Day Two in Buenos Aires

At first I want to appology that in contrary to my normal custom I didn't write my blog in three languages at the moment. As usual Wikimania and Board Meeting are tough and a lot of things are happening so that the time is sorrowfully limited to work on the computer. I hope that later I can add the translations.

Day two was fully for board meeting. Today the topic is strategic planning process. The team introduced procedures, measurements of success and plans. There were a lot of discussions. Because of the scheduled press conference we must break up at 15:00, so the session was really too short. There are a lot of ideas that were discussed but the discussion must be break off at some point simply because of the schedule. In total the workshop was very concentrated. I asked Arne later how was his impression of the board meeting and it was very positive.

The venue of this year's conference is in the middle of down town, in one of the most crowded place. It is at the basement and the lower floors of an office tower, quite different to the venues we had in the last years. The tech folks who are attending Hacking Days are already productive.

As every Wikimania it is a meeting between friends that one had only had online-contact for a year. A lot of hugs, hand shakings, greetings, how are yous, a lot of discussions about the past year and the year before us. Talking about ideas, projects, works, experiences.

For example I met Achal Prabhala at dinner. Achal was the one who had moderated my first Wikimania talk back in Frankfurt. We talked about the forming indian chapter and about all the difficulties, about culture and language, about the differences between the different language versions. That was really a nice evening.

So, I am now really looking forward of the coming days. It would be good, as every year.

First day in Buenos Aires

I arrived Buenos Aires at 19:00 local time at Saturnday evening. While the plane is landing, the city is already emerged into darkness. From the air the city doesn't look so bright as many other cities, especially the outskirt are quite dark.

Yesterday morning I had the chance to go arround a little near the hotel and take a first impression of the city. The buildings here in the downtown are all very tall, mostly over ten floors. They are either in a style of neo-classic or are totally undecorated and looks like buildings out of the 1950s or 1960s in Germany, but far more taller. Most of the streets are very narrow. At least in the part of the city where I was there are very very few modern architects. No business towers with steel and glass. There are one or two that are really broad.

I made the classic failure of a northerner and went in the direction of sun in the assumption that this is south. Naturally, in the southern hemisphere this is north.

We had our first board meeting day today. New board members are introduced. New members also mean new ideas and frish wind. Lively discussions about diverse topics, mostly organizational (protocal would be published on the Foundation-wiki, so I don't want to be too detailed here).

In the evening we went for dinner, and met other Wikimedians in the Restaurante. A lot of handshakes and discussions and hugs.

I am disappointed that from the downtown the city light is so strong that one cannot see any stars, one can only see the moon and one or two of the most bright stars.

Voting for the Board of Trustees has started

The voting for the Board of Trustees of the WikiMedia Foundation Inc. had started. The Board is the highest control and steering organ of the Foundation. In this year, three seats would be reelected for a two years term. Questions to the candidates can be submitted here. I submitted for re-election this year.

I would also advocate for voting for Domas. Domas is an active member out of the developer and system admin community. Though the Foundation has tech staff now a very big part of the development of our software is done by this small, quiet but vitally important community. So in my opinion a member out of this community on the Board is important.

Die Abstimmung zum Kuratorium der WikiMedia Foundation Inc. hat begonnen. Das Kuratorium ist das höchste Kontrol- und Steuerungsgremium der Stiftung. In diesem Jahr werden drei Sitze mit einer Amtszeit von zwei Jahren neu gewählt. Fragen an den Kandidaten können hier gestellt werden. I kandidiere dieses Jahr für den Wiederwahl.

Ich möchte an diese Stelle auch eine Wahlempfehlung für Domas aussprechen. Domas ist ein aktiver Mitglied der Entwickler und Systemadmin Community. Obwohl heute die Stiftung eigene bezahlte Tech-Personal hat, wird ein Großteil der Entwicklung immer noch von den freiwilligen Entwickler aus dieser kleinen, leisen aber extrem wichtigen Community geleistet. Deswegen ist meiner Meinung nach sehr wichtig, dass jemand aus dieser Community im Kuratorium sitzt.

维基媒体基金会理事会选举投票开始。理事会是基金会最高的指导和监督机关。今年理事会三名理事重新选举，任期为两年。这里可以向候选人提问。我今年报名重选。

在这里我也想推荐大家选举Domas。Domas是程序开发和系统管理社群的活跃成员。虽然现在基金会有自己的程序员，但是许多程序开发工作依然是由这个人数不多、很少发言、胆识及其重要的社群做的。因此我认为有这个社群的成员参与理事会是非常重要的。

Submitted my candidacy for the next turn board membership

I had just submitted my candidacy for this year's board election. In this year three seats would be elected for a two year turn.

Ich habe gerade meine Kandidatur für diesjährigen Board of Trustees Wahl bekanntgegeben. In diesem Jahr werden drei Mitglieder mit einer Amtszeit von zwei Jahren gewählt.

我刚刚在今年的理事会选举报名。今年理事会将选出三名新成员，任期两年。

Arne Klempert joined the Board of Trustees

Now also this is official: Arne Klempert joined the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation as a chapters nominated member. Welcome Arne.

Nun ist auch das offiziell: Arne Klempert wird als Chapters nominierten Mitglied zum Board of Trustees der Wikimedia Foundation hinzukommen. Willkommen Arne.

阿尔纳·克莱姆帕特作为分会推举的维基媒体理事会成员进入理事会。欢迎。

Third Day of the WMF Board Meeting

Today is the third and last day of the WMF Boardmeeting. The party in the evening before had the result that the people gathered later than planned. Quite some people left the location long after the midnight. I planned to leave at 22:00 but left far later.

The topic of today is mainly more elaborations about the strategic planning, develop a time plan, work out who would take part in which workgroup, etc.

At 11:00 we went up to join the chapters for the wrap up part. The developers presented their results. You see by the questions that the usability project get the most attention, followed by OpenMap collaboration. The end was so touching.

After lunch the board meeting went on. We had discussions about various topics and finished some of the loose ends of the meeting. At about 14:30 we were endly done.

I went to the WMDE office. It is in a beautiful restalled old building from the begin of the 20th century. There are more talks. Most of the people went after that to C-Base for party again. Elya, Raimond, Dror and I sat at a street corner near the WMDE office and talked about fund raising, tax deduction, history and people. It was really fun.

At 16:00 Dror started for C-Base, Elya and Raimond for the rail station. I went by foot to the rail station because I still have so much time. It took me a good hour of time to go. But it is good weather and most part of the way was Tiergarten and Spreeufer, so it was a beautiful walk.

Second Day of WMF April Board Meeting

Today was mostly dedicated to the issue of Biography of Living People (BLP): What's the problem, why the problem and what we as board and the foundation should do with this problem. This topic was discussed for quite long time because of its importancy, but also because it is not so easy as it may be seemed to be.

After that we built up different workshops to check different things. For example to work out a resolution about the BLP, or the trademark issue and some other topics.

At 17:00 we had a joint meeting with the attendees of the chapters meeting. That was a great meeting. Atop of Berlin we discussed about various topics such as strategic planning, relations between the foundation and the chapters, the relationship between the chapters, the diversity of culture and chapters and the respect of this diversity as a value of the Wikimedia movement, communication and transparency. It was such an exciting meeting. You can really feel the spirit in the air. I really love to see all those faces and eyes.

At the evening it was the party at C-Base, an amazing hacker bar in Kreuzberg, where we also meet the folks who took part to the developer meeting. It was a very nice party with lots of talks, games, hacking, photo sessions and nice food and drink. (Though I didn't try the CC-BY beer.) I planned to stay until 22:00 but stayed there far more later.