User:Jalexander-WMF
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James Alexander
Manager, Legal and Community Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
"Working here isn't for the faint of heart. That said, you realize the genuine thankfulness of the 500 million people from our community around the world who use the projects every day... and it's all worth it."
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About meI've had an account starting on the English Wikipedia since late 2006 as Jamesofur where I made small edits correcting or updating information as I read through articles (both logged in and anonymous). In 2009 I picked up my interest again mostly because of a fascination with the community model and a desire to see the projects succeed. I worked first on enWiki again and then quickly started getting involved in global governance and anti vandalism and abuse issues. I helped to set up the Global sysops proposal and referendum and still serve as one on my volunteer account, became a Sysop, Bureaucrat and Checkuser on SimpleWikipedia as well as a sysop here on Meta and on EnWikipedia. I've also been a long time agent on OTRS especially with BLP concerns and Intellectual property (Copyright, trademarks and trade secrets mostly). Personally I have a degree in Economics and a huge love of the law both in the United States and internationally (especially Contract and Copyright law and the international and economic side effects). After school I was looking for work in the legal field planning to go to law school in a year or two. I'm a self professed geek and anglophile who loves most of science fiction and British television, computers and technology (I've taught myself a fair bit of coding but have no formal teaching) and surfing. I enjoy taking on a challenge especially something where much of it hasn't been done before. |
My workI began at the Foundation for the 2010 Fundraiser for outreach but ended up spending most of my time making all of the lovely banners and landing pages that everyone has come to love ;). In 2011 I got a Community Fellowship to work on new editor retention work focusing on data gathering and research (in prep for the Summer of Research) as well as WikiGuides a project trying to proactively reach out to new users which I presented on at Wikimania in Haifa (The Teahouse is taking up from where we left off!). In July 2011 I was swallowed up by the Fundraiser again to be its 'Business Analyst' working to help manage the priorities of the technical and production teams for the Fundraiser. In the late spring 2012 I became the Wikimedia Merchandise Manager, opening an online store, expanding our products to include a wide array of good quality offerings available at a reasonable price, and developing a community-driven giveaway program that recognized the contributions of individual Wikimedians. I currently work in the legal and community advocacy department on a wide variety of projects and tasks, some of which can take more or less time depending on the circumstances. My primary focus is on high profile or time-sensitive community support issues as part of the broader Community Advocacy team. Some specific projects I'm working on now include:
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Contact me
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