On 2 March 2016 at 23:15, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)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/Nominat…
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae