Now that we have invited members to be on the Advisory Board, and created a clear mandate for the work of the board, it is time to begin talking about the elections for the user representatives.

To ensure the board members reflect a representative cross section of the LiveJournal community we will hold two separate elections. There will be one user-representative for the Cyrillic language users of LiveJournal (i.e. those who use Russian as their principal language of communication) and another for the non-Cyrillic segment of LiveJournal (i.e. those who use English, German or any of the other main LiveJournal languages). Posts regarding the elections will be announced in news and ru_news. The elections will run at the same time and in the same manner.

Timeline

The nomination and election process will cover the entire month of May. For the first two weeks, we will have open nominations, and the chance for users to second the nominations. When the nominations close, there will be time for LiveJournal to certify the candidates who have been nominated and for those candidates to communicate with users regarding positions or campaigning. The elections will be open for the entire last week of May. The new LiveJournal User-Representatives on the Advisory Board will be seated on June 1, 2008.

Requirements

To be considered as a candidate for the Advisory Board elections, a user must be:

• at least 18 years old as of May 1, 2008
  
• nominated and elected using their primary LiveJournal username
  
• willing to serve under their full legal name, including having their name recorded on minutes, correspondence, opinions, or other material in relation to their service
  
• available to travel to the once-a-year in-person meeting in Istanbul, Turkey the week of the third Wednesday in September (September 17, 2008)
  
• available for quarterly conference calls, and for consultation via telephone or email correspondence should a situation arise which would need their advice
  
• willing to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement in relation to the work and discussion of the Advisory Board in order to keep the confidential nature of discussions which might arise

Voting

To be eligible to vote in the election, a user must have created their account before March 11, 2008. Voting will take place in the form of a poll, which will remain open during the entire last week of May. The winner will be determined via Instant Runoff Voting. This means that users will be able to select their first, second, and third choice candidate. In the event there is no clear majority, the lowest-ranked candidates will be eliminated and the users who selected those candidates as first choice will have their vote re-assigned to their second-choice candidate. That system is repeated until a clear winner is evident.

Serving on the Board

Logistics
The LiveJournal Advisory Board will meet annually on the third Wednesday/Thursday in September in Istanbul; this year, the week of September 17, 2008. They will hold quarterly conference calls with the management and Board of Directors to consider major issues. LiveJournal will reimburse all travel or related expenses and offer an honorarium, which may be paid directly to the member or to a charity of his or her choosing.

Structure
The LiveJournal Advisory Board is independent of the LiveJournal, Inc. management structure. There will be a chairperson appointed by the LiveJournal, Inc. management from the existing (non-user-representative) members of the board for the purposes of convening.

Non-user representatives will serve for a term of two years, after which they can be re-appointed upon mutual agreement. Elected user-representatives will serve for one year, with annual elections held each May. User-representatives can be members of the board for two consecutive terms before being obliged to stand down. Users who have previously been elected to the advisory board can put themselves forward for nomination again once they have spent at least one year off the board.

Should a user-representative of the LiveJournal Advisory Board find themselves unable to perform the necessary duties, he or she shall inform LiveJournal, Inc. management in writing. After his or her resignation has been accepted, the user with the next-highest amount of votes in the final vote tally from the previous election will be asked to take up their position on the advisory board. Should a non-user-representative of the LiveJournal Advisory Board find themselves unable to perform the necessary duties, he or she shall inform LiveJournal, Inc. management in writing. After his or her resignation has been accepted the member will be replaced at the discretion of LiveJournal, Inc. Additionally, there is nothing to preclude current or former user-representatives from being appointed as members of the advisory board in the non-user-representatives positions.

Meetings
The agenda for meetings and conference calls will be agreed between the LiveJournal, Inc. management and the chairperson of the Advisory Board. Management will respond promptly to any request for documentation and the LiveJournal Advisory Board will have its own independent secretariat.

The LiveJournal Advisory Board may publish position papers by majority vote, including dissenting position papers should LiveJournal management not follow their recommendations. Beyond the posted statements, LiveJournal Advisory Board members will be held to confidentiality and will be required to sign legally binding non-disclosure agreements to protect the integrity of the discussions. Advisory Board members are welcome to discuss their role and work of the board in public forums but are asked to respect the confidential nature of the discussions which take place.


The LiveJournal Advisory Board members previously announced each bring a unique perspective; law, business, knowledge of social media, and LiveJournal history and development. The elections for the LiveJournal user-representatives are intended to provide the unique perspective of the community of LiveJournal. Although there will still be at least one more appointed member, the Advisory Board will be a small group (seven to nine members) which is able to discuss and provide advice on any topic which is now, or becomes in the future, important to LiveJournal.

LiveJournal, Inc. Advisory Board Members

danah boyd

danah boyd is a well-known blogger and researcher of online social media and networking - and is also a LiveJournal user! In addition to her academic and professional work, danah has personal knowledge of fandom and subcultures on LiveJournal. She will be a great advocate for users and a fantastic source of information and advice.

Esther Dyson

With enormous experience, knowledge and enthusiasm, Esther Dyson will be able to provide a perspective as a business owner, author, investor, board member, and philanthropist. She speaks Russian fluently and has been an investor or board member for several companies in Eastern Europe (and has been spending time in India, eastern Asia, and Africa lately, too).

Lawrence Lessig

Lessig brings to the table knowledge and guidance regarding freedom of speech, copyright, and open source software. He's a professor at Stanford Law School, focusing on law and technology - but also an author, columnist, blogger, and corruption-fighter.

Brad Fitzpatrick

As previously announced, Brad Fitzpatrick has agreed to serve on the LiveJournal Advisory Board. Brad invented LiveJournal.


In the coming months, we'll add two users to the Advisory Board and at least one more appointed member. Details on the upcoming user election will be posted soon.

The LiveJournal, Inc. Advisory Board Mandate

The LiveJournal Advisory Board is an international group of informed and trusted leaders from the online community who will advise the management and Board of Directors of LiveJournal, Inc. in the operation and development of the LiveJournal platform.

More specifically, the Advisory Board will also:

Meet, discuss, and post their position on the issues that are important to the community. The board will likely discuss a broad range of topics: freedom of speech, privacy, legality, policy, and security, to name only a few;

Provide guidance to LiveJournal, Inc. management and the Board of Directors on new issues and controversies as they arise;

Speak to and for the users, offering them a voice not only in LiveJournal, Inc., but also on LiveJournal's role in the world;

Oversee ongoing charitable work which the LiveJournal, Inc. Board of Directors supports.

100 Day Plan

Two weeks ago we announced a 100 Day Plan for LiveJournal, Inc. The team are getting their teeth into this now. Here are just a few of the things that we're working on:

Expanding Collapsed Comment Threads: If you have a paid account, you can have a first-look at a feature which will expand comments threads that have been collapsed. See how you can try it out over at paidmembers.

Rich Text Editor: There's a project underway to improve the functionality of the Rich Text Editor. We're making it easier and more flexible to use.

LJ Home Page: Stay tuned for changes to the home page which will make it easier for you to find communities and news about stuff you are interested in.

Registration Process: We are simplifying the registration process for new accounts to make it faster and easier.

New Site Scheme: Keep an eye out for Lanzelot, a new site scheme, in the coming year!

Your Profile: If you have ever wanted more personalization and customization on your profile page, we think you'll like some of the features we're working on.


Product Development

We are happy to announce that Jason Shellen will be joining the team as our new Vice President of Product Development at LiveJournal, Inc. Jason comes to us with very relevant experience, having been part of Pyra Labs, which created Blogger. In 2003 Google acquired Blogger and Jason went on to work as Product Manager for Google Reader and became part of the Google New Business Development team.

Jason will manage product development for LiveJournal, Inc. and also oversee the pipeline of new products that SUP is producing in other markets around the world. He'll be located out of the LiveJournal, Inc. office in San Francisco.

jasonshellen also worked with brad and the LiveJournal team years ago, in helping to launch the Atom API (geeks will appreciate that)!


Advisory Board

Along with Brad Fitzpatrick and other members of the online community, the two Advisory Board members elected from within the LiveJournal userbase will be asked to advise the LiveJournal, Inc. management on a variety of matters. As a further clarification, they will provide important dialog and consideration of relevant issues (such as taste and decency on the site) in the context of privacy, freedom of expression and other values of great importance to the LiveJournal community.

LiveJournal, Inc. will pay for the user-representatives' travel to the once-a-year in-person board meeting. All LiveJournal users who are 18 or older will be able to run for these positions (regardless of country of residence). Those who choose to run for a position on the Advisory Board should plan to be available for the once-a-year meeting and quarterly conference calls. Additionally, members may need to be consulted via email or ad hoc conference calls should situations arise which need their opinions or guidance.

Early next year we will provide you with information on the nomination and election processes for the two user-elected positions and introduce you to other members of the Advisory Board. We will also be updating you all on our hiring of a new General Manager for LiveJournal, Inc. as well as completed and ongoing projects in our 100-day plan and our search for a new office within the city of San Francisco (yes, we're staying here!). Exciting times are ahead!

We have seen a lot of interest in the Advisory Board since our announcement on Sunday, and we wanted to give you an update. There were a number of questions that we wanted to take a moment to answer top level to make sure everyone saw them.

Some of you were concerned about the reference to religion in the introductory statement. This was mentioned only in the context of freedom of expression and does not cover any other concerns which you might have had. We want to make it clear that LiveJournal’s rules on freedom of expression remain absolutely unchanged.

Many people wanted to know more about how the Advisory Board. We have taken as the model for this the Wikipedia Board of Trustees (both in terms of the terms of reference and, where appropriate, the election process. The full detailed plans for this will be announced in the new year when a few more people have joined Brad on the Board (we have been in discussions with a number of potential members over the past week and will be speaking to more people throughout this month).

Some of you have asked how and when the board will meet. It will be convened via conference calls on a regular basis and meet physically at least once a year.

For those of you who would like to be considered for one of the two user positions or if you’d like to nominate someone yourself you’ll have to bear with us as we pull the plans into shape, but again, the Wikipedia model is one which we’ll be paying close attention to.

We’ll be consulting users in more detail about both the terms of reference for the Board and the election process soon, so stay tuned .