Trustee candidates speak about Board structure, China, gender, global south, endowment
Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet, hosting 900 sites, including the 286 Wikipedias, that attract 18 billion hits a month. Voting will start Saturday next week and will last for two weeks, from 1 to 15 June. All active editors on WMF sites are eligible to vote, with minor exceptions.
The 12 candidates are Leigh Thelmadatter, Milos Rancic, Liam Wyatt, Phoebe Ayers, Tom Morton, John Vandenberg, María Sefidari, Jeromy-Yu Chan, Samuel Klein, Kat Walsh, Michel Aaij, and Francis Kaguna.
The Signpost asked the candidates a set of wide-ranging questions and received responses from all but Kat Walsh, who said she was unable to meet the copy-deadline. This week, we cover their views on three issues—views that were not shared among the candidates before publication of this edition of the Signpost. For the sake of brevity, we will refer to the candidates by first name.