Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Kandidat*innen/Kunal Mehta
Kunal Mehta (Legoktm)
Legoktm (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA • AE)
| Vorstellung des*der Kandidat*in | 
| |
|---|---|---|
| Einleitende Stellungnahme / Zusammenfassung zur Kandidatur Dieser Abschnitt wird übersetzt. (maximal 150 Worte) |
Ich bin seit 2007 Wikimedianer und war 8 Jahre lang ein ehemaliger WMF-Mitarbeiter (siehe vollständige Biographie). In diesen beiden Funktionen habe ich ein umfassendes Verständnis für die technischen Erfordernisse und die Realitäten des „Movements“ gewonnen.
Eine gesunde und nachhaltige technische Community wird von Freiwilligen, Mitgliedern und WMF-Mitarbeitern gleichermaßen geleitet, weshalb ich mich dafür eingesetzt habe, freiwillige Entwickler zu unterstützen und zu fördern. Ich habe mich auf die Entwicklung von Funktionen und Tools konzentriert, die den Benutzern die Kontrolle über Wiki geben, wie AbuseFilter, SpamBlacklist und global CSS/JS. Ein wichtiger Teil der Arbeit der WMF besteht in der Entwicklung und Pflege technischer Funktionen - es ist wichtig, dass das Board fundierte Entscheidungen über technische Initiativen und Prioritäten trifft. Als jemand, der praktische Erfahrung in der Entwicklung, Bereitstellung und Pflege von Funktionen hat, die den einzigartigen Anforderungen von Wikimedia entsprechen, glaube ich, dass meine Erfahrung und mein Blickwinkel dem Board und der WMF helfen können, dem Movement besser zu dienen. | |
| Beiträge zu den Wikimediaprojekten, Mitgliedschaften in Wikimedia-Organisationen oder Affiliates, Aktivitäten als Organisator des Wikimedia Movements oder die Mitarbeit in einer mit dem Wikimedia Movement verbündeten Organisation. (maximal 100 Wörter) |
As a Wikimedian since 2007 and a former WMF staffer for 8 years (see full bio), I have a strong understanding of the technical needs and realities of the movement. I work to build features and tools that give control to users on-wiki. A healthy and sustainable technical community is one led by volunteers, affiliates and WMF staff alike, which is why I’ve worked to mentor and empower volunteer developers. Wikimedians are disappointed with the WMF’s recent technical output; I would like to bring my experience in successfully creating, deploying and maintaining technical projects to the WMF board. | |
Fachkenntnisse in Bereichen, die vom Board als notwendig erachtet werden.
(maximal 150 Wörter) |
I bring significant experience in “Enterprise-level platform technology and/or product development” as well as “Organizational strategy and management” to the board. Wikimedia technical development is radically different than the rest of the web, with an intense focus on privacy, security, transparency, internationalization, and user freedom. Blending my experience as a longtime volunteer contributor and as a WMF engineer, I understand the desires for new features and bugfixes while balancing the day-to-day needs of building and defending a secure platform. I’ve developed new features for editors and resolved sitewide outages during late nights and weekends. I regularly give input on technical roadmaps, favoring a bottom-up approach for determining strategy. | |
| Gelebte Erfahrungen aus der ganzen Welt. Wir sind besonders an gelebten Erfahrungen aus den Regionen Afrika, Südasien, Ost- und Südostasien & Pazifik sowie Lateinamerika & Karibik interessiert. Wir glauben, dass Erfahrungen in diesen Regionen die Möglichkeiten des Boards erweitern können, das Ziel der "Movement Strategy", nämlich eine gerechtere Teilhabe, zu erreichen, obwohl wir wissen, dass auch andere Erfahrungen einen wichtigen Beitrag leisten können. (maximal 250 Wörter) |
As a journalist, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to others, tell their stories and amplify their experiences. I’ve interviewed homeless university students, victims of assault, as well as politicians and activists. In 2018, I traveled to Italy and Greece to report on the ongoing refugee and migrant crises firsthand. On the island of Lesbos, we visited Moria (aka “the worst refugee camp on earth”), interviewing refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war, as well as residents on the island who were living with the influx of refugees.
Telling these stories and more have allowed me to gain a better appreciation for experiences I personally haven’t lived through. I do my best to make sure as many other people can gain that same appreciation by releasing as much content as possible under free licenses. Outside the bubble of the English Wikipedia, my experiences have given me a unique perspective on the technical needs of our diverse communities, which I’d like to bring to the board. During SUL finalization, I worked with stewards on implementing a new global renamers group. To empower cross-wiki patrollers and global sysops, I rolled out global CSS/JS. Wikisourcians particularly felt the pain of musical scores being disabled, and helped test it when we re-enabled it. And they, along with Commons uploaders, raised awareness of large file uploads being broken and helped with debugging until we found the cause and fixed it. | |
| Kulturelle und sprachliche Kompetenz in anderen Regionen und Sprachen als deiner Heimatregion und -sprache. Interkulturelles Bewusstsein hilft, Brücken in unserer multikulturellen Community zu bauen. (maximal 250 Wörter) |
I learned how to program via Wikibooks and Wikipedia, and it eventually grew into my dream career. I regularly interact with people from across the world through talk pages, IRC, etc., many of whom I now consider friends. I’ve spent my summers mentoring and working alongside GSoC/Outreachy students from Cameroon, India and Taiwan, not to mention many others from around the world through guidance on bugs, patch review and casual conversations.
Despite only speaking English (and fragments of Gujarati and Spanish), my key skillset is bridging the communication and culture gap between technical and non-technical users. I’m fluent in technical jargon and can translate that into plain language when helping people out over chat, in person and on technical village pumps. And I’m able to diagnose user complaints, turning them into actionable bug reports on Phabricator. A key part of the WMF’s work is in developing and maintaining technical features – it is crucial that the board has someone who has real experience developing, deploying and maintaining features that meet Wikimedia's unique technical requirements. I regularly hear that the board and WMF upper management are out of touch with the needs of the developers and editors doing the work on the ground, and don’t realize the full scope or implications of projects they sign off on. Having collaboratively developed user scripts, gadgets, Toolserver/Toolforge tools, and MediaWiki extensions to benefit a diverse group of contributors, I’d bring a bridge to the technical community that is desperately lacking. | |
| Erfahrung als Fürsprecher*in für die Schaffung sicherer und gemeinschaftlicher Räume für alle und/oder Erfahrung in Situationen oder Kontexten, in denen Zensur, Repression oder andere Angriffe auf die Menschenrechte herrschen. (maximal 250 Wörter) |
As an administrator, IRC channel operator, and member of the Technical Code of Conduct Committee, I have significant experience ensuring users can work together in safe/collaborative spaces by working to catalyze and de-escalate situations, stepping in with sanctions to protect contributors as necessary.
I've invested time developing and improving anti-abuse/power user tools that give control to users on-wiki like AbuseFilter, SpamBlacklist and GlobalCssJs. Creating safe spaces requires identifying and reducing power imbalances. In the technical community, there is a de facto power disparity between paid WMF developers and volunteer developers. To counteract this, I regularly mentor and support newer developers and nominate them for “+2” merge rights (which WMF staff get by default). A thriving and empowered volunteer developer community is essential to sustain the Wikimedia movement. WMF staff also need a safe space, and must not be constantly in fear of being re-organized at the whims of a constantly changing upper management. The board must support the unionization of staff in addition to the previously promised ombudsperson. I regularly fight attempts at censorship through my work with Kiwix, the offline Wikipedia reader, by packaging it for Debian, which makes it easier for users to install. Recently I wrote a guide showing how to set up a local mirror of the Russian Wikipedia using Kiwix and Debian. At my day job, I’m privileged to continue the work that the late Aaron Swartz started in SecureDrop, building and supporting software to protect whistleblowers and journalists. | |
| Erfahrungen in Bezug auf eine Gruppe (oder als Mitglied, soweit du dich dafür entscheidest), die in der Vergangenheit diskriminiert wurde und in Machtstrukturen unterrepräsentiert ist (einschließlich, aber nicht beschränkt auf Kaste, Rasse, Ethnie, Hautfarbe, nationale Herkunft, Nationalität, Geschlechtsidentität, Geschlechtsausdruck, sexuelle Orientierung, Alter, Religion, Sprache, Kultur, Bildung, Fähigkeiten, Einkommen und Umwelt). (maximal 250 Wörter) |
I am a person of color and do not feel comfortable sharing more than that publicly. | |
| Bestätigung | Die Identitätsverifikation wurde durch Angestellte der Wikimedia Foundation vorgenommen, die passive Wahlberechtigung wurde durch das Wahlkomitee geprüft. | |
Wahlberechtigung:  BestätigtBestätigt durch: Matanya (talk) 09:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC) |
Identitӓtsnachweis: Bestätigt Bestätigt durch: Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 23:55, 18 May 2022 (UTC) | |
2022 Board of Trustees Analysis Committee Rating
| Candidate Name | Wikimedia Background | Sought Skills | Sought Regional Experience | Human Rights & Underrepresentation | Overall rating from the average score of the four categories | Overall rating from the average score of the nine criteria |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kunal Mehta | Gold | Silver | Silver | Silver | Silver | Gold |