[Foundation-l] Candidacy to the board of WMF

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Sun, 5/18/08, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:

> From: Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Candidacy to the board of WMF
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 7:44 PM
> Dear community members,
> 
> 
> 
> Though it was a (very) difficult decision to make, I have
> decided not to 
> be a candidate to the coming elections of the board of
> trustees of 
> Wikimedia  Foundation as a community representative.
> 
> After four years on the board, and over one year and a half
> as its 
> chair, I observe that the organization has matured a lot.
> 
> In 2004 the Wikimedia Foundation was a tiny organization
> (total expenses 
> 23 000 dollars) set up and led by Jimmy, running three
> servers from 
> remote Florida and hosting projects with frequent denial of
> services due 
> to unsufficient technical support, Wikimedia has now grown
> into a six 
> million dollars organization, operating over 300 servers,
> led by an 
> accountable board, with a new office in San Francisco and a
> staff of 15. 
> Operations are now guided by a brand new mission statement,
> with defined 
> values, procedures, policies, and charters. Fully
> independently audited, 
> the Wikimedia Foundation receive the  financial support of
> thousand of 
> small donors, as well as support from commercial companies
> and major 
> foundations.
> 
> Wikimania, our annual conference was first held in 2005,
> one year after 
> I joined the board. Wikimania then travelled from Frankfurt
> to Boston, 
> Taipei, and Egypt, with the great honor of being hosted by
> the New 
> Library of Alexandria this year.
> 
> In the past four years, new projects were started (eg,
> Wikimedia 
> Commons, Wikinews). Wikipedia rose from rank 500 in october
> 2004 to rank 
> 8 in october 2007 of most popular websites in the world. As
> of April 
> 2008, Wikipedia attracts 683 million visitors annually,
> reading over 10 
> millions articles in 253 languages. Other projects are
> thriving and made 
> available in more and more languages every year (eg,
> Wikibooks, 
> Wiktionary etc…). All Wikimedia projects are now freely
> available 
> worldwide on the internet with an excellent quality of
> service.
> 
> Those are fantastic, tremendous achievements!
> 
> I am proud I was part of it.
> 
> Of course, all this was not my own doing, but was made
> possible by the 
> dedication of all board members, of previous and current
> staff members, 
> contractors, and most of all, of community volunteers. Good
> job, everyone!
> 
> I want to thank the 2004 voters, who elected me to
> participate at the 
> organization level, and the 2005 voters, who confirmed me
> on the board 
> for two additional years. My nomination as chair in 2006
> and renewal in 
> 2007 was probably more a stroke of luck :-) I was given the
> difficult 
> task to help Wikimedia to mature from a Founder-led group
> to a mature 
> organization with a dual board/executive set-up, various
> policies and 
> procedures, as well as controls to prevent or limit
> damages. In short, I 
> had a position of interim chair :-) The 2007 board trusted
> me to 
> stabilize the transition to the new Executive Director.
> Twenty months 
> later, I consider the job done. The disappearance of the
> previously 
> recurring question "but what if Jimbo is hit by a bus
> this morning ?" is 
> in itself a sufficient sign :-) The organization is more
> solid than it 
> has ever been.
> 
> I would like to offer a special "thank you" note
> to Jan-Bart, the 
> vice-chair, for the highly valuable work on the board.
> Jan-Bart is one 
> of these “outsiders”, that some think should not be on
> the board. I 
> could not disagree more. Outsiders may share our values
> deeply, bring 
> expertise that does not exist within the active community,
> and provide 
> an external view sometimes very refreshing on our in-house
> debates.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Building an organization that could accompany the
> exponential growth of 
> the Wikimedia projects was, as you can imagine, quite a
> challenge, and 
> did not always go without tensions. I read with much
> attention the 
> community petition started after the board reorganization
> announcement. 
> It would be a serious misconception to imagine that board
> members always 
> fully agree on what is decided by the board as a whole.
> Board members 
> can (and do) disagree. Sometimes, no decision is made
> because there are 
> irreconcilable factions. But often, they agree to a
> compromise, so that 
> a needed collective decision can be made. Directions are
> not set in 
> stone and it will be the responsibility of the next board
> to deal with 
> the future. Various trends are showing up right now, as
> pointed out in 
> the petition or by various emails to this list.
> 
> After the decision over reorganization of the board, I was
> placed in a 
> rather impossible situation. New blood is highly necessary
> to the board, 
> but the unique position opened to an elected community
> representative 
> places me in direct competition with these new, “third”
> generation 
> leaders currently being candidates. If three positions had
> been opened, 
> it would have been an entirely different matter, but this
> one position 
> truly deserves to go to a brand new member, with fresh
> energy and ideas. 
> I wish the candidates all the best of luck. The new board
> member can 
> count on my support to welcome him or her after the
> elections, during 
> our roughly 2 weeks of overlapping presence on the board.
> 
> Though I will reduce my participation, I will certainly not
> quit the 
> projects. My heart is dedicated to them and to our love of
> knowledge. I 
> intend to keep on “thinking global”, even if I act more
> “local”. Since 
> my first days on the projects (February 2002), my focus has
> been on 
> transparency, volunteer involvement, decentralization,
> bottom-up 
> decision making, and love for cultural and linguistic
> diversity. I will 
> stay available to share my time and energy with those who
> are, with 
> pride but modesty, supporting our projects as well as their
> values. An 
> organization is at the service of a cause, and the primary
> interest and 
> focus of its members should not be the organization itself,
> but its 
> mission and, even more important, the vision behind the
> mission and the 
> values shared between all members. Our vision should be our
> credo, day 
> after day: bringing knowledge to every single human being
> on Earth.
> 
> 
> 
> Love
> 
> Anthere / Florence Devouard
> 
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