Dear Wikimedians,

I am happy to share with you that Mr. Rahimanuddin Shaik has been selected for the role of "Community Communications Consultant" at CIS-A2K! Please join me in congratulating him on the selection and wish him success with the assignment.

I am also excited to share a new model of recruitment (crowd-sourcing a selection?) that I have developed this time, which I feel is very useful in a volunteer movement context like Wikimedia.

15 Wikimedians, from across 9 Indian languages and English, took part in the anonymous evaluation of the applicants through a google form. This was followed by an interview, which also included some of the interesting questions Wikimedians wanted to ask the candidate.  In addition to the interview, the WMIN EC was also involved in the selection process. Moksh on behalf of the EC went through the profiles and also recommended Rahimanuddin as one of the ideal candidate for this position.  Based on this collective feedback Mr. Rahimanuddin was selected for this assignment.

Though this mode of evaluation took a lot of effort (in designing the evaluation form and liaising and following up with the community members), I feel the entire exercise was very productive. It's been a learning experience for me, especially when I look at the diverse set of interesting questions that came up from the evaluators.

I also feel this model:
a) gives a better acceptance for the candidate across all major Indian language communities in India. Basically there is at least one Wikimedian who knows the candidate's detailed professional and Wikimedia profile now  :)
b) actively involves community members in the decision making processes of Wikimedia movement entity (here CIS-A2K).
c) brings diverse perspectives from which the candidates profile is evaluated.
d) reinforces CIS-A2K's commitment to actively engage with the community in an open, transparent and productive manner.

However, adopting a similar model for large number of applications could pose a problem.  Would be nice to hear your thoughts on how this model could be further refined.  Please let me know (off list) if you are interested in refining the google form, and I will share the necessary link.

Thanks to all those Indic Wikimedians for giving their valuable time in the evaluation process!

Best,
Vishnu