On 2 March 2016 at 23:15, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote: ...
I don't know Susanna, and in fact until yesterday had never heard of her. She may well be a delightful and charming person with a genuine enthusiasm for open knowledge. There are after all many encyclopedic topics that have no political sensitivity or relevance at all. But she is clearly part of a government-sponsored effort to control the Armenian Wikipedia.
I did have the pleasure of meeting Susanna a few years ago, and because she was a bit embarrassed about her hesitant spoken English, I took care to spend a little extra one to one time to encourage her to share a few views and explain what she had been up to in Armenia and her thoughts on getting a new chapter going in a small community. She's incredibly passionate about Wikipedia and its power to share information about Armenia and its people with the rest of the world. I'm sure that others would get the same impression if she made a video pitch rather than just the written word.
I can be suckered by a skilled politician (though I'm more likely to get irritated!), however Susanna just came over as a terribly nice, completely genuine woman, with the type of energetic enthusiasm for open knowledge that it is a delight to encounter. This is an open election process, so if any questions were put to her through the election meta pages about possibly appearances of conflict of interest, funding etc., I have no doubt she would take them seriously and try to address them up front.[1] Try doing that, and be polite about it, I would regret her leaving the election process feeling her fingers had been burnt just for daring to put her name forward.
Links 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominati...
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