After a vote in which fifteen candidates stood for a single open Board of Trustees position at the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit that oversees Wikipedia and other projects), Ting Chen has won. You can view the full results of the election here. The following is his candidacy statement:

Chen at Wikimania in Taipei I was born in Shanghai, grew up in Harbin of northeast China, and moved to Germany at age of 20. Now I live in Mainz and work at IBM as a programmer.

I began participating in Wikipedia five years ago and have edited and translated lots of articles between DE, EN, and ZH, so I know well how the three Wikipedia projects grew over the years, their history and current status, and their character, strengths, and weaknesses. As an active administrator and bureaucrat at ZH.WP, I am also devoted to daily cleanup work and community interactions. I also helped organizing Wikimania 2007 Taipei.

I strongly believe and hold that Wikimedia and its projects should remain open, neutral, simple, and diverse.

If elected to the Board, I will:

  • Support development of the MediaWiki software for enhanced usability.
  • Support measures to attract and retain new editors.
  • Facilitate communications among Wikimedia communities of different projects and locations.
  • Advocate for lingual, cultural and other diversities in the Wikimedia community.
  • Promote collaborations between Wikimedia and universities or other nonprofit/public institutions of education and research (e.g., libraries).