Rounding out today's batch of candidates is KingboyK. A rather inauspicious nickname for a thirty-four year old who goes by the name of Stephen Kennedy. I was surprised, in fact, to find out that he is thirty-four, as I would have expected someone with a nickname like that to be quite a bit younger. After looking over his comments, he actually appears to be one of the better candidates (which, when you think about it, is a really sad statement for the Foundation). But as an outsider, he has little to no chance of being elected.
Stephen's platform is more complex than that of most candidates; it includes a call for a fully democratically elected board and for the Foundation to take a more active role in cross-project coordination (something which it currently does not do at all). The apostrophic catastrophe near the end of his personal statement is quite unfortunate. After reading it, it's pretty clear that he's a well-meaning but underinformed editor from the English Wikipedia, volunteering himself in the mistaken belief that he could do some good.
Stephen was a late candidate, which means that his questions page is relatively short (notably, it doesn't have my standard questions on it). What questions there are he's mostly answered and his answers are not that bad. The part I found most interesting was Alison digging into him for suggesting that his experience as a student union board member is somehow incomparable to being a Wikimedia board member. And I must disagree with Alison on this point. I don't recall what school Stephen went to, but being on the board of a student union means playing a lot of complicated political games adeptly, while dealing with people demanding as big a slice of the money that the school gives you to play with. Frankly, sounds a whole lot like the Wikimedia Foundation; the only thing it's missing is the fundraising issues, but as the Foundation can't organize a fundraiser professionally anyway, his lack of experience here will not make things any worse.
Overall, I think he'd be decent, but he has no chance of being elected; he will get none of the Continental vote (he's a Brit, which is almost as bad as an American, and his lack of substantial participation on non-English projects also hurts with them) and not enough of the American vote to have a chance.
Stephen's platform is more complex than that of most candidates; it includes a call for a fully democratically elected board and for the Foundation to take a more active role in cross-project coordination (something which it currently does not do at all). The apostrophic catastrophe near the end of his personal statement is quite unfortunate. After reading it, it's pretty clear that he's a well-meaning but underinformed editor from the English Wikipedia, volunteering himself in the mistaken belief that he could do some good.
Stephen was a late candidate, which means that his questions page is relatively short (notably, it doesn't have my standard questions on it). What questions there are he's mostly answered and his answers are not that bad. The part I found most interesting was Alison digging into him for suggesting that his experience as a student union board member is somehow incomparable to being a Wikimedia board member. And I must disagree with Alison on this point. I don't recall what school Stephen went to, but being on the board of a student union means playing a lot of complicated political games adeptly, while dealing with people demanding as big a slice of the money that the school gives you to play with. Frankly, sounds a whole lot like the Wikimedia Foundation; the only thing it's missing is the fundraising issues, but as the Foundation can't organize a fundraiser professionally anyway, his lack of experience here will not make things any worse.
Overall, I think he'd be decent, but he has no chance of being elected; he will get none of the Continental vote (he's a Brit, which is almost as bad as an American, and his lack of substantial participation on non-English projects also hurts with them) and not enough of the American vote to have a chance.
I'll attest to the student board part: I was president of a registered student organization at FSU (which deals with millions of dollars in student organization money yearly). Our treasurer didn't play the political game well enough and we got less than 500 dollars for the semester. For a veterans group. GG supporting the troops. The problem was fixed the next year by supporting the right candidates, some back-channel maneuvering and our budget became in line with organizations the same and even slightly larger than ours: enough for us to operate without needing dues.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough. It doesn't require the same legal knowledge a 501 board requires but many of the skills transfer. And even in the rules and restrictions area, student senates often (as mine did, and all state university system of florida schools do) have ridiculously complex requirements for financial and risk management. That transferes directly.
I think this is a fair summary, thank you. You're right about my username; however, I've been an internet user for more than a decade and a half and this name has stuck with me. I did investigate usurping something more sensible, but it would cause some confusion. Now that my identity is public I may reconsider.
ReplyDeleteI can't stop, as I have an apostrophic catastrophe to investigate!