Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Candidates/Victoria Doronina

Victoria Doronina

Victoria Doronina (Victoria)

Victoria (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA • AE)

Candidate details	A still from a promotional Wikimedia video Personal: Name: Victoria Doronina Location: Manchester, UK Languages: Russian, English, Belarusian, Ukrainian Editorial: Wikimedian since: 2007 Active wikis: Russian Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, Commons, Russian Wiktionary
statement (Not more than 450 words)	I am originally from Belarus, a former part of the USSR and now the last dictatorship in Europe. I graduated from the Belarusian State University and did my PhD in Molecular Biology in Edinburgh (UK). I currently work as a Technical Officer at the Faculty of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). I have started contributing to the Russian Wikipedia in 2006 and quickly became an active admin. I served twice on the Arbitration Committee and a mediator in Armenian-Azerbajani and LGBTQ+ topics. In fact, I was one of the initiators of the mediation system that is still relevant. I have been making minor contributions to English Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons, Russian Wiktionary. I know the editors from Ukrainian, Polish, and Belarusian (both of them) Wikies. I took part in setting up the Russian Chapter of WMF (Wikimedia RU), although I don’t have any formal role because I am a foreign citizen. I was a recipient of the Wikimedia Community Fellowship, writing a history of Russian Wikipedia, and served on the Grants Committee. When in 2019 Putin threatened to replace Russian Wikipedia with a pro-Government encyclopedia, I gave an interview to an opposition TV channel. I predicted that nothing would come out of it, just some money plundered. And the Russian Wikipedia with its 1,7 million articles is still accessible to all Russian-speaking people. The current Board is doing a good job maintaining the existing infrastructure and improving the editor experience. However, as with any mature movement, there’s a problem with attracting and retaining new editors, especially if they belong to minority groups. Wikimedia movement had been a disruptor, successfully challenging and triumphing over the old gatekeepers such as traditional encyclopedias and Academia. Unfortunately, the disruptors have become the new gatekeepers. The new gatekeepers are almost exclusively older men from the Global North. I have experience helping the new editors, primarily women, and LGBTQ, that the online community is hostile to the newbies, demanding perfection from the first edit. I think there are ways to help these new editors. Projects like GLAM and Wikmedian-in- residence are great for the established editors. Still, the existing projects should be supplemented with medium-term programs for the new editors beyond the one-day hackathons. We all know it’s as impossible to contribute to the content after one day as impossible to speak a foreign language after an “immersive course”. I believe that if elected I can be a positive force in the WMF.
Top 3 Board priorities	Provide independent oversight of the existing activities. Develop a long-term evolution and regeneration movement strategy. Promote Wikimedia Movement in Global South and among the minority groups.
Top 3 Movement Strategy priorities	Maintain high quality of the existing content and expand it. Find new ways of retaining the existing editors and attracting new ones. Think of the future such as expanding the movement into the new media.
Verification	Identity verification performed by Wikimedia Foundation staff and eligibility verification performed by the Elections Committee
	Eligibility: Verified Verified by: Matanya (talk) 20:41, 1 July 2021 (UTC)	Identification: Verified Verified by: Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 18:13, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Trustee Evaluation Form
Trustee Evaluation Form Years of Experience <1 1–2 2–5 5–10 10+ Wikimedia experience. The candidate is a dedicated contributor to the Wikimedia movement. Eligible contributions include: contributions to the Wikimedia projects, membership in a Wikimedia organization or affiliate, activities as a Wikimedia movement organizer, or participation with a Wikimedia movement ally organization. 10+ years: since 2006 — Russian Wikipedia Editor, username Mstislavl, later Victoria 2009, 2012 — Russian Arbitration Committee Member Board experience. The candidate has served on the board of trustees/directors or other similar governing body of a nationally- or globally-focused organization (non-profit, for-profit, or governmental). ___ Executive experience. The candidate has worked at an executive level for an organization, department, or project of comparable (or greater) size, complexity, and scope to the Wikimedia Foundation. Support of Wikipedia RU, I managed a scientific group of up to 10 people Subject matter expertise. The candidate has worked or significantly volunteered in an area relevant to the work of the Foundation and the Board. Such areas will be determined on an annual basis and may include areas such as Global movement building and community organization, enterprise-level platform technology and/or product development, public policy and the law, knowledge sector (e.g., academia/GLAM/education), human rights and social justice, open Internet/free and open source software, organizational strategy and management, finance and financial oversight, non-profit fundraising, human resources, board governance. 2012 — Wikimedia Grant Committee Member 2011 — Wikimedia Community Fellow 2010 — Presentation at Wikimedia Conference Diversity: Background The candidate belongs or belonged to a group that has faced historical discrimination and underrepresentation in structures of power (related to, for example, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ identity, social class, economic status, or caste). I am a Belarusian/Jewish woman from a patriarchal state (USSR/Belarus), my parents were factory workers but graduated from university later in life Diversity: Geography The candidate would contribute to the overall geographic diversity of the Board of Trustees, based on the geographic regions where they have lived. My homeland is Belarus and I’m very closely connected with the Russian-speaking world (Russia + post-Soviet space + worldwide diaspora), I live in England Diversity: Language The candidate is a native speaker of a language other than English. Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian Diversity: Political system experience The candidate has substantial experience living in and/or working to share knowledge in a non-democratic, state-censoring, or repressive context. I lived in USSR, currently, I’m taking part in the Belarusian diaspora movement supporting the protests against the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko