Wikimedia Foundation elections/FDC Ombudsperson elections/2015/Candidates

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Info The election ended 31 May 2015. No more votes will be accepted.
The results were announced on 5 June 2015. Please consider submitting any feedback regarding the 2015 election on the election's post mortem page.

This page contains candidates for the 2015 Wikimedia Foundation FDC Ombudsperson elections. Members of the 2015 Wikimedia Foundation Elections Committee, or the Wikimedia Foundation staff, will verify wiki based candidate requirements. Wikimedia Foundation staff will verify identification and later verify offline candidate requirements. Verification of wiki-based requirements and identification will be identified on this page. Offline candidate requirements will be verified at a later stage.

Kirill Lokshin (Kirill Lokshin)

Kirill Lokshin (talk meta edits global user summary CA  AE)

Candidate details
  • Personal:
    • Name: Kirill Lokshin
    • Age: 31
    • Location: Washington, DC, United States
    • Languages: English-N, Russian-N, French-1
  • Editorial:
    • Wikimedian since: June 2005
    • Active wikis: en.wiki, meta
Statement I've been a Wikimedian for almost ten years, having first started editing in June 2005. In that time, I've held numerous roles across the movement, including serving on Wikimedia DC's board and being a member of the Affiliations Committee, English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, and a number of other advisory groups.

While the FDC process has matured and improved significantly over the past several years, I believe that further enhancements is always possible, and that a philosophy of continuous evaluation and improvement of such key processes is healthy for the Funds Dissemination Committee, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the rest of the Wikimedia movement. The Ombudsperson has a key role to play in advocating for such continuous improvement and ensuring that participants' and stakeholders' concerns with the process are addressed in a constructive fashion.

Compulsory questions 1. What experiences of yours do you think will enhance the work and recommendation process of the FDC?
1.1. Around directing and/or evaluating annual plans and programs?
As a board member of Wikimedia DC, I've been a part of the chapter's annual planning and evaluation processes since they began in 2012; this has included developing annual plans, soliciting corresponding funding through the WMF's grants programs, executing the planned programs, and conducting end-of-year evaluations of program success and impact. I've also had the opportunity to review other affiliate organizations' annual plans during as part of my participation on the Grant Advisory Committee.
1.2. Around grantmaking?
I've been involved with the Wikimedia movement's grantmaking processes at various levels for a number of years. I served on the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) in 2012–2013, and have been a member of the Individual Engagement Grants (IEG) Committee since 2014. In addition, I oversee the Wikimedia DC small grants program.

2. What do you understand to be the Ombudsperson's role?

The role of the Ombudsperson is twofold. First, the Ombudsperson collects, investigates, synthesizes, and documents complaints and other feedback about the FDC process from participants and observers, and provides recommendations based on this feedback to the various stakeholders in the process. Second, the Ombudsperson is available to assist the Board and the FDC in investigating formal complaints when an independent evaluation is requested.

3. What are some potential complaints about the FDC process that you believe could be documented with the Ombudsperson, and how might you deal with them?

Historically, the majority of complaints about the FDC process appear to relate to poor documentation and communication, as well as differences in expectations between the FDC applicant organizations and the WMF staff and FDC members who review their applications. By identifying insufficiently documented or misunderstood process elements and acting as an advocate for process evaluation and improvement from cycle to cycle, the Ombudsperson can help to resolve the sources of these miscommunications and misunderstandings.
Verification Verification performed by elections committee or Wikimedia Foundation staff.
Eligibility: Verified
Verified by: Ruslik (talk) 22:05, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Identification: Verified
Verified by: Jalexander--WMF 21:20, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mykola Kozlenko (NickK)

NickK (talk meta edits global user summary CA  AE)

Candidate details
Visiting Wikimedia UK office, August 2013
  • Personal:
    • Name: Mykola Kozlenko
    • Age: 25
    • Location: Kyiv, Ukraine / Paris, France
    • Languages: Ukrainian-N, Russian-N, English-3, French-3, German-2
Statement The position of FDC Ombudsperson is not the most visible one, but it plays a key role in improving the work of Funds Dissemination Committee. Annual Plan Grants programme is constantly evolving, and it would be beneficial to the Wikimedia movement to take into consideration suggestions of interested parties: organisations submitting proposals, FDC and board members involved in review of proposals, staff members of Wikimedia Foundations facilitating the process as well as community members in general. An important mission of the FDC Ombudsperson would be making sure that transparency of the process is maintained and all concerns are handled.

I am active in Wikimedia movement for 7 years, and I have a good knowledge of both Global South (Ukraine) and Global North (France) Wikimedia communities. Online, I am an administrator, checkuser and former arbitrator of Ukrainian Wikipedia, and I also contributed to a number of Wikimedia projects in other languages. Offline, I am a member of Wikimedia Ukraine since 2009, its board member since 2012 and treasurer since 2013, and I am involved in a number of projects, such as Wiki Loves Monuments & Wiki Loves Earth, article contests, QRpedia and others.

Compulsory questions 1. What experiences of yours do you think will enhance the work and recommendation process of the FDC?
1.1. Around directing and/or evaluating annual plans and programs?
As a board member of Wikimedia Ukraine since 2012, I have been involved in both planning and evaluating our annual programmes. In particular, for the last two years I was a contributor to the chapter's annual plan and an author of our annual reports. As a treasurer, I have written and supported the grant proposals, worked on the execution of the respective programmes and prepared reports measuring results and impact of these activities. While preparing Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014, I was also involved in evaluating activities of other chapters and communities of Central and Eastern Europe.
1.2. Around grantmaking?
I have an extensive experience in grantmaking, most notably, I am involved in submitting grant proposals for annual PEG grants for Wikimedia Ukraine for the last three years. I also contributed to the review of a number of grants to other Wikimedia affiliates, and I was a member of the team managing travel scholarships for Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014.

2. What do you understand to be the Ombudsperson's role?

The role of FDC Ombudsperson involves documenting complaints and suggestions of the participants of the process in order to improve it. On one hand, the Ombudsperson should deal with formal complaints from the participants of the process, which involves collecting evidence from all parties of the process, publicly documenting complaints and assisting investigations if needed. On the other hand, the Ombudsperson summarise general feedback about the FDC process by taking into account suggestions by the participants of the process.

3. What are some potential complaints about the FDC process that you believe could be documented with the Ombudsperson, and how might you deal with them?

I believe that complaints regarding the FDC process can be split into two groups:
  • Complaints affecting one particular participants of the process. The most likely conflicts here will be those regarding eligibility or fund allocations, and these conflicts mean that the outcome of the FDC process did not meet the expectations of these organisations. In these cases I will collect points of view and evidence from all involved parties and will analyse and investigate them in impartial and transparent way.
  • Complaints affecting many participants of the process. The most likely concerns here will be around usability of the FDC portal for both applicants and reviewers and clarity of the requirements regarding information and documents to provide. In order to deal with these problems, I will collect suggestions by different participants of the process and will summarise them and raise these issues.
Verification Verification performed by elections committee or Wikimedia Foundation staff.
Eligibility: Verified
Verified by: Varnent (talk)(COI) 00:06, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Identification: Verified
Verified by: Jalexander--WMF 00:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]