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