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Wikimedia Foundation elections
Board elections
2008
(Redirected from
Board elections/2008/en
The election ended 21 June 2008. No more votes will be accepted.
The
results were announced
on 26 June 2008.
In other languages:
العربية
(ar)
беларуская (тарашкевіца)
(be-x-old)
català
(ca)
čeština
(cs)
(de)
Ελληνικά
(el)
(en)
Esperanto
(eo)
(es)
فارسی
(fa)
suomi
(fi)
(fr)
galego
(gl)
עברית
(he)
hrvatski
(hr)
Bahasa Indonesia
(id)
italiano
(it)
(ja)
한국어
(ko)
Ripoarisch
(ksh)
Lëtzebuergesch
(lb)
മലയാളം
(ml)
Bahasa Melayu
(ms)
norsk bokmål
(nb)
Nederlands
(nl)
occitan
(oc)
polski
(pl)
português
(pt)
română
(ro)
русский
(ru)
српски / srpski
(sr)
svenska
(sv)
українська
(uk)
Tiếng Việt
(vi)
粵語
(yue)
中文（繁體）
(zh-hant)
中文（简体）
(zh-hans)
edit
2008 Board elections
Introduction and rules
Candidate presentations
Questions
Vote
Results
Organization
Election committee
Translation
The
2008 elections
to the
Board of Trustees
were held between June 1
st
and June 21
st
2008. Members of the Wikimedia community had the opportunity to elect one candidate to a one-year term which will expire in July 2009. The Board of Trustees is the ultimate governing authority of the
Wikimedia Foundation
, a
501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization registered in the state of
Florida of the United States
. The Wikimedia Foundation manages
many diverse projects
such as
Wikipedia
and
Commons
The elections were held securely on
Software in the Public Interest
's servers. Votes were secret and were only visible to the select few persons who audited and tallied the election. Voters submitted ranked preferences by numbering candidates. The votes were tallied using the
Schulze method
to rank candidates based on the number of voters who prefer that candidate over other candidates.
The Election Committee announced the result on June 26
th
, with
Ting Chen
winning the one seat available. Detailed results can be viewed
here
. All times on this page are 00:00 (midnight) UTC.
The following is preserved as an
archive
of the information which was displayed to voters and candidates during the election period.
Information for voters
Requirements
You may vote from any one registered account you own on a Wikimedia wiki (you may only vote once, regardless of how many accounts you own). To qualify, this one account must:
not be blocked; and
not be a
bot
; and
have made at least
600
edits before 01 March 2008 on that wiki (edits on several wikis cannot be combined); and
have made at least
50
edits between 01 January and 29 May 2008 on that wiki.
Special exceptions: the following may vote regardless of the above requirements:
Wikimedia
server
administrators with shell access;
paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation who started working at the office before 01 March 2008;
current or former members of the
Board of Trustees
How to vote
If you are eligible to vote:
Read the
candidate presentations
and decide which candidates you will support.
Go to the wiki page "Special:Boardvote" on one wiki you qualify to vote from. For example, if you are most active on the wiki
meta.wikimedia.org/
, go to
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Boardvote
Follow the instructions on that page.
Information for candidates
Responsibilities of the Board
The Board of Trustees is generally responsible for:
determining mission, goals, long-term plans and high level policies of the Foundation and its projects;
selecting the
Executive Director
(who oversees day-to-day operations), and evaluating their performance;
ensuring the sustainability of the organization by defining a number of independent revenue sources;
communicating Foundation direction and activities to the community;
providing oversight to staff with regard to accounting, budgeting, and programs;
maintaining legal and ethical integrity;
recruiting and orienting new Board members.
Within the Board, specific positions with additional responsibilities (such as the Chair, the Executive Secretary, and the Treasurer) are defined in the
Wikimedia bylaws
and elected annually by and from the Board.
The responsibilities of the Board do
not
include:
interfering in day-to-day operations, except in emergencies;
setting project-level editorial policies;
resolving basic community disputes;
volunteering in specific areas of regular organizational work.
Responsibilities as member of the Board
Being a Board member of a small organization like the Wikimedia Foundation, which faces immense challenges, can be time-consuming. The position is voluntary and unpaid. While board members are not expected to bring personal money to the organisation, they are welcome to help raise funds.
Board members are expected to attend at least 3–4 meetings per year in person, attend
Wikimania
(our annual conference), and attend other scheduled online meetings and votes. The Board communicates intensively via e-mail, wiki, and
IRC
. Individual trustees sometimes participate in strategic meetings with other organizations and companies, relaying results back to Board and staff.
Individual board members are expected to be involved in certain activities (such as fundraising, Wikimania, or auditing) and to help draft policies, charters and resolutions on such topics.
The ideal Board of Trustees has a mix of different skills: it is composed of big picture thinkers and leaders, non-profit veterans with accounting or legal experience, fund raising experts, and public figures. It is culturally diverse, mirroring the diversity found in the Foundation's project communities. It takes corporate governance seriously while inspiring staff to strive for ambitious but realistic long-term goals.
The role of a Board member is not always the most exciting or most rewarding position imaginable. Much of their work goes unnoticed; some of it is highly confidential, and some purely administrative. On the other hand, it is a unique opportunity to make a difference in one of the most culturally significant organizations on the planet.
Because Board members owe duties by virtue of their position, candidates who currently hold paid positions with the Wikimedia Foundation must resign from those position before they can be appointed to the Board of Trustees. This is to avoid potential
conflicts of interests
Prerequisites to candidacy
To be eligible as a candidate, you must:
have made at least 600 edits before 01 January 2008 on any one registered account on one wiki (edits across several wikis cannot be combined); and
have made at least 50 edits between 01 January and 01 June 2008 on that wiki; and
publicly disclose your real name in your candidate presentation (because the identities of Board members are a matter of public record, it is not possible to hold a position on the Board of Trustees anonymously or under a pseudonym); and
be at least 18 years old and of legal age in your home country.
Special exceptions: current members of the
Board of Trustees
may be candidates regardless of the above requirements.
How to submit your candidacy
If you are eligible, you can submit your candidacy by doing the following:
Write a brief summary of no more than 1200 characters stating what you would do if you were elected to the Board of Trustees, your relevant opinions and experience, and anything else you think is relevant. You may not use your candidate summary to link to lists of endorsements or other platform pages, and may not run on a
slate
with other candidates.
Submit your summary
between 00:00, 08 May 2008 (UTC) and 23:59, 22 May 2008 (UTC). After 22 May, it cannot be changed except for minor corrections or translation. Any additions submitted after this deadline will be time-stamped and presented separately from the original summary, and will only be presented to voters if they get translated into all of the same languages as the original summary.
Submit proof of your identity to Cary Bass (
Volunteer Coordinator
) before 29 May 2008. You will be privately contacted by a member of the Election Committee with further information about meeting this requirement when you list yourself as a candidate.
Candidates who fail to comply with the above requirements and deadlines will be disqualified.
Organization
Time line
01–31 May 2008: primary translation phase; subcommittee actively coordinates and promotes translation.
08–22 May 2008: candidate submissions.
29 May 2008: deadline to send proof of identity (late or missing submissions will be disqualified).
01–21 June 2008: elections.
22–23 June 2008: vote-checking.
26 June 2008: publication of results.
Translators
To ensure that a representative cross-section of the Wikimedia community takes part in this election, it is important to translate election notices and candidate statements into as many languages as possible. To help translate, please see the
translation page
The proceeding is preserved as an
archive
of the information which was displayed to voters and candidates during the election period.
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