Congratulations and Best wishes to Santhosh Thottingal ! Regards Tinu Cherian ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Milos Rancic &lt;millosh(a)gmail.com&gt; Date: Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:49 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] New members of Language committee To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List &lt;foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; I am glad to announce that Language committee is stronger for three new members. By the time of getting their applications, the list is: Ζαχαρίας Διακονικολάου (Zaharias Diakonikolau) (meta:User:ZaDiak) * languages spoken: el, en-4, de-2, grc-2, pnt-1 * living in: Europe, Greece, Rhodes * reason for inclusion: A couple of months ago Language committee announced that it is searching for members from the [types of] projects which don't have Wikipedia-like dynamics. Zaharias has passed as an applicant from Wikiversity (he is admin at Beta Wikiversity and bureaucrat at Greek Wikiversity). However, his qualifications go further: he is actively working on creation, editing and promoting projects in various Greek languages. Knowing that he is young, he will be our long term investment, too. Oliver Stegen]] (meta:User:Baba Tabita) * languages spoken: de, en-4, sw-3 <small style="color:gray;">nl-1, fr-1</small> * living in: Africa, Kenya, Nairobi (from Europe, Germany) * reason for inclusion: Oliver is a linguist who is working for SIL on East African languages. We'll have one ultra-relevant expert in LangCom thanks to Jon Harald Søby, one of the LangCom members, who met Oliver in Nairobi. Santhosh Thottingal]] (meta:User:Santhosh.thottingal) * languages spoken: ml, hi-3, en-3, ta-2, * living in: Asia, India, Chennai (Madras) * reason for inclusion: Santhosh is a free software guru interested in languages. He will help us in articulating projects for covering language-related needs of Wikimedia projects. I want to add one more point related to Santhosh. He has passed as a LangCom member not because he is from India, but because he has relevant expertise and right attitude. Although he speaks three Indian languages, he has become a member of LangCom because he is a free software guru interested in languages. Before Santhosh's application, we would have been happy to see anyone with this qualification and this attitude, no matter of location of birth or residence. However, Bishakha's question and subsequent conversation helped, as it gave impulse to Santhosh to submit the application. And that brings to my mind that it would be good to pass the whole world periodically and raise the geographical equality issue. And it is not a joke. That's obviously giving people courage, or at least the idea, that they have the same right to become members of any Wikimedia body, as any Westerner has. Sometimes the qualifications won't be relevant for particular position, sometimes they will. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l