Pemilihan Yayasan Wikimedia/2022/Calon/Kunal Mehta

This page is a translated version of the page Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022/Candidates/Kunal Mehta and the translation is 100% complete.

Kunal Mehta (Legoktm)

Legoktm (talk meta edits global user summary CA  AE)

Rincian kandidat
Me speaking at the 2017 Wikimania hackathon
  • Pribadi:
    • Nama: Kunal Mehta
    • Lokasi: New York City, USA
    • Bahasa: en-N
  • Pengalaman kontribusi:
    • Wikimediawan sejak: 2007
    • Wiki-wiki aktif: English Wikipedia, MediaWiki.org, Commons, Meta-Wiki, Wikitech
Introductory statement / Application summary.
This section to be translated. (150 word maximum)
Saya telah menjadi anggota Wikimedia sejak 2007, dan saya merupakan bekas staf WMF selama 8 tahun (lihat biografi lengkap). Dari kedua peran ini, saya memiliki pemahaman yang kokoh tentang kebutuhan teknis dan kenyataan dalam gerakan Wikimedia. Komuniti teknis yang sehat dan berkelanjutan adalah komunitas yang dipimpin oleh para relawan, anggota organisasi mitra, dan staf WMF, itulah sebabnya saya berupaya untuk membangun fitu dan alat yang memberikan kendali kepada pengguna di wiki, seperti AbuseFilter, SpamBlacklist dan global CSS/JS.

Bagian utama kerja WMF adalah mengembangkan dan mempertahankan fitur teknis. Dewan Pengawas harus membuat keputusan yang dilatarbelakangi oleh informasi yang cukup tentang inisiatif dan prioritas teknis. Sebagai seseorang yang memiliki pengalaman praktis dalam pengembangan teknis dan menggunakan serta mempertahankan sifat yang memenuhi kebutuhan unik Wikimedia, saya percaya pengalaman dan perspektif saya bisa membantu Dewan Pengawas dan WMF dalam melayani gerakan Wikimedia secara lebih baik.

Kontribusi pada proyek Wikimedia, keanggotaan dalam organisasi atau mitra lokal Wikimedia, kegiatan sebagai penyelenggara gerakan Wikimedia, atau partisipasi dengan organisasi yang selaras dengan visi gerakan Wikimedia.
(maksimal 100 kata)
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.
Keahlian di bidang keterampilan yang diidentifikasi sebagai kebutuhan oleh Dewan.
  • Strategi dan manajemen organisasi
  • Teknologi platform tingkat perusahaan dan/atau pengembangan produk
  • Kebijakan publik dan hukum
  • Ilmu data sosial, analisis big data, dan pembelajaran mesin

(maksimal 150 kata)

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.
Pengalaman di dunia nyata. Kami sangat tertarik untuk membaca tentang pengalaman hidup di wilayah Afrika, Asia Selatan, Asia Timur , Asia Tenggara & Pasifik, serta Amerika Latin & Karibia. Kami percaya bahwa pengalaman di wilayah ini dapat membantu memperluas kemampuan Dewan untuk memenuhi tujuan Strategi Gerakan dalam mencapai partisipasi yang lebih adil, meskipun kami menyadari bahwa pengalaman lain juga dapat memberikan kontribusi yang bersifat penting.
(maksimal 250 kata)
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.

Kefasihan budaya dan bahasa dari wilayah dan bahasa tambahan selain wilayah dan bahasa asli Anda. Kesadaran antarbudaya dapat membantu membangun "jembatan" dalam komunitas kita yang memiliki beragam budaya.
(maksimal 250 kata)
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.

Pengalaman sebagai aktivis yang menciptakan ruang yang aman dan kolaboratif untuk semua dan/atau pengalaman dalam situasi atau konteks penyensoran, represi, atau serangan lain terhadap hak asasi manusia.
(maksimal 250 kata)
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.

Pengalaman sehubungan dengan (atau sebagai anggota, sejauh Anda memilih untuk berbagi) kelompok yang telah menghadapi diskriminasi historis dan kurang terwakili dalam struktur kekuasaan (termasuk namun tidak terbatas pada kasta, ras, etnis, warna kulit, asal kebangsaan, kebangsaan , identitas gender, ekspresi gender, orientasi seksual, usia, agama, bahasa, budaya, pendidikan, kemampuan, pendapatan dan lingkungan).
(maksimal 250 kata)
I am a person of color and do not feel comfortable sharing more than that publicly.
Verifikasi Verifikasi dilakukan oleh komite pemilihan atau staf Yayasan Wikimedia.
Eligibilitas terverifikasi: Telah diverifikasi
Diverifikasi oleh: Matanya (talk) 09:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Identifikasi: Telah diverifikasi
Diverifikasi oleh: Joe Sutherland (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 23:55, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2022 Board of Trustees Analysis Committee Rating

This table shows the candidate rating provided by the 2022 Board of Trustees Analysis Committee
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