Internal:Board election (2018)/Candidates

Kevin Payravi

Mandatory Disclosures:

(a) I have no direct or indirect financial interest in any ongoing or planned transaction or arrangement undertaken by Wikimedia District of Columbia. For transparency's sake, I am currently employed as a software engineer by Capital One.

(b) I am not subject to any law, regulation, agreement, or other covenant that would prevent me from taking full part in the deliberations of the Board or would require me to excuse myself from such deliberations in circumstances other than those related to a financial conflict of interest.

(c) I have not been convicted of any felony.

(d) In addition to being a current Board member of Wikimedia District of Columbia, I am currently an organizer for the Ohio Wikimedians User Group, and am also the fiscal officer of the Wikipedia Asian Month User Group. Ongoing grants from the Wikimedia Foundation in which I am a grantee are WikiConference North America 2018 (in which Wikimedia District of Columbia is the fiscal sponsor for), Wiki Loves Monuments 2018 in the United States, and Wikipedia Asian Month 2018: Preparation.

(e) I am an active contributor to several Wikimedia projects, primarily the English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. In the past, I have participated in several events hosted by Wikimedia District of Columbia, including WikiConference USA 2015, GLAM Boot Camp 2016, and Wikimedia Leadership Bootcamp 2018. I have never been subject to disciplinary action in any of these contexts.

My name is Kevin Payravi (User:SuperHamster on Wikipedia). I was invited to join the Board of Wikimedia District of Columbia in 2018, and am looking forward to the opportunity to continue my service to help ensure the organization's continued impact, programming, and success.

I joined the English Wikipedia in 2007 and have since been an active contributor to the project and the movement at-large. In 2015, I founded Wikipedia Connection, a student organization at the Ohio State University. This group eventually lead to the formation of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group, an active user group that does outreach and organization in the state of Ohio. With these groups I helped organize edit-a-thons, photo competitions, class planning that integrated Wikipedia, and more. In 2017 I served as a core organizer for WikiConference North America, and am doing so again for this year's conference.

Online, I have been a primary organizer for Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States annually since 2016. I am also on the international organizing team for Wikipedia Asian Month, Wikipedia's largest online edit-a-thon spanning over 50 Wikipedia projects.

I plan to bring my various experiences and expertise from these activities to the Board. I believe I have a diverse mix of engagement with the Wikimedia community, and believe that this will help me be a positive asset to the organization when it comes to planning, programming, and community engagement. Thank you for your consideration!

Diane Shaw

Mandatory Disclosures:

(a) I do not have a direct or indirect financial interest in any ongoing or planned transaction or arrangement undertaken by WMDC.

(b) My only possible conflict of duty is my full-time employment as a librarian by the Smithsonian Institution, which occasionally enters into collaborative projects with WMDC. However, I do not expect there to be any conflict of interest arising from this situation. If there are financial or other matters coming before the Board that might pose a conflict of interest with my employment at the Smithsonian, I would excuse myself from any relevant deliberations of the Board.

(c) I have had no felony convictions in the past 10 years (or ever).

(d) I am not a member of any other Wikimedia chapter than WMDC, and I am not an employee, director, officer, or agent of the Wikimedia Foundation.

(e) I have never been subject to disciplinary action for my participation in any Wikimedia project.

I would like to submit my nomination to serve a third two-year term on the Wikimedia District of Columbia board of directors. I strongly support Wikimedia District of Columbia’s mission to support the advancement of free and open knowledge, particularly information gleaned from cultural heritage and governmental organizations, for the use of everyone around the world. Wikimedia District of Columbia does excellent work in supporting the training of editors and raising general awareness of Wikimedia community projects. As I have seen from my time serving on the board, Wikimedia District of Columbia has become an ever more dynamic organization over the years, sponsoring a variety of activities geared towards beginning as well as experienced editors, and increasing its outreach to diverse and under-represented groups. I am delighted that I have been able to help with organizing and participating in these efforts. After attending the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin this past spring, I am very upbeat about the strategic direction of the Wikimedia movement, which Wikimedia District of Columbia is working to fulfill through its partnerships and educational activities. I hope to be able to continue my service on the board for the next two years, including the role of secretary which I took on in June, 2018. The future of Wikimedia community projects looks bright, and Wikimedia District of Columbia has been, and will continue to be, a catalyst for the positive development of free knowledge initiatives both locally and nationally. I appreciate your consideration for my election for another two-year term on the board.

Background: Diane (User: Uncommon_fritillary) is a special collections cataloger for the Smithsonian Libraries in Washington, D.C. She has been editing English Wikipedia and contributing to Wikimedia Commons since 2011, and finds the Wikidata “Mix and Match” tool totally addictive. She has attended Wikimania in Washington D.C. (2012) and in Montreal (2017), Wikiconference USA in New York City (2014), Wikiconference North America in Montreal (2017), and the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, Germany (2018). She is an enthusiastic supporter of GLAM-Wiki initiatives and enjoys participating in (and sometimes organizing) edit-a-thons at DC area museums. She is looking forward to helping with the recent award of a Knight Foundation grant partnering Wikimedia District of Columbia and the Smithsonian Institution to improve the description of artworks in Wikipedia through crowdsourcing. Diane has served on the board of directors for Wikimedia DC since 2014. She enjoys old books, birding and travel.

Peter Meyer

Mandatory Disclosures:

(a) I do not have a financial interest in ongoing or planned transactions or arrangements of Wikimedia District of Columbia.

(b) I am not subject to laws, regulations, agreements, or covenants that prevent me from taking full part in the deliberations of the Board of Directors.

(c) I have not been convicted of a felony.

(d) I am not an employee, director, officer, or agent of the Wikimedia Foundation or any chapter besides Wikimedia DC.

(e) I have participated in Wikimedia Foundation projects for nine years. I am active on English Wikipedia and English Wikisource, and sporadically active on other projects and sites as User:Econterms. I have not been subject to disciplinary actions on these projects.

I'm Peter Benjamin Meyer, and User:econterms on Wikimedia. I have been an active member of Wikimedia DC and on its Board of Directors since 2013. I have organized many editing events, and helped many new editors. I am the chair of the Public Policy committee, where we study and advocate on issues related to Wikimedia, and the Audit committee.

I want to continue to support cooperation between the Wikimedia movement, open source programmers, academic research, and government agency practice in ways that helps us build the best reference works that we can imagine. Our works have historical source materials, equations, footnotes, maps, photos, sounds, moving images, many human languages, and more. They are easy to use. And we can do more, and do it better better.

Our chapter has been successful and continuing on our path we can succeed further.

Among my specific activities:

• I actively encourage U.S. federal government participation in the Wikimedia projects and in using Wikimedia software. I invite you to let me know of good opportunities to work with federal agencies on wiki matters. My ambition is that every U.S. government employee has a way to edit a government wiki so as to enable the efficient sharing of information, expose problems and opportunities, and to communicate with the public too in citizen-science contexts.
• I attend conferences on wikis and Wikimedia. This year I represented the Chapter at the Wikimedia conference of affiliates. I have attended the annual worldwide Wikimania conferences, the North American conferences, and sometimes the academic WikiSym conference, and will continue to do this as much as possible.
• Encouraging others to bring their diverse and unique capabilities is sometimes the most valuable thing I can do for the projects.
• I am working on standardizing patent data on Wikidata, in the new Wikidata:WikiProject Patents which I started. In the long run we can upload a lot of information about historic patents and put it to useful work there.

My background: I worked as a software developer at Symantec for 6 years then went to graduate school in economics. Now I am a research economist at a federal government agency. My main research is on how new inventions and industries arise. Information-sharing institutions like wikis, conferences, journals, and clubs help these things happen. I am trying to show this with statistics.

I ask for your votes. With your support, I will continue on the Board of Directors doing the good work of the chapter.