WLUG SC 2025 candidate/Mehman
 | To leave your endorsement or recommendation for this candidate, please use the talk page. |
Mehman (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA)
| Preferred name | Mehman Ibragimov | |
|---|---|---|
| What languages do you speak, and at what fluency level? (Please include your English proficiency.) | En-3. Besides of this, I speak Georgian, Russian, Turkish and Azerbaijani as my native language. | |
| 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.) | I live and work in Georgia. Currently I am the executive director of Wikimedia UG Georgia. Regionally I represent the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) and am involved in regional projects of this region. | |
| What Wikimedia project(s) do you actively edit? And in what language(s)? | My home project is Georgian Wikipedia, where I am the Admin. In addition, I actively edit Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. | |
| 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? | Since 2019, I have been the head of Wikimedia Georgia, which has been actively developing since then. The organization within Georgia actively cooperates with various educational and other organizations, including the National Library of Georgia. In my role, I facilitate the development of sustainable partnerships between Wikimedia Georgia and GLAM institutions in Georgia and abroad. | |
| Please describe any experience you have with working in Wikipedia/Library. | Since 2016 I have been an editor of Wikipedia, mainly Georgian Wikipedia, where I am also the Admin. Since 2017 I have been involved in the work of Wikimedia Georgia. Since 2020 and up to now I have been a member of AffCom - a Wikimedia community-run committee entrusted with advising the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on the approval of new movement affiliates: chapters, thematic organisations, and user groups, where at different times I was the secretary and vice-chair of the committee. Since 2019, I'm still the ED of Wikimedia Georgia. In addition, in 2019, together with other colleagues, we founded the Turkic Languages User Group and are currently working on the Hub for Turkic languages.
As the ED of Wikimedia Georgia, I actively work and develop partnerships and joint projects of Wikimedia Georgia with educational institutions of Georgia and with the National Library of Georgia. At the moment, we are working on the integration of images from the National Library databases into Wikimedia Commons. | |
| What is your view on the development of our affiliation? | I think the User Group plays an important connecting role between the library field and Wikipedia. The next steps in the development path could be the creation of a Hub or a sustainable platform for the work of all interested parties. But for this, we as an affiliation must improve our structure and governance within the affiliation, including by developing and adopting an affiliation charter. Subsequently, we must improve communication capabilities and create a common platform for the exchange of resources and experiences.
Step by step, we can achieve our goals. But first, we need to develop a strategic plan and goals. | |