Elecciones de la Fundación Wikimedia/2022/Candidatos/Kunal Mehta
Kunal Mehta (Legoktm)
Legoktm (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA • AE)
| Detalles de los candidatos | 
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| Introducción Esta sección será traducida. (150 palabras como máximo) |
Soy wikimedista desde 2007, y fui miembro del personal de la WMF durante 8 años (ver biografía completa). De ambas funciones, he adquirido una gran comprensión de las necesidades técnicas y las realidades del movimiento.
Una comunidad técnica sana y sostenible es la que dirigen los voluntarios, los afiliados y el personal de la WMF, por lo que he trabajado para orientar y capacitar a los desarrolladores voluntarios. He centrado mi trabajo en la creación de funciones y herramientas que den control a los usuarios en la wiki, como AbuseFilter, SpamBlacklist y global CSS/JS. Una parte clave del trabajo de la WMF es el desarrollo y el mantenimiento de las características técnicas; es crucial que la Junta Directiva tome decisiones bien informadas sobre las iniciativas y prioridades técnicas. Como alguien que tiene experiencia práctica en el desarrollo, despliegue y mantenimiento de características que cumplen con los requisitos únicos de Wikimedia, creo que mi experiencia y perspectiva pueden ayudar a la Junta y a la WMF a servir mejor al movimiento. | |
| Contribuciones a los proyectos Wikimedia, pertenencia a organizaciones o afiliados de Wikimedia, actividades como organizador del movimiento Wikimedia o participación en una organización aliada del movimiento Wikimedia. (100 palabras como máximo) |
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. | |
Experiencia en áreas de habilidades identificadas como necesidades por la junta directiva.
(150 palabras como máximo) |
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. | |
| Experiencias vividas en el mundo. Nos interesa especialmente leer sobre las experiencias vividas en las regiones de África, Asia Meridional, Asia Oriental y Sudeste Asiático y el Pacífico, y América Latina y el Caribe. Creemos que la experiencia en estas regiones podría ayudar a ampliar la capacidad de la junta para cumplir el objetivo de la estrategia del movimiento de una participación más equitativa, aunque reconocemos que otras experiencias también pueden aportar contribuciones importantes. (250 palabras como máximo) |
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. | |
| Fluidez cultural y lingüística con regiones e idiomas adicionales a tu región e idioma nativo. La conciencia intercultural ayuda a tender puentes en nuestra comunidad multicultural. (250 palabras como máximo) |
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. | |
| Experiencia como defensor de la creación de espacios seguros y colaborativos para todas las personas y/o experiencia en situaciones o contextos de censura, represión u otros ataques a los derechos humanos. (250 palabras como máximo) |
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. | |
| Experiencia en relación con (o como miembro de, en la medida que decidas compartir) un grupo que se ha enfrentado a la discriminación histórica y a la infrarrepresentación en las estructuras de poder (incluyendo, pero sin limitarse a ello, la casta, la raza, la etnia, el color, el origen nacional, la nacionalidad, la identidad de género, la expresión de género, la orientación sexual, la edad, la religión, la lengua, la cultura, la educación, las capacidades, los ingresos y el entorno). (250 palabras como máximo) |
I am a person of color and do not feel comfortable sharing more than that publicly. | |
| Verificación | Verificación realizada por el comité de elecciones o personal de la Fundación Wikimedia. | |
Idoneidad:  VerificadoVerificado por: Matanya (talk) 09:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC) |
Identificación: Verificado Verificado por: 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 |