[Foundation-l] concluding my term as a member of the board of trustees

[oscar van dillen]

dear all,

this is no "goodbye" notice, as i will naturally find old, other and new
ways to further serve wikimedia's mission and projects, which i so greatly
value!

the voters have spoken, and i am thrilled to see that it was such a close
call, with so many good candidates as well. it has been an honor to serve on
the (expanded) board for this interim-period. as you are probably aware of
as well, i came into the board of trustees in a difficult and vital time.
yet i also believe we did a good job at clearing the way for the future.
personally i find it a pity that i will have to sort-of "reschedule the
coming two years" ;-) yet at the same time i am glad such a great candidate
as frieda is, is now elected. i wholeheartedly wish her, the board and the
whole organization a lot of succes.

some things that we should imho *all* be working on, not just for the next
elections, are:
1. create more awareness of the "organization behind the edit-buttons" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre); knowledge is power when
you empower yourself *and* others with it, and "freedom isn't free" (to
quote a parody of the makers of [[southpark]])
2. develop more stepwise involvement of new people in the organizational
sides; develop a "nachwuchs" so to say (
http://de.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Nachwuchs&action=edit =people
growing into this practical and irl responsibilities-involving part of our
wikimedia)
3. uphold our traditions of i-fix-it and {{sofixit}}; identifying problems
is good, but we should always be practically thinking towards solutions at
the same time
4. enhance lateral communication wikimedia-wide between projects and
languages; there is "truth in numbers" only if properly mobilized and
focussed, and there certainly is an enormous strength in our numbers, but
only when wisely applied for our common goal, together
5. our organization is "grassroots" only to the degree in which people
remain able and willing to organize themselves, don't wait for "people in
charge"; the [[advisory council]] i proposed may perhaps as well start
organizing itself for that matter, as should chapters and other initiatives,
in this respect.

together we continue to be building the singlemost biggest collection of
educational content that ever existed, in many languages and under a free
license or in the public domain. an achievement not to be thought of
lightly, though at the same time our "tower of babel" will never be
finished. i am glad and honored to be part of this all.

before continuing with my work on the audit-committe, i will go on a little
holiday next week, camping with my two sons, but am very much looking
forward to seeing many of you [[irl]] in taiwan after that, and online,
onwiki, onlist etc after that again!

best regards,
oscar

-- 
*edito ergo sum*


ps i apologize if you received this more than once, since i sent it to
several lists at once