Hi Flo,

I see your points but I disagree that a merit award like this is against our values and the spirit of collaboration as a community/movement.

First, there is nothing wrong to honor any member of our community for their standout contributions. Even at National level, individuals get honoured for their contributions. I am aware that you were honored with "Knight" in the French National Order of Merit as Chair of an international organization (WMF). That's an achievement I am proud of. I do not see anything wrong honoring anyone for the works they do.

Secondly, I don't see how gender would be a problem. It's a merit award and not to celebrate anyone because they are male or female or because we want to encourage a particular gender. The two winners of the Wikipedian of the year award in 2016 for example were women and nobody said they emerged because they are women. In 2012, User:Demmy, a Nigerian and a major contributor to Yoruba Wikipedia was honored with the same award and nobody said he was honored because he is a Nigerian. In 2017, Felix Nartey was honored with the award, I didn't hear anymore saying he received the award because he is an African or a Ghananian.

Lastly, the awardee may be nominated by someone who is familiar with their work and recommend them for the award. A panel of jury comprising of experience Wikipedian will review the nominees contributions, on-wiki and off-wiki and pick the person who merit the award.

Flo, I apologize for citing your award. You are the only one I know who has received such award.

Regards,

Isaac.

On Sep 26, 2017 3:33 PM, "Florence Devouard" <anthere@anthere.org> wrote:

I did not say I am opposed to it. I said I am not supportive of it.

There are several reasons

The first is that I consider that we should work in collaboration and celebrate our diversity and the various pieces that each of us bring. I do not think anything of what we do could have been done without the help of others. Celebrating one person instead of celebrating the team work seems odd/wrong to me. This is why I appreciate initiatives such as "the best projects of the year", which focus on an outcome and the team that made it happen rather than on an individual. Celebrating a "best team work" or "top 3 most amazing projects of the year" would be awesome to me.
But celebrating one person... it seems to go against our commonly shared values.

The second reason I am not supportive of it is the complexity of the voting process. Who would vote ? Which voting system would be used ? Would voting be public or private ? How to limit the impact of the vested interest ?
In short... lot's of troubles.

The third reason is related to the nomination process. Who will be allowed to nominate someone ? Which rules to be a nominee ? Would there be self nomination ? Would that be public ?
Some cultures favor boosting (eg, american from USA) whilst in others, self nomination (or even the prospect of asking someone privately for a nomination) is just very hard to do. Beyond culture... even gender plays a role. Women tend to be less bold than men on such issues.

Florence

Le 26/09/2017 à 14:07, Isaac Olatunde a écrit :
Thank you, Justice.

@Flo, may I respectfully ask why you are opposing this?

Regards,

Isaac

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah precisely, let's all discuss if we want to go ahead I think it's a great initiative though .

Regards,

Justice.

On Sep 26, 2017 11:58 AM, "Isaac Olatunde" <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, that shouldn't be a difficult thing like every other awards, but the African Wikimedia community will decide how to best do it.

Regards,

Isaac

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 12:55 PM, Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo@gmail.com> wrote:

This is actually a great idea but how are we going to measure who qualifies to be an African Wikimedian of the year. Are we going to use a popular vote process, I believe when we figure those things out we can move forward with that.

Best,

Justice.

On Sep 26, 2017 11:47 AM, "Isaac Olatunde" <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

Wiki Indaba 2018 in Tunisia is approaching, and I just thought of something like African Wikimedian of the Year Award to honor African Wikimedian who has contributed tremendously to Wikimedia projects and its growth in Africa. We can have other award category too and this would also makes the event more colorful. What do you think?

Regards,

Isaac Olatunde

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