Wiki Project Med/Board/Election 2020

Our last election was in February/March 2019 for a 3 year term, where a board of 7 people was nominated and elected.

The intention at the time was to hold a second phase of the election in December 2019. However in Summer 2019, we were granted the status of a Thematic Organisation within the Wikimedia movement at just about the same time as Shani, our Chair, was elected to the Board of Wikimedia Foundation. Sadly, that meant that Shani had to step down from the Board of Wikimedia Medicine, and Doug Taylor was elected as Chair, with Stuart taking on administrative roles as Treasurer/Secretary/ViceChair and Mossab taking over as Membership Secretary. James and Shani have continued to give us the benefit of their experience in financial and membership issues, respectively.

The present Board is now:

  1. Mossab Banat (elected Mar 2019)
  2. Diptanshu Das (elected Mar 2019)
  3. Tim Moody (elected Mar 2019)
  4. Jennifer Dawson (elected Jan 2018)
  5. Stuart Ray (elected Mar 2019)
  6. Doug Taylor (elected Mar 2019)

We are now going to run the next election in February/March 2020 prior to our 2020 AGM. There is a vacancy on the Board following Shani's election to WMF, and Jenny's two-year term will come to an end, although she is eligible for re-election, of course. The Board has agreed that this year the voting will be private with each eligible voter voting via an online form.

Timeline edit

2 board members, till March 2023
Date Task Notes
15 February 2020 Deadline for Membership renewal to be eligible for this election 173 members eligible as of Jan 2020
17 March - 28 March 2020 Nominations Now open
tba - tba Voting for 2 seats on the board * Postponed temporarily *
tba Announcement of the 2 board members elected * Postponed temporarily *

Please note:

  • Dates and times are UTC.
  • Only WPMedF members can nominate themselves for the board
  • Only WPMedF members who registered before 16 February 2020 can vote during the election.
  • Potential members who would like to join us after 15 February 2020 are welcome to do so via this link: Wiki Project Med/Membership, but will not have a valid voice in this specific election, only the next one.
Note: I personally (and my competition in the line-up below) would appreciate some hint what has been going on. How temporary is temporarily? Indefinitely?. Otoh, it may all be less serious than I may have thought. TiA Vitosmo (talk) 10:00, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requirements for Board members edit

Board members must be members of Wikimedia Medicine.

Board members are expected to:

  • participate in 2-hour monthly meetings throughout the year;
  • answer emails in a timely manner;
  • identify by their real name (but not necessarily linked with their Wikimedia username).

As WikiProject Med Foundation is a formal charity in the US, this information is required and is public information. Therefore, all board members are required to agree that their real name is public.

Nominations edit

Nominations open on 1 March 2020.

If you'd like to nominate yourself, please add a new sub topic, with your name & optionally your user name, followed by short description of your Wikimedia & Medicine experience. Nominees might want to answer / address in their description the following:

  • personal info and background relevant to the work of Wikimedia & Medicine;
  • Wikimedia & Medicine activities and major achievements;
  • international experience (rather than local one) that might be relevant to this role;
  • expertise / relevant governance experience;
  • why you believe you are suitable to serve as a Wikimedia & Medicine board member;
  • any special areas / types of activities you would like to concentrate on while on the board.

Voting edit

Voting opens 9 March 2020.

During the voting period, you may vote by using an online form, which will have a link from this page once voting opens. Good luck to everyone! :)

Candidates edit

When nominations are open, candidates may nominate themselves by creating a subsection below:

Vito Smolej edit

Vito Smolej [User Vitosmo - slovenian]) 15:48, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
I am nominating myself for this election. I have been a Wikipedian since 2008 and a member of the Medicine project (Slovenian language) since 2013. (Overall contributions) About what I have to offer, about my specific interests and goals:

There's serious times ahead of us and I am ready to do my share of weight lifting.

Alaa edit

I'm Alaa (In Arabic علاء). I am a native Arabic and near native English speaker. Medical student in my 6th year. I'm an editorial board member on WikiJournal of Medicine. I activated Wikiproject Medicine (WPM) in Arabic Wikipedia, also I'm a member on enwiki WPM.

I created my account in October 2010, and I have been active (on a regular basis) since December 2014, so, I am active for over five years now. I am currently a Steward on Metawiki, bureaucrat, sysop and checkuser on Arabic Wikipedia, sysop on Wikidata and sysop on other sister projects. I serve also as an OTRS member for Arabic queues. Over the years, I have made more than 400K edits on Wikimedia wikis, and most of my edits in medicine, anatomy and biology fields.

Moreover, I attended and helped in the organization of many Wikimedia-related events. For example, I helped in the organization of WikiArabia 2017, and I attended Wikimania 2017, 2018 and WikiArabia 2019. I am also a member of Wikimedians of the Levant since May 2015. In addition to this, I am one of the members of Arabic Wikipedia's social networking team. That's the team that manages the official accounts of Arabic Wikipedia on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

I'm the 7th Top medical editor in 2019. I was ranked 10th in the Top medical editors list in 2018 and 9th in 2017, 221th in 2016. I'm the highest Arabic medical editor in 2017 and 2018. Per Arabic Wikipedia statistics, I'm 1st Top medical editor in 2017 (both edits and articles creation), same in 2018 and in 2019 I'm 1st Top medical editor in articles creation and 2nd on edits.

I presented a number of lectures/sessions at local medical conferences (this lectures in both Arabic and English), and I'm an associate member in the local part of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations, also I participated in few medical researches under supervision of Faculty of medicine.

I helped in launch and update the offline Arabic medical wikipedia app (Now, volunteer with Kiwix on support the Arabic version of the app), and I created learning videos about IIAB and sharing them on arwiki offical social accounts. Also, I'm a member on Arabic Wikipedia Graphics Lab as I'm translating more than 220 files most of them in medical field.

I think that there's a need for another Arabic speaking board members because it is one of the most popular and widely spread languages. Also, I've a lot of ideas that I hope we can apply it on WPMEDF that can affect the medical contents on all languages specially poor-medical content projects. Moreover, I hope to expand WPMEDF activities in the Arabic countries.

Thanks a lot.

Denise Smith edit

Denise Smith Mcbrarian (talk) 11:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Late nomination, so I understand if I cannot participate in this round of elections.

JenOttawa suggested I nominate myself for a role on the board.

I joined Wikipedia in 2017. While I edit periodically, my focus is on teaching health sciences students and health professionals to edit Wikipedia's medical pages. I am a health sciences librarian at McMaster University in Canada. I am a PhD candidate at Western University in the Library and Information Science program. My research interests are in health information behaviour and Wikipedia as a health information resource. In February 2020, I published the first known comprehensive literature review of the various contexts in which Wikipedia is situated as a health information resource. Currently, I am working on a systematic review of the literature on health information seeking behaviour that also discusses information behavior.

I am a co-founder of WikiClub Hamilton, which received a WMF grant last fall to host edit-a-thons with health sciences students and faculty at McMaster University. I am presently working with student volunteers at the Michael DeGroote Institute for Pain Research & Care to add more up to date information to pain related content. I have taught two iterations of a section of the third year undergraduate Inquiry course in the Bachelor of Health Sciences program at McMaster University. This section is called "The Politics of Health Information" and teaches third-year students about publication models, information needs of the lay person, the politics of funded research, barriers to information/ information poverty, and their own information privilege as students at a top-tier university in Canada. The term project is a semester-long effort to work in teams to improve 1-3 health-related Wikipedia articles.

A health librarian board member would provide be opportunity for the board to benefit from input from an information expert who closely follows events and trends in the open knowledge movement.

Thanks for your consideration.