2008-2009 AGM/Vice President/Liam Wyatt

Revision as of 01:13, 5 January 2009 by Witty lama (talk | contribs)

Dear All,

I'm submitting my name for the V.P. position - as you may have worked out by this point... You may know me best as Witty lama

It would in fact be the first official position I have held within the Wiki*edia universe as I am not even an Admin on en.wp. In fact, I prefer it this way - I would like to think that adminship (and therefore elected offices in general within our community) are not badges of honour but rather positions of trust for practical purposes. I would hope that members of the community can be prominent and respected whether or not they are admins and so I'm trying to maintain that.

I have been involved with the community for 3 years now and, as many will know, have entangled my professional, academic and social lives up with this Community and its projects.

Professionally, I am the Multimedia Coordinator at the Dictionary of Sydney which is an upcoming professional online encyclopedia of Sydney's history. The difference between them and us is that at the DoS we commission new essays from experts with a specifically historical interest. Therefore, it will provide WP with much needed OR and POV to reference for our articles. My job there principally entails licensinge images/audio/video for use on the project and therefore I have contacts with every major cultural instiution at the City, State and National levels.

Academically, I have just this year completed my history thesis at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on the title: "The Academic Lineage of Wikipedia: Connections and Disconnections in the Theory and Practice of History". For this work I received 1st class honours and am now trying to turn it into journal articles and conference papers. I will be shortly speaking at the Linux Australia conference (in the "free as in freedom" mini-conference) as well as the 2009 Australian Historical Association conference - among others. As far as I am aware, I am the only person in the world with a qualification in the humanities regarding Wikipedia. At the very least, I'm the only Historian-Wikipedian in Australia.

Socially, I am one of the co-hosts of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast. I have done this for what must be close to 2 years now (is it that long?!!) With this show we have tried to make a regular rundown of events within the community and therefore it requires that I keep my finger on the pulse of current wiki-events. I also produce interviews with many and various people (including several WM-AU members) and although my interviewing skill is debatable I do this because I want to remind the community that we are not just anonymous writers but also real, interesting, diverse people.

And so, I hope that this gives you an insight into how I have wrapped up my life with Wiki*edia thus far - and plan to do so even more into the future. One of the principal things that I would work on next year (elected to this position or not) is to develop the "Backstage Pass" programme into a regular event with proper documentation to have it run around the world. [if you don't know what this idea is - email me]. On a more bureaucratic note, I think one of the most importantly things that the Chapter should be looking into is applying for Tax Deductible status. This will not be easy or quick, but it will be necessary if we want to grow and receive donations (and run programmes) like the big European chapters.

All the best,

- Liam aka Witty Lama

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