Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-09-26/Wikimedia hire

On 18 September, Jimmy Wales announced that Danny Wool would be working as an Executive Assistant at the Wikimedia Foundation. He becomes the second full-time employee hired by the Wikimedia Foundation, joining Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber.

Wool is relocating to Wikimedia headquarters in Florida in order to take the job. The description of the position is broad and flexible, as Wales said it "will primarily entail removing work from me so that I can better focus on the parts of my job that I am best at." Before accepting this position, Wool worked for a museum in New York, and his experience in the nonprofit sector gives him a useful background for the work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wool was previously named Grants Coordinator in May (see archived story), working as a volunteer in this capacity. He will continue to deal with grant proposals, and it is anticipated that this, not the Executive Assistant position, will ultimately be his focus. Wales indicated that the plan is for a replacement Executive Assistant to be hired within a year or so, allowing Wool to resume focusing on grants.

In other recent developments related to the volunteer official positions, the new position of Chapter Coordinator was announced in August, after discussions at Wikimania indicated that someone was needed in this role. Delphine Ménard was appointed to the position on 18 August, and will serve as a liaison between the Board of Trustees and the local chapters, of which four have been created so far (Germany, France, Italy, and Poland).

Also, Chief Research Officer Erik Möller resigned his position 17 August, "due to personal differences and a fundamental disagreement about the nature and scope of the role." He indicated that he would be cutting back his involvement in Wikimedia projects, but would continue doing development work to help implement the Wikidata concept. So far, the position of Chief Research Officer has not been filled.