Voting in theBoard of Trustees elections continue this week. The vote, which usesapproval voting, will end on Thursday, 21 September. All active users who meet the suffrage requirements - over 400 edits on one Wikimedia project prior to 1 August, 2006 with at least one contribution 90 days before that date - are invited to vote. As of press time, approximately 1,800 users hadvoted.
Votes on alogo for Wikiversity, on anew logo for Wikibooks and on anew logo for Wiktionary are currently ongoing. They started on 7 September and will continue until 21 September.
Wikimedia Foundation general counsel and interim executive directorBrad Patrickannounced on 31 August that the Foundation had hired Mark Bergsma as networking coordinator. Bergsma will only be working part-time because of his continuing studies; however, Patrick called Bergsma's "dedicated manpower" a "critical" part of the Foundation's technical team. Bergsma will be responsible for helping maintain the Foundation's infrastructure, including "network reliability [and] independence".
This week,Danny Wool, an assistant to the Wikimedia Foundation, announced the start of histhird contest. In the past, he has sponsored two previous competitions, each encouraging competition between Wikipedia editors in improving the project. Thefirst contest, held in October of 2004, searched for the best newrequested article, and thesecond contest, which took place in November of that same year, sought the article most improved fromstub status. However, this third competition will now involve editing an "unsourced article" either "related to history" or included on thelist of vital articles and carefullysourcing and improving that article. Citing the need to focus on improving existing articles rather than creating new ones, Wool also asked that the line of requested articles on therecent changes header instead be modified to articles that have been requested to be improved tofeatured article status.
The contest will run through 7 October, and the winner will receive approximatelyUS$100 worth in educational materials fromAmazon, an online commerce company. It should be noted that Wool, while sponsoring the contests, is not acting officially from his position in the Wikimedia Foundation office.
