Affiliations Committee/Candidates/2024/Xelgen


Aleksey Chalabyan (Xelgen)

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Xelgen (talk meta edits global user summary CA)

Preferred name Aleksey Chalabyan
What languages do you speak, and at what fluency level? (Please include your English proficiency.) hy-N, ru-N, en-3
What region(s) of the world do you have experience with, and what kind of experience do you have? (“Experience” can mean you have lived or worked there or are currently living or working there; you’re familiar with the culture and language; etc.) coming from ex-Soviet country neighboring Middle East, I also have decades of experience working and collaborating with Western European countries and US.
What Wikimedia project(s) do you actively edit? And in what language(s)? my home wiki is Armenian Wikipedia, where I started editing in 2006. I also consider myself contu
What affiliate(s) are you actively involved with? In what capacity are you involved? Do you serve in a leadership role or have you in the past? I've been co-founder and board member of WM AM before 2019. I am currently on the board of Commons Photographers User Group.
Have you served on any committees (movement-related or otherwise)? And what was your role on the committee(s)? I served as Advisor to AffCom since mid 2022, and member of AffCom since October 2023in
Please describe any experience you have with conflict resolution and/or consensus building. I've been part of many community initiatives and grassroots movements both in local tech scene and local non-profit community. Most of them were consensus driven I've been
In your ideal world, what does the affiliate model and ecosystem look like? We made some adjustments to affiliate workflow and I believe there's more to be done, to move it further to balanced, harmonized relationship with local projects and reduce the misconceptions around affiliates. Another important step was to reduce temptations for affiliate creations without real need, and there's still some work to be done.
In your ideal world, what are AffCom’s roles and responsibilities in relation to the movement and affiliates? Supporting affiliate creation, growth and transformation through stages, being one of a bodies which can ensure baseline healthiness of affiliates and relations with community and other affiliates. Expectations from AffCom are often very high and in my view there's both some expectation management to be done, but also gaps which AffCom and other (new?) bodies should cover, which will require additional human resources. Spotting and solving issues from outside around the globe, in a a almost preventive manner and at a speed and depth which does make an actual difference is something which requires more than volunteer resources. I myself underestimated the effort it takes to understand issues in communities you are not part of.
What role within AffCom are you most interested in: advisory or voting member? Hopefully my workload will permit to remain voting member, otherwise I would switch to advisory role.