維基媒體基金會理事會選舉/2022年/候選人/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)

候选人详情
Me speaking at the 2017 Wikimania hackathon
  • 个人:
    • 姓名: Kunal Mehta
    • 所在地: New York City, USA
    • 語言: en-N
  • 编辑史:
    • 何时成为维基人: 2007
    • 活跃的wiki: English Wikipedia, MediaWiki.org, Commons, Meta-Wiki, Wikitech
Introductory statement / Application summary.
This section to be translated. (150 word maximum)
我自2007年開始是維基人,先前也當過維基媒體基金會的職員八年 (點此閱讀完整簡歷)。我從這兩個職務中充分瞭解到維基媒體運動的技術需求和實際狀況。

健康和永續的技術社群是由志願者、自治體和維基媒體基金會職員等領導的,這也是為何我努力指導並賦權志願開發者。我的工作重心是建置各種能讓維基上使用者有控制權的功能和工具,像是濫用過濾器管理垃圾郵件黑名單(SpamBlacklist)global CSS/JS 等。

維基媒體基金會工作的一關鍵部份是開發和維護技術功能——理事會能為技術倡議和優先事項作出充分知情的決定是至關重要的。身為具備滿足維基媒體獨特需求的開發、部署和維護功能實作經驗的人物,我相信我的經驗和觀點有助理事會能更良好地為運動服務。

對維基媒體項目的貢獻、在維基媒體組織或自治體的成員資格、作為維基媒體運動組織者的活動,或與維基媒體運動盟友組織一同參與(的經驗)。
(大約100個字)
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.
擁有理事會識別為有需求的技能領域之專業。
  • 組織策略與管理
  • 企業級平台技術和/或產品開發
  • 公共政策和法律
  • 社會數據科學、大數據分析和機器學習

(大約150個字)

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.
在世界各地的歷練。我們對非洲、南亞、東亞、東南亞和太平洋,以及拉丁美洲和加勒比海的經歷特別有興趣。我們認為在這些地區的經驗可以幫助擴大理事會的能力,來實現更公平參與的運動策略目標。儘管我們承認其他經驗也可能提供重要的貢獻。
(大約250個字)
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.

除了您的地區和母語之外,對於其他地區文化的理解和其他語言的流利程度。跨文化意識有助在我們的多元文化社群中架起橋樑。
(大約250個字)
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.

擁有為眾人創建安全和協作空間的倡導者經驗和/或有和審查制度、壓迫或其他侵犯人權情況相關或脈絡下的經驗。
(大約250個字)
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.

在權力結構中面臨歷史歧視或代表性不足的群體相關經驗(您可以自行決定您願意分享的程度),包括但不限於種姓、種族、民族、膚色、祖籍國、國籍、性別認同、性別表達、性取向、年齡、宗教、語言、文化、教育、能力、收入和環境。
(大約250個字)
I am a person of color and do not feel comfortable sharing more than that publicly.
驗證 驗證由選舉委員會或維基媒體基金會工作人員執行。
資格: 已驗證
验证者: Matanya (talk) 09:03, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
身份验证: 已驗證
验证者: 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