Affiliations Committee/Candidates/2016
Please submit your candidacy below. Remember, your application should include the following:
- Your full name
- Your contact information (including your Wikimedia username; your e-mail address should only be shared via email to the affcom
lists.wikimedia.org when you announce your application to the committee) - A statement describing your relevant experience, skills, and motivation for joining the committee.
- Answers to the three (3) questions for candidates:
- How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
Comments: To all wikimedians, feel free to share endorsements and comments about candidates by sending an e-mail to affcom
lists.wikimedia.org. If you provide a negative comment, you must share your source as well; it is not appropriate to simply state a negative opinion without factual evidence and we would like to keep a friendly space for candidates to state their interest without fear of public ridicule.
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My name is Anass Sedrati and I am wikipedian since 2013. I have however been very active on wikipedia since 2007, but without having an account. Currently, I am an editor at the Arabic Wikipedia and I am a founding member of the Moroccan user Group, Wikimedia Morocco, that has started in October 2015. I speak Arabic, berber, French, English, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, and have an understanding of German, Italian, Dutch and Norwegian. I am working as a project manager and have been involved many times in international projects, which have given me the opportunity to work with cross-cultural challenges, and to collaborate with heterogeneous teams. I am also active in social media, and have experience with communication using technological tools and with Internet Governance. I have participated in many Wikipedia events, mainly two times in the Arabic speaking Wikipedia gathering, called "WikiArabia": 2015 in Tunisia, and 2016 in Jordan. I have also participated in the first Francophone Wikipedia meeting in Paris in August 2016. In Wikimedia Morocco, we have also organized a seminar and workshop about Wikipedia for the first time in Morocco in November 2016. With all the experience that I have acquired from my studies, my work experience and my Wikipedia experience, I would like to serve the Affiliations Committee in order to give back a little of what I have received, following the volunteering spirit.
- How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
Affiliates have different backgrounds and experiences from Wikipedia and elsewhere. Gathering them under one community with both be beneficial for them and for the foundation. From one part, the affiliates will learn from each other and deliver better results. From another part, the community will benefit from their experience and know-how. Diversity is a katalysator for team-work, and affiliates will learn much from each other in order to partner and lead effectively projects and initiatives. Moreover, affiliates are themselves members of user groups, so their experience can benefit to all the groups who enter in contact with them.
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
There are many countries and regions that lack organization in user groups or at least local communities. During the next three years, our role as affiliates can be giving support to active wikipedians from those regions in order to organize themselves, and be more active even on the international level. Affiliates ought also to support already existing groups, especially the new ones, and guide them. The affiliates are a strong link between the volunteers and the foundation, so they should have double contact qualities, as they are showing the foundation face to the groups, and representing the groups to the foundation.
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
First of all, I am from Morocco and we have launched our user group in october 2015 (which is relatively new for a group). We have gone through the process of contacting the foundation and affiliates. I would like to share this experience with communities that will follow our same path. Moreover, I have lived in different countries, and my private and professional live experiences have provided me contact with different countries and various cultures. With this background, I have learned to speak many languages and acquired a lot of conversational and communication qualities that help me in my daily challenges and the different situations that can occur and how to deal with them. Finally, I am a rather experienced wikipedia and have participated in many wikipedia events. I think that my experience with the encyclopedia can also help newcomers since affiliates represent also Wikipedia and are part of it.
Comments about Anass Sedrati
editDuring the last three years I have worked with Anass, I discovered a person passionate for the work he accomplished in Wikimedia projects, and pledged to convey the message of the encyclopedia, which is the sharing of knowledge to a large scale.
Most recently, last November, for a seminar in Rabat, I was dazzled by his skills in communication, management, leadership and negotiation.
Through his passion, his commitment, and his experiences as a wikip(m)edian, but above all his personal and professional life that he dedicated to the service of Internet-related issues. Anass will be an added value to the AffCom. Keep going, all my support. --Reda benkhadra (talk) 00:49, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I am Biplab Anand from Nepal. I have involved with Wikimedia projects since 2013 and have been actively involved in Maithili, Nepali and Hindi Wikipedia as well as other Asian language Wikipedias. I have founded the Maithali Wikimedians User Group with other Wikimedians and i am also one of the major contributer for the formation of Maithili Wikipedia (maiwiki). I have got the oppurtunities to meet different Wikimedians of different languages at major wiki event like Wikimania 2015, BN10, TTT 2015 and WCI 2016 to enhance the knowlegde of how Wikimedia projects work. I have been involved in all the major events (Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wikipedia Education Program) of Wikimedia movement organized in Nepal in most of the case as Organizing member and Coordinator. My statistics in the involvement of wiki projects reflect my active contribution in Wikimedia.
Due to my deep interst in Wikimedia Projects and my contribution in it during such short time period shows my acitve involvements in wiki movements that in turns enforces me to apply to be the member of affiliates committee.
- How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
Affiliates have quite active wikimedians as members from around the globe thats make it helpful for them to take effective decisions on recommendations. As a result of such committee with diverse experience also helping out all those enthusiatics Wikimedians around the world.
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
As far as my views are concerned on affiliates role i think affiliates will take major responsibilites towards the expansion of active user groups and chapters to all the regions where there is lack of wikimedian movements and its advantages to the community. Affiliates should also support existing user groups and chapters for their more effective and active involvments.
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
I am from Nepal and currently we have started our Maithali Wikimedians User Group and i am also one of the active wikimedian in my region. Also in our region there is not enough user groups and even chapter so If i get oppurtunity to be the member of affiliates committee my experience of Wikimedia movement in the region will help the committee to make better recommendations for the expansion user groups and chapter in this region as it really need.
I am a Punjabi Wikimedian and I volunteer on various Wikimedia projects in various languages. I can fluently speak Punjabi, English, Urdu and Hindi with an intermediate knowledge of French as well. I am one of the founding members of Punjabi Wikimedians User Group and I have been motivating other language communities in the region to form their User Groups as well. I was the Program Leader of WikiConference India 2016, which was the biggest wiki related event in India in the past 5 years. I have the experience of interacting with various language communities at national conferences and events in India as well as International conferences such as Wikimania 2015, Wikisource Conference, Wikimania 2016. I want to join the committee because I think the committee can play an even better role if we become proactive and ask affiliates for the problems being faced by them and looking for possible solutions.
- How do you think affiliates work best together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
Affiliates can help volunteers to associate to a name that can be used when approaching other organizations and institutions. Affiliates gather Wikimedians with different skills and that makes working on projects and initiatives more effective. We have seen various affiliates working together on joint projects an initiatives. Wikipedia Asian Month is an example of an online event and CEE Meeting is an annual offline conference, both of the initiatives work best because different affiliates have joined hands to make them successful.
- What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
In the recent years, we have seen a tremendous growth in the number of User Groups. I think this trend will continue for the next three years. Due to this, I feel that experienced affiliates should work together with newly formed affiliates, to help them in creating a proper decision making process. There can be disagreements among communities without a proper structure. This learning pattern by me discusses an issue that newly formed affiliates tend to face. Such issues can be avoided if the Group receives guidance from an experienced affiliate.
- What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
I am multilingual and also I have liaisons with all the language communities in the region. My experience in forming a proactive User Group in India will prove vital for the committee. If selected, I would like to discuss how we can assist in the formation of new affiliates and then help them in forming policies and decision making processes.
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I’ve been member of the Affiliations Committee since January 2014, and have served as the committee’s vice-chair since April 2016. Having spent a great deal of time working on organizational development and best practices within the Wikimedia movement, I remain committed to supporting the committee’s ongoing and future efforts in this area, and am therefore submitting this application for re-appointment.
My participation in the Wikimedia movement began in 2005; over the past 11 years, I've contributed to a number of Wikimedia projects, and have taken part in a variety of offline activities. I have a variety of hands-on experience with Wikimedia affiliates, notably including my local chapter, Wikimedia DC, where I’ve served as an officer and member of the board since May 2011, as well as several Wikimedia user groups that I have helped create or have otherwise been involved with.
In interacting with different Wikimedia affiliates during my time on the committee, I’ve seen firsthand the tremendous potential of affiliate groups to contribute to the success of the broader movement. I am deeply interested in helping other groups of Wikimedians around the world achieve the same success, and believe that I can best do so by assisting them with organizational development, helping them realize their aspirations by building viable and sustainable affiliate groups. It is my hope that I will continue to have the opportunity to do so as a member of the Affiliations Committee.
How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
The movement has a rich history of inter-affiliate collaboration on specific programs, both in terms of collaboration among geographically-oriented affiliates (such as the affiliate participation in Wiki Loves Monuments and the various contests modeled after it) and in terms of collaboration between geographically- and thematically-oriented affiliates (such as the work currently being done with the Art+Feminism program). The key factor in these cases, in my opinion, is that collaboration follows programs rather than vice versa; once a scalable program has already reached an advanced stage of planning, it is relatively easy for an affiliate to join in, even if that affiliate would not have the capacity to organize such a program on their own. Conversely, organizing inter-affiliate collaboration without having specific programs in mind has not, in general, been as successful; consider, for example, the difficulties faced by the WCA and similar initiatives.
What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
As our movement strategy continues to evolve, I believe that affiliate organizations will play a progressively more crucial role in expanding the reach of the movement beyond our core contributor communities. Many of the Wikimedia movement’s most successful outreach programs, which have brought us participation from individuals in the cultural, academic, and government sectors among others, have been the result of independent planning and execution by organizations and groups at all levels of the affiliations model. As the Wikimedia Foundation continues to empower effective affiliates through more accessible models of financial and non-financial support, I believe that we will see tremendous growth in these areas, which will enable us, as a movement, to reach out to a wider community of potential participants and supporters.
What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
I am not entirely convinced that such a thing as a "uniquely qualified candidate" exists in practice; looking back at my time on the committee, I think our greatest strength has been a tremendous diversity of backgrounds and skills, rather than any particularly unique quality that we all have in common. To that end, I think that my background and experience, both on the committee and within the greater movement in general, will continue to be a useful asset to the committee as a whole.
I want to join for affiliations commite, because I want to resolve all of problem in the local project and effect to global project.
How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
I see most of all we have problem. It very hard to solve and I very like if initiative in the local project to resolve them. I like if we have a project with many people has creative of mind.
What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years? I see I'll be patient. And other user can effect or respons if we have enough patient.
What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate? I can laught and I think it not LOL. But I think we can be patient to othe user. And first misi is "Always to be patient for othe user or other user in the world"
Hi, my name is Camelia Boban and I'm a wikipedian since 18 march 2007 and wikimedian since september of the same year. I am born in Craiova (Romania) but I live for 25 years in Rome (Italy). I work as a programmer for a IT multinational company in Rome.
I am interessed in fill the gender gap in Wikipedia (not only in WP and not only gender gap), so I founded the italian WikiDonne - WikiDonne user group (WDG) (affiliates to the Wikimedia movement), created WikiDonne project in august 2016 (part of the global Wikiproject Women in red) and the Feminism portal. With WikiDonne and as Wikimedia Italia's coordinator for education in the Lazio region, I organized HerStory, Diàs de las escritoras (in 6 cities of Italy, in team with others WMI coordinators - Venezia, Potenza, Firenze, Roma, Napoli, Bologna), BBC 100 women editathons and monthly international editathons online, courses to students and teachers, presentations of the Wikimedia projects in high schools or Linux Day, Wikipedia contests for parity, grammatics and sexism labs, talks about cyberbullism and security on social networks at FEF. With WDG I collaborate with other international chapters and user groups interested in women's bios and issues: WikiWomen UG (en), LesSansPages (fr), WikiMujeres UG and Iberocoop (es), Viquidones (ca) and FilmFrauen (de). For the next International Women's Day, with Iberocoop we are preparing a on person editathon in various locations of Italy (hoping to iterate the "Dià de las escritoras editathon" 's success).
I founded and manage the social media accounts for @WikiDonne (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) and @LazioWiki (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram).
I partecipated to Wikimania Esino Lario 2016 and since it's first edition I am part of the preliminate jury of WLM Italy. I have a romanian and italian native speaking level, an intermediate english and a very basic french.
How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
Doing things together. Help them try strategies, encouraging them to use their energy, enthusiasm and competence. Offer grants to organize events locally, contacting national and international institutions for put the local volunteers in contact in a different way, make contests and organize international hackatons (involve the open source developers communities). Do better tools (content translation for example) by increasing the software development.
What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
Centered arround the women. We must balance this 16% of female's presence, capturing the qualified women attention, bringing them to partecipate into Wikimedia projects. With the result, using the example of Wikipedia as major project, that it would earn in reliability.
What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
I don't know if I am a "uniquely qualified candidate", I have no experience, but I try to drag people. Talking about Wikipedia with eyes that shine and put passion into all the actions are noted by people who feel involved.
Isla Haddow-Flood (Username: Islahaddow)
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A Zimbabwean by birth, and a Capetonian by adoption, I am an open movement activist, project strategist and manager (and have been known to write and edit). I am passionate about harnessing communication technology and media platforms to provide open and free access to knowledge, and fundamentally change how Africa is seen globally and by the billion people who live here. To do this I have been an active part of the WikiAfrica movement since 2011. Collaborating with members of the WikiAfrica movement, I have conceptualised, co-planned and co-instigated many initiatives aimed at Activating Africa; just some of which include #OpenAfrica, Kumusha Bus and WikiEntrepreneur. I am also the co-lead (with Anthere) of projects related to getting Africa content onto Wikipedia, such as Wiki Loves Africa, Kumusha Takes Wiki, and Wiki Loves Women. Working with Anthere, we are just about to launch at Wiki Indaba 2017 the Wikipedia:Wikipack Africa (an action kit for Wikipedians across Africa) which includes WikiFundi (an offline editing environment that mimics Wikipedia). The WikiChallenge African Schools will follow in February / March and is aimed at introducing the next generation of editors to Wikipedia.
How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives? At the moment, across Africa or beyond, I do not see that affiliates especially do work together. We run Wiki Loves Africa and although there are 10 teams in different countries taking part, there is no real discussion on the mailing list. No calls for help, no collaboration about content. I think a lot of that is the desire to be seen to be coping, but it shouldn't be like that. It should be a safe space. I would like that to change and think that it will with more thematic groups or tech projects becoming involved. Themes and shared purpose can draw people across groups to work together. Examples of this has been Wikimedia CH working with many Wikimedia groups on Kiwix, and Wiki Loves Women working with Women in Red. This is where it gets exciting and where the future is hopefully heading; where Wikimedians from successful chapters, user and thematic groups help to get fledgling communities going in brave new territories.
What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years? The affiliates are the on-the-ground activators, the ambassadors and the aggregators of the Movement. They have multiple roles and they should be supported as such. They are the face of Wikipedia to an increasingly curious and pro-active readership. They work at turning readers into editors, partners into contributors, and projects to plug the gaps. They run multiple training, upload, contests, photo-hunts, Wiki Loves ... , Wiki Takes ... , translate-a-thons, and edit-a-thons events. They need to answer difficult policy, and community questions. And as Wikipedia's readership and mission expands, they will be taking on more than before. They need more training and tools to handle press, communications, marketing, projects, community building, community management and budgets; and will require more support from the foundation, this committee and others as they do so. Linking the national affiliates together will be thematic groups that cross boundaries and brings people together, wherever they are. This is an exciting time to be involved in the movement!
What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate? Although from 2012 to 2013 I was a board member of the Wikimedia South Africa Chapter, I currently do not have any official affiliation with a usergroup or chapter. Some of the tangible benefits of the projects and mentoring several Wikipedians has been helpful in getting the usergroup in Nigeria up, and volunteer groups growing in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. I am currently non-aligned but involved.
I believe that as the movement grows and expands into those communities whose people and knowledge has been historically marginalised and who face completely different challenges from the majority of affiliates (when it comes to access, technology, language, etc.) AffCom needs a few people on its committee who can question the balance, push back on some of the assumptions and be able to directly ask those who could be affected for feedback. With an extensive network across the continent across many different regions, languages and cultures, and a bit of experience in working with these groups, I want to help with this.
disclosure ... my only experience of the movement is of the African context. These answers above are skewed by this, and not indicative of the whole movement.
I am the project manager for the AfroCROWD project in the United States, based out of the New York City area and Wikimedia New York City Chapter. Through my work with AfroCROWD I have spent almost two years specializing in outreach to communities in the African Diaspora and connecting to organizations we pursue as partners for our projects. I have worked on all areas of this, with an emphasis on building those partnerships, initiatives and coalitions, which has helped land us in the New York Times, and other publications, and grown our following online by the hundreds among those connected to AfroCROWD in some way. I would love to share what we are learning and continue to connect with more affiliates and develop further collaborations within the Wikimedia community.
How do you think affiliates work best to together to partner on effective projects and initiatives?
I believe one of the great strengths in Wikipedia is it sheer propensity toward diversity. The vast array of people whose projects, personalities, queries, and constant examination and facilitation of all sorts of levels and forms of knowledge the community provides at the fingertips of the world, are treasures perfectly created for this information thirsty century. I would like to help expand expand its work even further. The community of affiliates is in a unique position to unlock greater depths of the possibilities available, because Wikipedia exists not as a useful website of interesting facts, but as a living and growing community of knowledge seekers, knowledge perfectors and arguably, as of late, knowledge protectors. Through regular discourse both virtually and in person, and through unified efforts to continue to identify, curate, explore and nurture the farthest expanses of perspectives we have available to us, we can continue to unlock the higher dimensions of ideas possible within the Wikimedia community. Continued creative collaborations throughout and among affiliates both virtually, (have we tried a virtual reality edit-a-thon between the continents via avatars online?) and in person through continued conferences like Wikimania most recently held in Europe or the exciting Indaba conference in Africa, affiliates can connect and find new and innovative ways to spread and share ideas and partner effectively on projects and initiatives throughout the world of Wikimedia.
What do you see as the role of affiliates in the Wikimedia movement in the next three years?
I see affiliates growing and expanding and becoming more central to the evolving greater identity of the Wikimedia community. Right now we are just in the developmental stages for many projects and in three years we will start to see the fruit of their labors. It is exciting that now, more than ever, affiliates have a growing array of choices of how to be in contact with core, perspective and participatory groups within the individual spaces they are developing on and off Wiki, adding new dynamics (both in potential opportunity and challenges) to their eventual outcomes.
What do you feel you will bring to the committee that makes you a uniquely qualified candidate?
We all bring a myriad of talents, but having conducted outreach and created a steady stream of monthly edit-a-thons and other programming for AfroCROWD and in coordination with other Wikimedia groups, I see some of my deepest contributions coming in the way of facilitating outreach, connectivity and partnerships with diverse organizations engaged with the Wikimedia community. Coalition and partnership development have been strategic in the activities AfroCROWD has conducted in the last two years of its existence and we can chart the successes achieved around many of them. I think this can be very useful in growing and nurturing strong affiliations and I believe that my experience and background with this work position me beneficially as a contributor on the committee. I am excited to see what evolves from the Affiliate Committee's efforts in the coming year and the potential for my participation in that.