2026 WikiOasis Foundation Board of Directors Election/Justarandomamerican

Candidate: Justarandomamerican — ← Back to Election Page

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Statement

Hello. I am trying this again. I was previously a board member, President, and am currently the incorporator of the company. The circumstances of my removal were plain: I used funds in an unauthorized way, causing the organization to almost bleed dry. However, I would like to point out to you, my dear viewer, that people can change, and in this case, I have changed. I have been going to therapy and mental health treatment since the incident. I feel extremely guilty about the incident. I only hope you can forgive me. That is all, thank you. Justarandomamerican (talk) 20:46, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

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Questions & Comments

This is not the place to cast traditional Support/Oppose votes. The SecurePoll extension will be used for voting when voting opens.

A few questions from me that will largely determine my opinion:

1. You were at one point heavily involved in the Technology Team — can you explain your process behind becoming part of the tech team from so early on in the farm despite being largely unqualified for the role? (edit: as requested I will add more specificity of issues at the time)
   • Poor purchasing decisions with regard to the field of tech, specifically on the initial dedicated server, which hadn't been discussed with others
   • Acting impulsively and (while not to duplicate the issue on mismanagement of funds) generally making purchases with regard to tech in particular that were not discussed with anybody in particular prior and weren't really going to benefit the project
   • In the early days, installing a significant amount of unnecessary software onto servers, such as cachet (went ostensibly unused), znuny (again went unused), splunk (actively took down the site after installation)
   • Onboarding so many new SREs who were entirely unknown and appeared from effectively nowhere who ultimately just warmed seats and were removed for inactivity
   • Randomly restarting servers for hostname changes (which isn't needed) which resulted in downtime
   • Other smaller incidents which I can't recall off the top of my head but there were a handful other that haven't been mentioned
2. I note that you chose to distance yourself from the project following your mismanagement of foundation funds. That occurred around January 2026, right now it is May 2026. Do you think that ~5 months is enough time to make right what you did? Additionally, following leaving the Discord around that time, you rejoined on the 13th January, which was only about a week later. You then formally returned to Safety in March, only 3 months later. Can you talk me through this very quick return to the project?
3. What would you be interested in pursuing as a board member if elected?
4. What are some areas that you think the board could improve on based on what you've observed in your role as a director?
5. You currently serve on the Safety team, what have you observed in that department that you believe could be improved as a part of your role on the board?

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. Best, --zippybonzo (c • ca) 21:33, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi, Zippy. I'll go ahead and answer these questions now.

1. My thought process was largely made up of cognitive distortions and overconfidence. It was largely the Dunning-Kruger effect. I obviously did not consider that I was a rookie sysadmin and should not have been admining a site that large, or even of medium size. For that, I can only be sorry.
2. I quickly returned because I was asked to deal with various things relating to the project and asked to handle an emergency threatening life by Globe, and I just figured that I was trusted enough to rejoin the project, if I was asked to deal with such a heavy topic. I think I just needed a short break. My trust may not have been fully recovered, but I personally just needed a week's break.
3. Mainly improvements to the organization, seeking donations, the Safety side of things, etc.
4. I think the board could improve in telling its advisors about its discussions, letting the experts advise them sometimes, and staying out of low-level governance of the community.
5. I think that many things could be improved in terms of procedure, for example, a formal safety action policy.

Thanks for asking me these questions! Justarandomamerican (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2026 (UTC)