[Foundation-l] board candidacies

[Anthere]

Hello all,

Being back from Wikimania, I have a look at the list of candidates and 
here is what I see:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006

I'd like to make a very serious appeal for candidates.
I would hate to discourage some of you, but rather to be frank.

Being on the board is not a game.
It is not about changing the policies on the english wikipedia.
It is not about improving welcome templates for newbies on wikipedia either.
And it is not even about pushing the use of the german userboxes.

What we need (desperately need) is people who understand what the 
Foundation is, what our needs are, where the challenges are located.


I listed some of the challenges in my presentation at Wikimania; 
(http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:FD1). I have no 
idea when the audio will be accessible, but I think any candidate should 
at least have a look/ear to it.

What would be best are people who already know and participate to 
Wikimedia Foundation issue. I could cite dozen, many of whom were at 
wikimania. A couple candidated, but I also know they are controversial 
so might end up not being in the top.

I would like that non english editors take the chance to run. Not being 
english is certainly an handicap due to the huge number of english 
voters. Naturally, if you are mostly known in one community, you'll get 
a disadvantage. But if you are also a meta participant, the word can be 
disseminated that you are a high quality person. Because meta people 
know you and can tell about you in the local communities. You have a 
chance !


I will not hide the fact that being on the board is highly frustrating. 
It is a lot of work. It costs personal money. It is little rewarded. It 
carries its generous load of humiliation.

But... if you care about the projects, if you care about their future, 
if you care about giving a chance to the content to stay free for real, 
if you care about the risk of being "adopted" by a commercial firm, if 
you care about the risk of seeing the freedom being reduced to protect 
what is merely a legal entity, if you care about us being an 
international entity rather than being a pure american business and 
professional foundation, please, do help.

Please.