As promised, I am going to blog comments on each of the candidates. This here is the first post in this series. Note: My comments may be acerbic, even outrageous. My contempt for the Foundation, as it currently stands, should be plainly evident by the end of this series.
The first candidate to be examined is Ausir. Ausir is apparently a long-term editor at the Polish Wikipedia, and a student at the Wrocław University of Economics. He claims to support free content and calls for a minimization of non-free content. He also controversially suggested that "some" of the current Wikimedia projects were "bad ideas from the start" and that he only "generally" supports Wikipedia's sister projects. He also "strongly believes" in multilingualism and in "supporting local communities".
My analysis: Ausir is running to be part of the Wikimedia social club, and to give eastern Europeans more of a voice in planning Wikimedia parties so that he doesn't have to go to Germany to have a good wikitime. He has no meaningful qualifications for the position of Board member. He would likely gain some support from the "keep America out of Wikimedia" coalition, but not enough to have a chance of being elected, especially with his limited prominence on the English Wikipedia and his failure to answer most of the questions posed to him. (Then again, a lack of useful communication skills has been almost a requirement for Board members in the past, so he's right on the ball there.) His explicit declared support for OmegaWiki/WiktionaryZ is sure to earn him brownie points with Erik, but fortunately Erik only gets two votes (his own, and GerardM's).
In summary, Ausir does not appear to be a serious candidate; I'm not really sure why he ran and I can't imagine him getting much support outside of the Polish Wikipedia, which is such a small project that it cannot possibly swing the election.
The first candidate to be examined is Ausir. Ausir is apparently a long-term editor at the Polish Wikipedia, and a student at the Wrocław University of Economics. He claims to support free content and calls for a minimization of non-free content. He also controversially suggested that "some" of the current Wikimedia projects were "bad ideas from the start" and that he only "generally" supports Wikipedia's sister projects. He also "strongly believes" in multilingualism and in "supporting local communities".
My analysis: Ausir is running to be part of the Wikimedia social club, and to give eastern Europeans more of a voice in planning Wikimedia parties so that he doesn't have to go to Germany to have a good wikitime. He has no meaningful qualifications for the position of Board member. He would likely gain some support from the "keep America out of Wikimedia" coalition, but not enough to have a chance of being elected, especially with his limited prominence on the English Wikipedia and his failure to answer most of the questions posed to him. (Then again, a lack of useful communication skills has been almost a requirement for Board members in the past, so he's right on the ball there.) His explicit declared support for OmegaWiki/WiktionaryZ is sure to earn him brownie points with Erik, but fortunately Erik only gets two votes (his own, and GerardM's).
In summary, Ausir does not appear to be a serious candidate; I'm not really sure why he ran and I can't imagine him getting much support outside of the Polish Wikipedia, which is such a small project that it cannot possibly swing the election.
The idea of Gerard as my "trained attack dog" is very amusing. Gerard is my boss. He is the President of Open Progress, of which I am the CTO. If anything, you can construct an elaborate conspiracy theory about how he is manipulating me to, I don't know, create open source tools or something.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, Gerard's and Danny's animosity towards each other goes back a long time and is related to the fact that Gerard feels that Danny ignored the proposals he made to WMF for grants and projects. This continued throughout my tenure as Board member, but of course I have refrained from getting involved due to conflict of interest issues.
I have not commented on Danny's candidacy or incited others to do so.