User:Ovedc/Scholarship

Involvement in home wiki or the broader Wikimedia movement

Tell us about your 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 lead or organized any of these activities?

Online Activities:

Wikipedia

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 10 years, WikiGnome more than 8 years, more than 100,000 edits, and ranks as number 8 among the most contributing Hebrew Wikipedians. Please look at my statistics page on Wikipedia: my statistics page in the Hebrew Wikipedia.
Contributed Hundreds of new articles, 37 of them are for Nobel Prize Winners. Improving thousands of articles.
4 years Administrator (since April 2013) and 7 years Patroller (since April 2010). Thousands of Administrator's activities (Block, protect, delete etc.). First among the 45 Admins (Admins). Please look at my statistics page on Wikipedia: my statistics page in the Hebrew Wikipedia.

Contributor of more than 8,000 high quality images, 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.
Frequent participant in Notability discussions, improving dozens of articles, with collaboration with the Wikipedians community.
I proposed more than 140 Featured Pictures for the Hebrew Wikipedia main page. That means, that every month for the lasts years, two or more of the Featured Pictures presented, were proposed by me.
One of the "Welcoming Team" for collaboration with new Wikipedians. - Make it easier for new editors to engage. Helping new wikipedians with the manners of Wikipedia. I am giving help for years, On-line and Off-line.
More than four thousands "Thank You" massages sent to colleague Wikipedians users. Please look list: Ovedc-Thanks.
Very good relations with other fellow wikipedians, in Israel and abroad (Not even once warned or blocked). Please look at my Rewards page on Wikipedia: my stars page in the Hebrew Wikipedia.
Made dozens of new wiki-template, improving the ability for editors to be more productive on-wiki.
Made dozens of Wiki-categories.
Managed the Wiki-Project of Categorizing articles, which involved 30 Wikipedians that categorized more than 11,300 articles! Please look at Wiki-Project of Categorizing articles.
participating in WikiProjects, like: Women in Red, Asia month etc.
enriching my home wiki community with the views and news from Wikimedia conferences, including Wikimania: Teaching fellow Wikipedians about new tools shown, and helping them use it well.
Member of the Hebrew Wikipedians Facebook Page and a major contributor.

Wikidata

More than a thousand of WikiData contributes (WikiData contributes).

Wiktionary

Patroller in the Hebrew Wiktionary.
Wrote more than 20 Wiktionary articles. Have more than 800 edits. (Please look at Ovedc Wiktionary)
Participated in 3 Article Writing Contests.
Contributed more than 5 texts to WikiSource. (Please look at Ovedc WikiSource)

Commons

Contributor of more than 7,700 high quality images uploaded to Wikipedia Commons. (Please look at Ovedc 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!
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.

Offline Activities:

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:

I am a member of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 7 years. Participated in all the General Assembly meetings.
Member of the Audit committee of the Israeli Wikimedia Association for 6 years.
Participating regularly in the Monthly Chapter Board meetings.
Participating 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 and 2016.

Volunteering at the Israeli Wikimedia Chapter:

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 (continuously from 2011) for the Hebrew Wikipedia birthday and for the global Wikipedia birthday.
Participated as volunteer in more than 10 meetings.
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 16 tours. I acted as manager for few tours. Encouraged people to join tours and contribute pictures to Commons. I personally added more than 7,700 high quality pictures for the Commons, many of them added to articles.

Wikipedia Love Monuments

Volunteered as main coordinator and also participated in the 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 WLM:
- Acting as main coordinator at 10 tours,
- Participating in more than 14 tours.
- I added more than 3,000 WLM pictures to the Commons, some of them added to articles.
  - 107 photos in 2012
  - 953 photos in 2013
  - 626 photos in 2014
  - 466 photos in 2015
  - 966 photos in 2016
- One of my photos got 5th prize at the Israeli Wiki-Love-Monument 2013!
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 and to fellow Wikimedians, including the 30 volumes of The Hebrew Encyclopedia!
Lecturing to FREE MASONS and Students about Wikipedia, Increasing awareness about the Wikimedia project.

Wikipedia Education Program:

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.

Wikimania and global meetings:

Participated and volunteered in the organizing team of Wikimania 2011 at Haifa.
Participated and volunteered in the Wikimania 2013 at Hong Kong.
Participated and volunteered in the Wikimania 2015 at Mexico. Please look at my report to my fellow Wikipedians: My Wikimania 2015 report.
Participated in the Wikimedia Board Training Workshops 2014 at London: bringing the lessons learned to the Israeli Board. More details at the answer for the next questions.

Other Free- knowledge Non-wikimedia Activities:

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, like 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 (13 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.

Something great that happened as a result of these activities

What’s something great that happened as a result of these activities? This could be described either quantitatively or qualitatively, and could impact either online or offline. Here are some examples that might help.

Beside the main effect of contributing to the richness of Wikipedia, 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.

Collaborations with other Wikimedians

What collaborations with other Wikimedians or Wikimedia organizations are you most proud of?

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
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 2013 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!

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.

Share my experiences

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 one example:

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.

Something great that happened as a result of attending Wikimania previously

Please use the space below to tell us about something great that happened as a result of attending Wikimania previously? What are your goals for attending Wikimania again?

I got WMF scholarship to attend the 2015 Mexico Wikimania:

As a previous participant in Wikimania, I have learned a lot from my fellow wikipedians from all over the world, both as being an efficient editor and as a true Wikimedia volunteer. I have learned from friend's knowledge and experience.

Attending 3 Wikimania conferences did change the way I am involved with the Wikimedia movement in the last years and in the future, by giving me new tools to contribute to the Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Mainly, by:

Meet new friends from other countries, learn from them new methods, and keep in touch with them later on.
Meet again the developers and the Wikimedia Foundation Staff, which I met at the Wikimania 2011 at Haifa and Wikimania 2013 at Hong Kong and Wikimedia Board Training Workshop at London, forwarding Wikimedia projects.
Learn ways to improve as an editor and a chapter leader.
Helping improve the Israeli Wikimedia on-coming projects.
Interact with fellow Wikimedians, exchange ideas and experiences, and talk with them about global Wikimedia issues.
Initiate new WikiProjects which are globally or locally interesting.
Keep spreading the free-knowledge concept in Israel and worldwide.
Bonding with other MENA fellow wikipedians neighbors.
As I want to be more active at the Wikimedia Israel Board, I have got the connections and information enabling that.

As a participant in Wikimania 2017, I could enrich both the conference and the other participants, by bringing with me the versatility which I represent.

I submitted my presentation about handling Orphanage Entries at the Hebrew Wikipedia, for the Wikimania 2017, 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 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.