[Wikipedia-l] Re: The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot!

[Anthere]

Hello Craig and Gregory


Well... I think Erik said what I meant to say with more eloquence than I 
could ;-) So there is little to add here. Thanks a lot Erik.


I'll repeat one point which I think is important.
The 3 weeks dedicated for candidates statements are in most part 
envisionned as an special time to have the opportunity to ask all 
candidates questions.
For all of us (but Sj who candidated at the last minute), talk pages 
were available for you to ask us to clarify what is necessarily heavily 
summarized in a 1000 caracters statement.
I invite you to ask more questions here as well as on the appropriate 
candidate talk page if you feel it necessarily.


Another point I'll add is that if all candidates seem to hold the same 
views to you (a strange statement for me anyway), then you should go 
further and consider personalities. The 6 candidates are very very 
different, and even though they probably agree on some points, they will 
use different methods to reach certain goals.


Lastly... It is not of my opinion that it is necessarily good a 
candidate has a strong opinion on everything and is able to answer to 
each question by a "I believe in this and to achieve that goal, I will
do that". Some certainties are certainly important, but to my opinion, a 
board member must not only rely on his or her strong certainties, but 
also simply listen to the people around, and make his or her opinion 
according to what s/he hears and according to his or her internal ideals 
and beliefs. The final decision will be a balance of everything.
The good point of this is probably that if you offer the proper 
reasonable arguments, you may make the person change his mind.
If you ask for someone with strong opinions on everything, then you are 
looking for another type of board member, one who will lead you on a 
path while explaining to you what is good for you and what is not.


please, if you have a question left, ask it.

Anthere


Erik Moeller a écrit:
> Hello Craig,
> 
>> But I do have an opinion.  The positions of all the candidates seem to be
>> essentially identical, "we love Wikipedia and NPOV". 
> 
> 
> I don't think that's accurate at all, but even if you do think that, you 
> should look at the track record of our current trustees to get an idea 
> what their future actions are likely to be. To wit:
> 
>  > topics of copyright
> 
> A new, semi-private mailing list, juriwiki-l, was created to discuss and 
> resolve these issues as they occur, in collaboration with legal 
> specialists. Angela and Anthere also use the Wikimedia e-mail ticketing 
> system, OTRS, to respond to copyright inquiries. Indeed, from what I 
> know, I would say that the Board is spending a great amount of time to 
> deal even with the silliest complaints and threats.
> 
> There have been discussions with the FSF and Creative Commons to improve 
> the GFDL, but moving this forward is not just up to the Board.
> 
> Copyright, in my opinion, is such a large issue that the community needs 
> to be highly involved in forming policy. The Board has allowed this to 
> happen on the Commons, on Wikinews, with the ESA licensing effort, in 
> the different language communities, etc., while generally keeping a 
> watchful eye on what is going on, even in languages they do not speak, 
> relying on trusted individuals to relay information.
> 
>  > promotion
> 
> The Board has tried to energize promotion efforts by establishing a logo 
> and trademark policy. Local promotion efforts are up to individual 
> chapters where they do exist. The Board has helped with official press 
> releases, a newsletter (the Wikimedia Quarto), and the Foundation 
> website. It has also appointed a press officer (Elian).
> 
> Given our limited budget and our natural growth, I think it would be 
> unwise to allocate a significant amount of resources to promotion at 
> this point. Instead, the Board should continue to do what it has done in 
> the past: encourage the community to design and distribute promotional 
> materials.
> 
>  > hardware
> 
> A hardware officer advises the Board on what machines to purchase. This 
> has so far worked very well. The successful cooperations with Kennisnet 
> and Yahoo! and the negotiations with Google were coordinated by the 
> Board, and I think it has played exactly the role it should: 
> Establishing partnerships while leaving the implementation details to 
> qualified individuals. Wikimedia is probably also the only major 
> non-profit whose President (Jimbo) not only looks over every hardware 
> order, but who also installs the machines and makes sure they are working.
> 
> There are at any given time secret, confidential discussions underway, 
> some of which fail because of unacceptable demands from would-be sponsors.
> 
>  > or managing growth.
> 
> The fundraising efforts, hiring of Brion and Chad, appointment of a CTO, 
> CRO and Hardware Officer, partnerships, attempts to build spare 
> capacity, efforts to eliminate points of failure, and so forth, have all 
> served this goal. I would indeed say that the Board has made this one of 
> its key activities, and that this has been possible at all on the budget 
> we're operating on (while similarly large websites employ a staff of 
> hundreds) is a testament to Wikimedia's efficiency.
> 
>  >  The candidates all propose to increase community input to the
>  > board, but don't say exactly how they will do this.
> 
> Both Angela and Anthere have generally tried to listen and to fully 
> document what the Board is doing. The various surveys such as
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda/Open_questions
> and
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CheckUser
> are good examples of this. As Chief Research Officer, I also see it as 
> my role to communicate technical needs from the community to the Board.
> 
> You have had a lot of time to ask the candidates questions already, and 
> you can continue to do so. I think engaging in dialogue is a much more 
> constructive use of your time than a blank "protest vote." I find it 
> somewhat saddening that we have so few candidates this year, but it is 
> also an expression of respect for the work Angela, Anthere and Jimbo 
> have done -- for no pay, and indeed, often investing their own money in 
> phone calls and travel. The Board is not above criticism, but given the 
> exceptional job it has done so far, such criticism should be well-founded.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Erik