AKoval (WMF)

"Wikipedia is like rock’n’roll. It turns out a lot of people don’t get it." -Jimmy Wales

Contact me

You can reach me on my talk page. You can email me at: akoval@wikimedia.org You can find me on IRC as: AnnaKoval For general concerns about Wikimedia projects, please contact: info@wikimedia.org For questions about the Wikimedia Foundation, please contact: answers@wikimedia.org

Hi. :) I'm Anna Koval, a Community Advocate on the Legal and Community Advocacy Team at the Wikimedia Foundation, a position I started in July 2013. I'm here to help keep the community happy. :)

Please pardon my English. Translation assistance is always welcomed and appreciated. I'd be afraid of what I might say if I used Google translate. :)

My Role

My role at is to facilitate communication between staff and all the communities of every project under the umbrella of the Wikimedia Foundation, to help ensure that both sides of this important equation are pulling together towards our common goal. Among my goals in this capacity are to help volunteers get access to resources and information they need from the Wikimedia Foundation and to ensure that the Wikimedia Foundation remains aware of the character of its communities. If you aren't sure if I can help you, please feel free to ask. If I can't help you, I will try to direct you to resources or people who can.

My Work

In my volunteer capacity, you can find me as Msannakoval. I first created my volunteer account in March 2011 in order to help my high school students create and edit articles on Simple Wikipedia and Chinese Wikipedia. I worked in public education for 10 years prior to joining the Wikimedia Foundation. I am an English teacher (primarily high school), a college instructor (of English at the baccalaureate level and of Education at the post-graduate level), as well as a librarian. I am now studying the law (to become a paralegal). I *love* learning languages and have studied a number of them, but do not claim fluency in anything except English. (I can easily find good translators to assist me, so please don't let a lack of knowledge of English on your part prevent you from writing to me.)

Disclaimer

Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise. For example, edits to articles or uploads of other media are done in my individual, personal capacity unless otherwise stated. Although I am a member of the Legal and Community Advocacy team, I am not a lawyer. The legal team can only represent the Wikimedia Foundation on legal matters, so we are unable to give legal advice to others, including community members, editors, or contributors. Communications with members of the legal team are not consultations and do not create any confidential relationship.