[Wikipedia-l] Elections for the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation

[daniwo59 at aol.com]

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 
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