Talk - Useful - Wikipedia is not... - Election - To-do - Disclaimers and licenses
Wikia - Wikicities - Ourmedia - Blog

I have been a Wikipedian since February 2003. In June 2004, I was elected to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. If you have any questions or concerns which you would like addressed by the board, please ask me.

I was born in Norwich in 1977 and grew up in Maidstone and Colchester. I went to university in Birmingham and later worked there as a research assistant in a dyslexia centre. I then worked in Slough as a test developer writing the national statutory assessments for England and Wales, before moving back to Essex in 2004. I usually work for Wikia and Wikicities but am currently working with Jimmy Wales in a consultancy role for the BBC.

Wiki-Roles

Alongside updating articles and carrying out Wikipedia maintenance, I have various roles across the projects. I am an admin on the English, Simple English and Korean Wikipedias and formerly on Latin, Arabic and Wikisource. I have steward access which allows me to set up new Wikimedia projects with admins and bureaucrats. As a member of the mediation committee, I am interested in dispute resolution, sources of conflict and ways of reducing incivility and Wikistress. I am often involved in policy issues, though I'm not sure the ability to recite all of the candidates for speedy deletion is anything to be proud of. :)

I have shell access in order to look after the Wikimedia Foundation website and I have had a very minor involvement in MediaWiki development. My contributions to MediaWiki 1.3 included edit summaries in diff pages and a variable that allows blocked users to email a sysop more easily. Prior to 1.3, I added the disclaimers link which appears in the alternative skins. I am responsible for AngBot, a deletion robot.

Wiki-Aims and Interests

Since being elected to the Wikimedia Board, my to-do list has moved away from articles towards looking into fundraising, grants, and developing plans for Wikimedia membership.

I have edited over 100 of the 300 Wikimedia projects and I am interested in finding ways of increasing ties and a spirit of collaboration between these different projects and languages. I am also keen to expand the range of Wikimedia projects and support, in particular, the development of the Wikimedia Commons, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and Wikijunior.

The development of local chapters is something that I take a keen interest in and I've attended meetings in Paris and Berlin where the French and German chapters were discussed. I hope for a British Wikimedia chapter to be founded next year.

Seeing the German WikiReader has made me keen to see more of these produced and I feel we need to focus on distribution more this year, both for print and DVD versions of Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Wiki-Hopes

My long term hope for Wikimedia is continued growth and development, not only of articles, but also of the international community, whilst still respecting and maintaining our core principles of NPOV, Wikiquette, and the free and open nature of the content. I want Wikimedia to become a household name, for reliable, trustworthy and high quality content which is universally accessible. I want Wikimedia to be a credible foundation with a secure long term future.

Wiki-Beliefs

Not a subscriber to the anti-wiki idea that anonymous users should not be allowed to edit, I believe that Wikimedia benefits from its open editing policies, and that all newcomers should be made to feel welcome. If I were to categorise myself, I would say I am more of an eventualist than a deletionist, partly because our editing procedures don't suffer the same weaknesses of our deletion system. I do not believe that Wikipedia is at a stage where it needs editors or referees, though I would like us to be able to offer users the option of viewing a stable validated version of the encyclopedia. I do not think copyright paranoia should be ignored and prefer to seek alternatives to supposedly fair use images.