User:Ovedc/Scholarship

From Wikimania

Please look at more readble version at https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ovedc/Scholarship


What is Wikimedia?[edit | edit source]

If a person walked up to you and asked you, “What is Wikimedia?” what would you respond?

Wikimedia is my home for more then 16 years! It is where I get up in the morning with, and go to sleep at night. A place to contribute both to humanity knowledge and to my self joy. Since my first edits at HE-WIKI, through 400,000 edits later, with thousands of new articles and infrastructure Wiki-improvements, including more then 10,000 media-files (lots added to articles).

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization for the development and distribution of free content in various languages, with the aim of allowing the general public to freely access this content through the websites operated by the foundation.

I love to be a Wikimedian, on the net and on real life:

  • I am a member of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 14 years. Participated in all the General Assembly meetings since then. Was the Chairman of the Audit committee of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 7 years. Participated regularly in the Chapter Board meetings and Collaborated with the CEO of Wikimedia Israel.
  • I was the co-manager of "Wikipedia Love Monuments" project in Israel. It started by coordinate the staff and volunteers for WLM, Organize The sites lists, cooperate with the Israel Antiquities Authority and The Council for the Preservation of Israeli Heritage Sites, managing dozens of Foto-Tours, helping other to upload pictures, involving in the competition jury and coordinating the Gala Party for the prize ceremony to the winners.
  • Participating in international wiki-projects: The Asia Month International Project, The Medicine Wiki-Project

Involvement in home wiki or the broader Wikimedia movement[edit | edit source]

Tell us about your recent involvement in your home wiki or the broader Wikimedia movement. What have you built or contributed to in order to improve your wiki or community? Have you led or organized any of these activities? Please indicate which of these activities took place in the last 12 months.

I have a lot of involvement in my home wiki (He-WIKI) and also in the broader Wikimedia movement. I am an active member and one of the leaders of the Israeli Chapter. Wrote and edited hundreds of articles and thousands of infrastructure Wiki-Pages. An active member and a leading volunteer of the WLM project and the Wikimedia "1,000 miles project" team. I also articipated as instructor at the Wikimedia project of educating young students and writing new articles: 3 classes on 2018, 2 classes on 2018, 4 classes on 2019, 1 class on 2020, 3 classes on 2021 and 2 classes on 2022.

An active member of the community, online and offline.

I will expand about my other projects in the following paragraphs, but first I will specifically emphasize about my few recent 2022 projects: WLM, ELEF MILIM and Medicine + Asia WIki-Projects:

Recent involvement[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia Love Monuments[edit | edit source]

From the beginning of 2022 through its end, I was the co-manager of Wikipedia Love Monuments project in Israel. It started by coordinate the staff and volunteers for WLM, Organize The sites lists, cooperate with the Israel Antiquities Authority and The Council for the Preservation of Israeli Heritage Sites, managing dozens of Foto-Tours, helping other to upload pictures, involving in the competition jury and coordinating the Gala Party for the prize ceremony to the winners. All of that also included:

  • Volunteering as main coordinator at the Israeli WLM Chapter Committee [1]
  • Participating as coordinator and photographer:
  • Managing the 2022 annual Israeli WML Chapter project of editing workshops for writing articles about Israeli Monuments 5 new articles written!
  • Managing the 2021 annual project of editing workshop for inserting WLM pictures in Articles

ELEF MILIM - Thousand Miles[edit | edit source]

Managing, participating and volunteering in the "Wikimedia 1,000 Miles" project: more than 27 tours (The last one to the [ויקיפדיה:מיזמי ויקיפדיה/אלף מילים/משימת רקיע Israeli Space Institiotion]). I acted as manager for few tours. Encouraged people to join tours and contribute pictures to Commons. I personally added more than 10,800 high quality pictures for the Commons, 1,600 of them added to articles, in dozens of languages!

International projects[edit | edit source]

Participating in international wiki-projects:

  • The Asia Month International Project
  • The Medicine Wiki-Project
    • Place 231 in the world for 2017
    • Place 107 in 2018 (4th place among He-Wiki editors!)
    • Place 105 in 2019 (7th place among He-Wiki editors!)

Ongoing Online Activities:[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia[edit | edit source]

Active contributor to a Wikipedia. https://he.wikiscan.org/?menu=userstats&user=ovedc

Please look at my Hebrew file for all of my contributions to the Israeli Wikipedia: my contributions page in the Hebrew Wikipedia.

  • Please look at my Global CrossActivity at: crossactivity.
  • Appreciated contributor to Hebrew Wikipedia: Editor for more then 14 years, WikiGnome more than 13 years, more than 400,000 edits, and ranks as number 2 among the most contributing Hebrew Wikipedians. Please look at my statistics page on Wikipedia(https://www.tiny(-)url.com/ovedc-stats): my statistics page in the Hebrew Wikipedia. In the last year, 2022, made more then 55,000 edits! I also do some paid edits.
  • Contributed Hundreds of new articles (555 in the last year, 2022), 38 of them are for Nobel Prize Winners. Improving thousands of articles.
  • Pages I have created got more then 700,000 PageViews at the last year, and Daily Average of nearly 1,925 per day, Please look at this Userviews Analysis
  • 5 years Administrator (2013 - 2018) and 8 years Patroller (since April 2010). Thousands of Administrator's activities (Block, protect, delete etc.). Among the first five of the 45 Admins (Admins). Please look at my statistics page on Wikipedia (https://www.tiny(-)url.com/ovedc-stats): my statistics page in the Hebrew Wikipedia. approximately 10,000 of Administrator's activities.
  • Contributor of more than 10,000 high quality images (1,000 at the last year), both to the Hebrew Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons. Many of the photos added to articles. Some photos used by parties outside Wikipedia. One of my photos got 5th prize at the Israeli Wiki-Love-Monuments 2013!
  • I was the Leader-and-Coordinator of the Hebrew Orphanage WikiProject, for 3 years. This responsibility included collaboration with the Wikipedians community. More details at the answer for the next questions. Thousands of articles "adopted" by me.
  • Frequent participant in Notability discussions, improving dozens of articles, with collaboration with the Wikipedians community.
  • Wrote and edited thousands of infrastructure Wiki-Pages.
  • I proposed more than 400 Featured Pictures for the Hebrew Wikipedia main page (About 70 in this year). That means, that every month for the last years, two or more of the Featured Pictures presented, were proposed by me.
  • I take an active part in the "Welcoming Team", welcoming new Wikipedians. I try to make a "warm welcome" for new editors, to engage. Helping new wikipedians with understanding the Wikipedia environment. I am giving hands on, online and offline help, to people that need help in writing or engaging in Wikipedia. Teaching fellow Wikipedians and new users about new tools shown, and helping them use it well. Gave several hundreds of "Welcome" massages for new-comers (List of "Welcome" massages).

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/pages/he.wikipedia.org/Ovedc/all#3

Wikidata[edit | edit source]

  • More than 870 new pages and more then 14,500 of WikiData contributes, most of them in the last years. (Please see WikiData contributes).

Wiktionary & WikiSource[edit | edit source]

Commons[edit | edit source]

  • Contributor of more than 11,000 high quality images uploaded to Wikipedia Commons. (Please look at Ovedc commons)
  • More then 1,000 of the photos added to 600 articles. (Please look at Photo by Ovedc used in projects). Some photos used by parties outside Wikipedia.
  • Participant in Wikimedia organized events as a photographer contributing to Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) (Thousands of pictures, hundreds this year).
  • One of my photos got 5th prize at the Israeli Wiki-Love-Monuments 2013!
  • An active member of the Wikimedia 1,000 miles project, initiated and led 4 tours, and took an active part in 27 tours. I am an active volunteer in this project and continue to plan and initiate more tours.
  • enriching my home wiki community with the views and news from Wikimedia conferences, including Wikimania: Show the Hebrew Community the new tools of Commons presented in Wikimania, and help them use it well.

Enrichment[edit | edit source]

Ongoing Offline Activities:[edit | edit source]

I have a lot of involvement in the Wikimedia Israeli Chapter.Please also look at my Hebrew file for all of my contributions to the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter: my contributions to the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter (WM-IL).

At the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter Team:[edit | edit source]

  • I am a member of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 11 years. Participated in all the General Assembly meetings.
  • Was the chairman of the Audit committee of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 7 years.
  • Participated regularly in the Chapter Board meetings.
  • Participated regularly in the Israeli Wikimedia Board Mailing List.
  • Collaboration with the CEO of Wikimedia Israel, Acting Advisor in accounting issues.
  • Presenting the Annual Audit Committee Report at the General Assembly, for the years: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Volunteering at the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter:[edit | edit source]

  • Leader of the "Bringing back retired Wikipedians" team, which tries to contact well known retired wikipedians, that know the wiki-grammar, but quitted editing, and tries to get them back to editing. Until now, about 10 skilled editors returned, due to these actions. More details at the answer for the next questions.
  • Participating regularly in the Israeli Wikimedia meetings and events: twice each year (from 2011) for the Hebrew Wikipedia birthday and for the global Wikipedia birthday.
  • Was a volunteer to welcome the invited and help them around for the GLAMWiki Conference 2018 that was held in Tel Aviv.
  • Participated as volunteer in more than 28 meetings, 3 of them in 2022.
  • Participated and volunteered in the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter Seminar for making the Mission, Vision and Strategy Plan for the Chapter
  • Participated and volunteered in the "Wikimedia 1,000 Miles" project: more than 27 tours. I acted as manager for few tours. Encouraged people to join tours and contribute pictures to Commons. I personally added more than 10,300 high quality pictures for the Commons, many of them added to articles.
  • Participating (with my wife) at lot of Wiki-Women activities and meetings, to improved gender diversity.

Wikipedia Love Monuments (WLM)[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia Education Program:[edit | edit source]

  • Lecturing at Wiki-Med (First academic course of Wikipedia in the world) to 40 medical students about editing in Wikipedia. Wiki-Med is a curriculum academic course, which every student had to write a medical article at Wikipedia, to get a score at this course.
  • Enriching my home wiki community: Lecturing to 50 Wiki-editors at the Annual Israeli Wikimedia Chapter Birthday Meeting 2013 about the Hebrew WikiProject Orphanage (activities to enrich the wikipedians knowledge)
  • Enriching my home wiki community: One of the Lecturing-to-Wiki-editors at Israeli Wikimedia Chapter (activities to enrich the wikipedians knowledge = organizing editing workshops), examples of subjects: Categories, Orphans, etc.
  • Enriching my home wiki community: Lecturing to Wiki-editors about FREE MASONS, Via Israeli Wikimedia activities to enrich the wikipedians knowledge. Increases skills of on-wiki contributors.
  • Participating at the Israel chapter's Wikipedia Academy Israel 2012, 2013 and 2014.
  • Motivating Wikipedians to volunteer to Wikimedia Chapter. I also motivated few family members and friends to join Wikipedia (Edited some new articles) and join Wikimedia (Participated with me in the Hong-Kong and Mexico Wikimanias).
  • Donating hundreds of hard-copy books to the Israel Wikimedia Chapter Library and to fellow Wikimedians, including the 30 hard-copy volumes of The Hebrew Encyclopedia!
  • Lecturing to FREE MASONS and Students about Wikipedia, Increasing awareness about the Wikimedia project.
  • In 2017 lectured twice to Students about Wikipedia. Mainly to improved the public perception of Wikimedia as a source of reliable information, and how to help.
  • Participated as instructor at the Wikimedia project of educating young students and writing new articles: 3 classes on 2018, 2 classes on 2018, 4 classes on 2019, 1 class on 2020, 3 classes on 2021 and 2 classes on 2022.

Wikimania and global meetings:[edit | edit source]

Other Free-knowledge Non-wikimedia Activities:[edit | edit source]

  • Being head of the Publication committee of the Israeli ISACA Chapter, over 10 years. Spreading free educational articles about IT audit, control and governance.
  • Spreading free educational articles about Freemasonry at the web (Internet sites).
  • Helping improve the data at many internet free-knowledge international and Hebrew sites, such as: Google Maps (one of the leaders in the local community, my photos get thousands views per month), jdrf.org.il, Waze Street Map, rotter.net, isaca.org.il, maccabi4u.co.il and a lot more.
  • Voluntary Public Relations for both ISACA and JDRF Israeli chapters.
  • Very active at my society with a long list of volunteering for the community activities:
    • Member of the Students Council at my High School.
    • Volunteering at the BBYO youth movement, as a tutor for an orphan child.
    • Participating in a youth delegation from the Israeli Foreign Ministry – 3 weeks at North America.
    • Activist at the Tel-Aviv University Students Organization.
    • Several roles at the Israeli non-profit ISACA (14 years): Vice President, Treasurer, Member of the Board, Head of the Journal committee, Representative of the Israeli Chapter at the Toronto International ISACA Conference, editing COBIT books, lecturing at annual conferences, etc.
    • Member of the Israeli Juvenile Diabetes Association Board of Directors, Voluntary organizer of the Adult Diabetes Forum.
    • Spokesman for the annually money donation project, Lecturing for students about Juvenile Diabetes, etc.
    • Acting as Worshipful Master of a Freemasons Lodge and a high degree member of the Israeli Grand Lodge of Free Masons, promoter of several volunteering activities for the community.
    • Volunteering at a lower-poverty neighborhood – teaching, etc.

Diversity, Collaboration, Future[edit | edit source]

The ESEAP community chose the theme of Diversity, Collaboration, Future for Wikimania 2023. What does this mean to you? What do you think about when presented with this theme, and how will it impact your attendance at Wikimania?



I listed above the many ways of me sharing my experience to my fellow wikipedians, by lecturing, writing and so on.

I would like to emphasize in this section about few examples:


Diversity - supporting underrepresented voices[edit | edit source]

Wikimedia is a great movement, that tries to close all sorts of knowledge gaps: Gender, Nationality, Language and Geographical. As a Wikimedia voulonter. I try to do my best: I joined the Israeli Wiki-Women projects (see above for details), I helped the Ladino-Wikipedia for the Judaeo-Spanish language, and helped the LGBT Wiki-community.

I also helped the Age-Gap issue in Wikimedia for both ends:

  • I helped the new very-young comers understand the Wikipedia procedure. Helped the Israeli students Wiki-Summer-Camp.
  • I helped the After-Retirement senior contributors with managing technical problems.

But I think that the movement is ignoring major Age-group, contributors in the 45-55 years old segment. These editors, like me among them, can give the movement more then their experience and knowledge! They are also a group that can calm disputes, show example of good behavior and help new-comers.

As a participant in Wikimania 2018, I will try to state this idea to my fellow wikimedians. I could also enrich both the conference and the other participants, by bringing with me the versatility which I represent.

I will submit my presentation about handling Orphanage Entries at the Hebrew Wikipedia, for the Wikimania 2018, which will teach our friends from all around the world, tips and tricks from my long experience about this important aspect.

I am a little older than the average participants – Experienced in life, married with 3 children.

I have documented knowledge and expertise in several fields: Computers (both High School – 4 years, and military – 5 years), Certified Public Accountant (BA Tel-Aviv University), Certified Information Systems Auditor (11 years at an Israeli bank and 2 years at PwC), and Management (MBA Tel-Aviv University). I presented many lectures, including at international occasions. Very active at my society with a long list of volunteering for the community activities, mentioned above.

I speak excellent English and Hebrew, and fair Arabic.

Friendly, educated and eager of learning new subjects and share my knowledge and experience worldwide.


Future[edit | edit source]

Beside the main effect of contributing to the richness of Wikipedia (every day there are 1,925 Page-views in articles that I created!), and knowing that I helped spread knowledge (Lot of people know I am a Wikipedian and thanks me for it), I would like to write on a nice project I am leading: I am the Leader of the "Bringing back retired Wikipedians" team at the Israeli Chapter.

The team's main object is to try to contact well known retired-wikipedians, which already knows the wiki-grammar and how-to, but quitted editing for some time, for reasons not related to their wiki-activities.

The second object of the team is to convince the retired-wikipedians to get them back to start editing at Wikipedia again.

If they can't edit any more, we are trying to make them help the Wikimedia Israeli Chapter by volunteering in other ways, such as: lecturing to non-wikipedians about editing, lecturing to wikipedians for their knowledge enrichment, scanning free hard-copy materials for the Commons, etc.

The talks we made to this retired Wikipedians were very encouraging; most of them were happy to return to contribute.

This project started only few months ago, but has fantastic results: until now, about 10 skilled editors returned as wikipedians or Wikimedians, due to these actions.

share your experiences[edit | edit source]

How do you usually share your experiences (or things you‘ve learned) with your community? Examples of on-wiki summaries, reports, blog posts, meetup talks, etc. are welcome here. Please include links to examples.

Collaborations with other Wikimedians - Board Training Workshop[edit | edit source]

I participated in the Wikimedia Board Training Workshop, held on March 2014 by Wikimedia UK at London. I was the Israeli Chapter representative and learned a lot of new tools, such as Board Administrator, Strategy, Mission and SWOT Building, Chapters dialogue, Burning Out, etc.

When I returned to Israel, I brought the lessons and tools I learned to the Israeli Board, on several occasions. By summarized handout to the Board and also by lecturing.

These lectures improve the way the Chapter dealt with the Strategy Process.

Particularly, I Participated and volunteered in the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter Seminar for making the Israeli Mission, Vision and Strategy Plan for the Chapter.

Collaboration - WikiProject Orphanage[edit | edit source]

I was the Leader and Coordinator of the Hebrew on-line WikiProject Orphanage. This project involves great collaboration with the Wikipedians community:

  • 3 years of daily monitoring of new articles, by hand.
  • Marking thousands of orphanage articles.
  • Asking the fellow editors who created the orphanage articles to connect them to adopter's articles.
  • Finding adopters articles myself to hundreds of orphanage articles.
  • Explaining the WikiProject Orphanage to the Hebrew wikipedians ([4], [5])
  • Online explaining at all the Wikipedia's blogs (Village Pump, etc.), at wikipedians user pages, etc.
  • Offline explaining, at wikipedians meetings (Like Face-to-Face meetings). Lecturing to 50 Wiki-editors at the Annual Israeli Wikimedia Chapter Birthday Meeting about the Hebrew WikiProject Orphanage (activities to enrich the wikipedians knowledge)
  • Creator of lists, templates etc. for the WikiProject Orphanage.

My constant contribution to Wikipedia, and specifically to the Hebrew Wikipedia through the past years, made it better connected, by the help of the wikipedians community. I used my well connections with the fellow editors to make this project work!