Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-07-27/Board elections/Gregory Kohs

• How did you become involved with the Wikimedia community? What contributions are you most proud of?

I first noticed Wikipedia in early 2005. My first account (of many future accounts) was registered in March 2005, and I created the article about Avia, a Czech aircraft company. I am proud of all of the new articles of significant quality that I've created, a few of which were in exchange for monetary payment. My more recent work (such as articles about Job sharing and National Fuel Gas) has not been for payment. I don't disclose my paid content, but I'm just as proud of those articles. I am proud of my role in seeking the deletion of an abominable article about the History of Western Eurasia, which inexplicably was clutched onto by some editors. I am proud of my role in halting the misuse of images of innocent children from Wikimedia Commons, when they were being framed amidst sexually deviant images on Jimmy Wales' "Spanking Art" Wikia. I am also proud of my substantial contribution to the sampling design and writing of the 2009 Fundraising Survey on Meta, which is being managed by Rand Montoya of the Foundation staff.

• What do you see as the role of the Board of Trustees?

The Board of Trustees is charged with overseeing the management of the Wikimedia Foundation corporate entity. The Board is responsible for honestly upholding and protecting the organization so that it can follow and execute its stated corporate mission.

• If elected, what would you bring to the board that it currently lacks?

I don't own any rose-colored glasses. Which means that I will look carefully and incisively at how well the current Board and Executive staff are accountably, professionally, and responsibly carrying out the Foundation's mission. The mission centers on "educational content", which I feel has been forgotten considerably, washed over by a more dynamic pursuit of the fringe aspects of the "free culture movement".

• What specific goals would you have as a trustee?

I would clean up the questionable financial and legal practices fostered by the current Board and Executive staff. Currently, the Foundation spends only 31.6% of its incoming revenue on program services. Much of the money is being stuffed away in a savings account or diverted toward staffing bloat, which I suspect is not in line with donors' expectations. The legal ruse of hiding behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act whenever it favors the Foundation, but ignoring it when it suits the Foundation, must end. Payment of rent to a board member's privately-held company (Wikia, Inc.) must end. Serving up tens of thousands of external links (many of which violate policy) to a board member's privately-held company (Wikia, Inc.) and its investor firm's (Amazon) websites must end. Lastly, I would do everything in my power to advocate for the systematic replacement of Board members (including myself) with people who hold reputable expertise in the fields of education, publishing, and knowledge management.

• The Wikimedia Foundation is beginning an organized effort at strategic planning, in which the board will play a major role. What are the key elements you would like to see prioritized in Wikimedia's strategy for the coming years?

Priority #1 is improvement of good governance practices within the Foundation. The very fact that a Board and Executive staff would approve a lease agreement with a board member's privately-held company as the receiving landlord tells me that the entire bunch needs a full-day workshop on corporate governance and non-profit ethics. I would invite a specialist to speak about the legal and reputational pitfalls of self-dealing.

• What do you think the Wikimedia Foundation isn't doing that it should be? What is it doing that it shouldn't be?

It should be striving to be a more reputable caretaker of educational content. It should stop acting so often as a self-dealing favor machine for the founder's privately-held company.

• The English Wikipedia community is increasingly concerned with questions of project governance: who has authority to set and reshape policy, and who should?; how can a project so large, with so diverse a community, make collective decisions?; does consensus scale, or will some form of democracy be necessary to address the project's problems?; and many others. What role, if any, do you think the Board of Trustees can or should play in addressing governance and policy problems on individual projects?

The Board needs to address the sweeping governance and policy problems that afflict many of the Wikimedia projects, but in particular the English Wikipedia. The Foundation has a responsibility to adhere to the mission of collecting and developing educational content. When the "community" consensus produces a divisiveness that threatens that mission, the Board must take precedence, acting through the Executive Director and her staff. The "concern" we're seeing about project governance is a reflection, in part, of the largely "do nothing" Boards lacking experience in education, publishing, and knowledge management we've seen to date.

• Wikimedia's partnerships with outside organizations--including for-profit companies like Kaltura and Orange as well as non-profits and public institutions like Mozilla Foundation and various archives and museums--have becoming increasingly prominent. What sorts of partnerships should and shouldn't the Foundation pursue?

The Foundation should pursue all ethical and responsible partnerships, commercial and non-profit, that bolster the mission of the Foundation, without showing favoritism or allowing "inside track" deals. The Foundation should not pursue partnerships that involve self-dealing to Board members or staff or their privately-held companies, nor any partnerships that might spoil the idealized reputation of the Foundation.

• Over the last three years, the scope of the Wikimedia Foundation has expanded rapidly, with a budget growing from $3.0 million in fiscal year 2007-2008 to a planned $9.4 million in 2009-2010. What strategy should the Board of Trustees pursue in planning for future financial growth? What is your view of the current financial plan?

The current plan is based on a set of spending priorities that, frankly, are embarrassing. A worthwhile tax-advantaged non-profit should not be spending less than 32% of income on program services. Fraudulent organizations have been shut down by the authorities when it becomes clear that they are spending too little of their revenues on program services. Reputable organizations (like Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and the United Way) consistently spend more than 80% of revenues on program services.

• What role would you like the board to play in fostering the initiation, growth and viability of local Wikimedia Chapters? What role do chapters play in your strategic vision for Wikimedia?

Chapters should adhere to a set of Board-mandated policies for incorporation and governance. Chapters will play a meaningful, but not leading, role in my strategic vision for Wikimedia.

• How does the Wikimedia Advisory Board fit into your strategic vision for Wikimedia? Are there any specific tasks you would ask of them as a trustee? Are there critical areas of expertise that are not represented on the Advisory Board and you think should be?

Again, we have an example of the casual self-dealing that this Board of Trustees seems to fail to recognize. The Advisory Board is chaired by a former Wikimedia Foundation board member who happens to be a founding commercial business partner with the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation. Their business (Wikia, Inc.) benefits substantially from web traffic, reputation capital, and rental payments generated by the Wikimedia Foundation for Wikia. Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

• You've run unsuccessfully for the Board of Trustees before. What has changed—with either the community or yourself—that you expect a different outcome? Do you have different goals than the last time you ran?

I think that the community in 2009 is more disgruntled and disillusioned with how things are being managed. In 2008, there were supposedly 31,900 user accounts eligible to vote; only 3,019 voted; and about 1,200 showed no interest in differentiating me from the winner, Ting Chen. I appealed strongly to exactly 400 voters (who selected me as one of their top 3 candidates). Thus, 1.25% of eligible voters ranked me in their top three spots. I believe that the winner, Ting Chen, garnered top-three spots from about 3.3% of eligible voters. I believe that an ambitious but realistic goal for myself this year would be to capture top-three rankings from at least 1.75% of the eligible voters, which would likely put me above about 40% of the candidates. I don't have high expectations for my candidacy here. My mission really is to just get the word out -- the truth about how we are being short-changed. We deserve better. I realize that I am an abrasive agitant when it comes to the Wikimedia Foundation. However, electing such a character may be the only realistic way of effecting meaningful CHANGE in the governance of the organization. If you seek change, you should vote for me. If you rather enjoy the status quo, vote for someone else.