that most Wikimedians have more interesting things to do than play politics. I find sorting out a batch upload for Commons much more enjoyable than most of the things I used to do as a Chapter trustee, or even when lobbying as Chair of the Chapters association, though spending time with folks from other countries' chapters is something I miss.

A UK groundswell of opinion is unlikely with the candidates we have standing, however I *strongly* recommend that in the week left that a couple of us ask relevant questions of the candidates on the Q&A page. This is an excellent way of ensuring that whoever gets these seats has made a public commitment to do certain things and we can then hold them to account for it, particularly if they fail to speak up in public when they are a trustee on matters that we care about.

I have worked with Frieda, Patricio and Alice. I don't think I have met the other two (I have been introduced to a lot of people though) so I can't say much about them apart from reading their nominations. Alice is a clinical thinker and didactic when stating her views; unfortunately I have crossed swords with her on a few occasions, some behind the scenes, you may or may not think that is a good thing depending on whether you love me or loathe me :-) Frieda is very committed and passionate for our projects, often seen engaging on interesting topics. Patricio I found an impressive guy in person and seems to be a deep thinker, though he does not come over so well writing in English.

Were I sitting on the UK board, I would push for new blood one way or another. I believe it is healthy to have regular turnover on these seats, especially as some of the other WMF board seats have been "static" for far too long in my view, leading to entrenched opinions. One of the few trustees that stepped down due to the principle that WMF trustee seats should be time-limited was Ting Chen - an impressive Wikimedian; I encourage anyone to have a proper chat with him if you get the chance to meet up.

Every other year we have the opportunity to influence who takes these two seats on the board. It is no good moaning about the WMF board being inactive or non-transparent later on, if we missed the chance to put someone on that board that is committed to our own point of view. I would like someone who can publicly hold the WMF to account on the lack of investment in GLAM tools and take a lead in reforming the editor culture on some of our projects, which most believe has become increasingly entrenched and puts up too many badly thought out barriers for newbies.

I'll have a think about what question to post up this week for the candidates. Hopefully I will not get accused of being a troll for asking a simple question. ;-)

P.S. I feel the same about WMUK trustees. Having the same trustee sitting on the board for six years without a year off seems a long time to me for a supposedly radical charity like ours, and is likely to encourage entrenched views, particularly considering the democratic deficit of having half of the board as possible appointees rather than being elected by the members. To have a healthy turnover, we probably need *significantly* more active volunteers than the probably static 100-ish that we have at the moment (as no number has been reported by Jon to the board since October 2013, your guess is as good as mine as to whether this number is going up or down).

Fae

On 8 April 2014 15:31, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:

Thanks for the pointer, Fae. The only one of the candidates I know is Alice; I've never even heard of the rest. I suspect that's not atypical, which might be why we're not seeing a groundswell of opinion.

To be honest, I tend to think that life's too short for movement politics. You'd struggle to convince the average Wikipedian of its relevance to the day-to-day running of the projects.

Do you know the other candidates? Do you have an opinion on any of them?

Harry Mitchell http://enwp.org/User:HJ Phone: 024 7698 0977 Skype: harry_j_mitchell On Tuesday, 8 April 2014, 13:45, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote: Wikimedia UK has currently not endorsed any candidate for the two Chapter affiliate seats on the WMF Board of Trustees. Neither has any UK candidate stepped forward.

Does anyone have views to share on this list for which candidate they feel would best represent the interests of our volunteers? There is around a week left and Michael Maggs (the UK Chairman) has stated that the chapter might endorse a candidate if there were a "groundswell of opinion".

The candidates are:

• Frieda Brioschi
• Mallory Knodel
• Patricio Lorente
• Anders Wennersten
• Alice Wiegand

You can find links to their nomination statements at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2014/Nominati...

To put questions to the candidates goto: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2014/Question...

A related chapter discussion thread is at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Affiliate-selected_seats_on_the_board_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation if you prefer to write there.

I am a bit disappointed there have not been more candidates (dropping from 8 in 2012 to 5 this year). The "chapters movement" (and the GLAM programme) would be best served by strong competition for these positions.

Fae