Talk:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations/Kunal Mehta

Community endorsements

• Endorsement from Ajraddatz:

New appointees to the board right now face a unique challenge, needing to balance three currents of very vocal thought - part of the community that wants to move forward, part of the community that wants to move back to their perception of Wikimedia's golden age, and the underlying need to update and change in a way that continues to engage editors and keep Wikimedia relevant. Mr. Mehta would be an excellent choice for an affiliate seat because of his ability to balance all three of these currents. He has worked on the tech side and volunteered on the community side, so he understands both very well. In particular, his help with establishing the framework for global renaming, as well as establishing some of the basic technical and community policies for Wikidata have been useful and demonstrate his knowledge and understanding of the community. His vision for a renewed role for chapters and other affiliated organizations is useful and needed, given the current domination of the Foundation over technical issues, and the strong gradient of activity displayed by the different affiliate organizations. As such, he fills not only what the community needs in a trustee, but also can serve as an advocate for the affiliates - which, right now, is exactly what the board needs. I very much hope that you will consider Kunal Mehta for a seat this election.

Ajraddatz

Wikimedia Steward

• I was awaiting this. I know of few individuals in the movement who have managed to be as effective as Kunal, both at decision making and in the community. He would have deserved a community-selected seat or a Board-appointed one equally well! Nonetheless, I'm sad he's going to quit his job at WMF... --Ricordisamoa 06:42, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

• Endorsement from Valhallasw:

I have had the pleasure to work with Kunal on various occasions. I have mostly worked with him on Pywikibot, where he wrote most of the Wikidata support, and helped us move from the ageing sourceforge.net bug tracker to Bugzilla. In his work, he values technology as a way to empower volunteers: his Wikidata implementation has helped many volunteers get started with imports to Wikidata, and the bug tracker move empowered the Pywikibot developers by decreasing the distance between the Pywikibot and broader Wikimedia community. The same is true for many of his other projects: MassMessage, Global JS/CSS and Global user pages all help to make life easier for volunteers. With his vision of technology to empower, combined with his ideas on the whole Wikimedia and MediaWiki ecosystem, I feel Kunal is a very strong candidate for the board.

Valhallasw (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC), Pywikibot maintainer.

• As a fellow bot operator of James Hare's bots, I am delighted to second the endorsement of Wikimedia District of Columbia. As all three community-"selected" Board seats are now filled by Europeans, or people who provide negligible support to the core English Wikipedia, I would be thrilled to see you replace the one (former) North-American board member who does give significant support to the flagship English Wikipedia, and who was booted for reasons that the community still does not understand. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• Endorsement from MF-Warburg:

I trust that Legoktm will be an excellent board member. Reasons were already outlined well by Ajraddatz and Wbm1058. Legoktm is a very clueful member of the community whose statement demonstrates that he understands the current challenges the Board and the Wikimedia movement as a whole are facing. I'm sure his good ideas will help the WMF to move into the right direction. His election by the chapters (etc.) would be a very encouraging sign.

--MF-W, Wikimedia steward, member of the language committee 23:59, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

• Endorsement from Vogone:

I am pretty much delighted by this candidacy, which is addressing many of the issues we as the community are currently suffering. I am certain Kunal Mehta would be an ideal addition to the board, someone who respects the community, while also keeping the intentions and goals of our movement as a whole in mind. With his experience both as a community member as well as as a WMF employee I believe he has the right experience and will bring our movement forward. Please consider to give him your vote.

Vogone

• Endorsement from Rschen7754:

We are reminded daily that those who develop technology must engage with the parties that use it. This is clearly evident in the latest incidents at the Wikimedia Foundation. I believe that Kunal Mehta provides a clear vision to resolve these problems with an approach to develop technology that will further the development of content, rather than technology that will divide the community and distract it from the mission of Wikimedia. I hope the chapters will consider him for the Board.

Rschen7754

Wikimedia Steward emeritus, member of the U.S. Roads WikiProject

• The MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group endorse Kunal as a candidate for the Board of Trustees. Kunal is an outstanding member of the MediaWiki developer community. He has taken on responsibility in various areas and has shaped MediaWiki in many good ways. Kunal is determined and assertive. Technology and development are two very important factors in the Wikimedia Foundation. Therefore we appreciate a member of the board with a strong technological background.
  -- Markus Glaser, Spokesperson of MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group, 08:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC).

• I have known Kunal's work on the projects for many years. He is thoughtful, constructive, and persistent. He has perspective from both inside and outside the WMF, and technical perspective, that the current Board could use more of. Finally, he is good at listening to people, respecting their observations, and helping find practical consensus – something which in sufficient quantity might have reduced recent drama on the Board.

–SJ talk  16:44, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Silicon valley

As for Silicon valley expertise, I'd certainly second a motion to replace Guy with Kunal. --194.86.153.167 10:45, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Bug report

Hi Kunal, I couldn't translate your page because you used smiley ";-)" combined with ")" character, which cause the number of "(" and ")" to be non equal, and result in Translate extension refusing to commit my translation. How are you going to deal with this? ;-) eranroz (talk) 05:46, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I...wow. https://xkcd.com/859/! Emoji to the rescue 😉 Legoktm (talk) 06:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Questions to be addressed

Hi, I've been reading through the answers to the questions that have been posed by the community, and I note that there are several long-standing questions that you have not yet responded to. Knowing where the candidates stand on a variety of issues is important when deciding who to vote for, and if you have not done so recently it would be worth reviewing the questions that still remain to be answered. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

@MichaelMaggs: I'm working on them, are there any questions in particular that you'd like me to prioritize? Legoktm (talk) 07:31, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

No specific priority, thanks. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:06, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

@MichaelMaggs: sorry about the delay (bad time to go on vacation!), all questions are answered now. :) Legoktm (talk) 16:30, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

What to do in these cases?

Hi dear Kunal Mehta, Talk:Affiliate-selected Board seats/2016/Nominations/Susanna Mkrtchyan#Questions from 6AND5/2, Requests for comment/Indefinite block the user:6AND5 in the armenian Wikipedia ?--6AND5 (talk) 10:30, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the board should be investigating these kinds of cases. The stewards are in a much better position to look into these kinds of cases and come to an amicable situation. It can often be very slow going (see past RfCs for example), but there's not really a deadline. I would suggest that if you are still interested and can speak another language well enough, to contribute to a different language project for the time being. This will also increase your credibility. Legoktm (talk) 19:07, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I am now sysop in armenian Wikiquote, patrol (editor) in russian Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Commons (see more User:6AND5/Bot policy).But the question is that I am very mentally difficult to be blocked in armenian Wikipedia...--6AND5 (talk) 14:42, 31 March 2016 (UTC)