New subject: African Wikimedian of the Year Award

26 Sep 2017

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" &lt;anthere(a)anthere.org&gt; 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(a)gmail.com&gt; 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" &lt;reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com&gt;
 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(a)gmail.com&gt; 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"
&lt;reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com&gt;
>> 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
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> African-Wikimedians mailing list
>>> African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians
>>>
>>>
> 

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Re: [African Wikimedians] African Wikimedian of the Year Award