[Foundation-l] board candidacies

Thu Aug 10 18:37:32 UTC 2006

I personally feel that one of the big issues is that people are required 
to spend their own money for things. This means that if you life outside 
of the US, even outside of Florida that your costs will be prohibitively 
high. I personally find that one of the most prohibitive requirements. 
Many people whom would have the time and the enthousiasm do not have a 
bankaccount for that. And that is one of the reasons I have a lot of 
respect for Angela and Anthere. They are willing to spend their personal 
savings for the betterment of the projects. People should realize that 
the next time they start complaining with them.

Walter

>I completely agree,
>when I have seen the candidatures, I have had this first feeling: 
>"a lot of candidates only english speaking (with a little knowledge 
>of another language)".
>
>The board should have a good communication and should be 
>representative...  this don't mean that the members should be 
>polyglot, but these are little signs... how many languages has got 
>Wikipedia? Why?
>
>Ilario
>
>----Messaggio originale----
>Da: notafishz at gmail.com
>Data: 10.08.06 19.58
>A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"<foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
>Oggetto: Re: [Foundation-l] board candidacies
>
>On 8/10/06, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
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>>On 8/10/06, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>>Internationally, it means that countries where the English 
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>languages
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>>is widespread are probably going to have a greater 
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>representation.
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>>Changing this would be likely be extremely difficult and/or 
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>expensive.
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>> And it's somewhat of a catch-22: Wikimedia probably won't have 
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>very
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>>much representation from non-English speakers until it's easy 
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>for
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>>Wikimedians of different languages to communicate with each 
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>other, but
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>>until Wikimedia has more representation from non-English 
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>speakers
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>>translation issues will probably remain a relatively low 
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>priority.
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>>As for project representation, I don't think board members should 
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>be
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>>representing individual projects in the first place.  Wikipedia 
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>is by
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>>far the largest and most successful project, so it doesn't 
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>surprise me
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>>that board candidates use that project for their discussion 
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>pages.
>
>I think you are missing the point entirely.
>What we are asking is for this election to be representative of 
>the
>Wiki*m*edia community in its entirety, ie. all languages and all
>projects. Being on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation as 
>Florence
>pointed out, does not mean changing policies in the English 
>Wikipedia,
>no more than in Wikisource or the Chinese Wikipedia for that 
>matter.
>It means seeing the greater vision, understanding, or be ready to
>understand what's at stake in all projects and all languages, 
>making
>sure the projects are able to flourish regardless of their size or
>fame in the outside world. It means taking the right decisions as 
>to
>where Wikimedia will use the money it has, the right decision on 
>which
>partners to choose so as to allow to pursue our mission, ie. 
>support
>free and open knowledge and access to information.
>
>
>
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>
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