Among the many major activities and goings-on at this year’s Wikimania was a decision from our Board of Trustees about new appointments to the WMF Board.

In a press release sent out yesterday, Jan-Bart De Vreede, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees announced that fellow Board member Michael Snow will assume the role of Chair of the Board of Trustees.  Long-standing Board member Florence Devouard stepped down as Board Chair, however we are very pleased to announce that she will assume a seat on the Wikimedia Advisory Board.

The Board also took the opportunity to formally welcome new Board member Ting Chen, who was elected by the Wikimedia community during the recent Board seat election.

Welcome Ting Chen, and congratulations Michael!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

The voting in the 2008 elections for the Board of Trustees is currently being held through June 22.  This summer’s election is to fill the seat currently held by Board Chairperson Florence Devouard.   This is the first Trustee election to take place under the Board restructuring approved by the board in April 2008.

Why are we having board elections?  The Wikimedia Foundation is a unique entity in the fact that our projects are managed by a great number of people around the world, volunteers who create and edit the content on the Wikipedia sites and our other projects like Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons.  The volunteers are members of related project communities from which members have agglomerated to form a meta-community of individuals interested in the Wikimedia Foundation and having a voice to participate in determining how Wikimedia fulfill its mission both short-term and in the years to come.

Who is eligible to vote?  The 2008 Board Election Committee has provided guidelines as to which members of the community are eligible to vote in the election.  It effectively covers anyone who is presently active on at least one Wikimedia project, has a history with some edit contributions.

Is Florence Devouard running again?  It saddens me to say that Florence has chosen to pursue other endeavors in lieu of returning to her position as Chairperson of the Wikimedia Foundation.  Florence has overseen the board during a period of rapid growth and maturity of the Wikimedia Foundation and left a legacy that will be difficult for subsequent board to follow.

Is the candidate running for board chairperson?  Although Florence is vacating the position, the election is only for a board seat.  The board then determines among them who they want to perform the duties of Chair.

Who is running for office?  Candidate presentations are located here.  Each candidate for board has provided personal details and a statement as to how they believe they can benefit the Wikimedia Foundation.  There is also a question and answer section where community members have asked candidates a number of questions pertaining to how they see their roles as board members.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

Earlier today Jan-Bart de Vreede, the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees announced some significant changes to how our Foundation’s Board is structured - including details about length of terms for serving and how the Board appoints roles internally.

These changes stem from discussions that took place during the Board’s first meeting in our new San Francisco offices in April 2008. A Q&A, diagram, and the original announcement from Jan-Bart are available to help describe the changes.

Some of the significant elements of the restructure:

I’m sure we’ll hear more in the coming months as the board gets closer to its full roster of seats. I suspect this was a pretty big task for the Board to bring about. We’ll be looking forward to seeing the results!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications