Posts by: Mohamed ElGohary
An Egyptian veteran blogger.Global VoicesLingua manager.
Stepping down as the Lingua Manager at Global Voices
I have some news to share. This December 31 will be the last day for me as the Lingua Manager for Global Voices (GV). I will be joining IFEX in the capacity of Network Engagement Specialist starting January 10. It was not an easy decision to make, I'm still processing it myself, but it is about time. Stepping down usually means leaving an organization. In my case, though, it is more of a scale back after working full time for ten years. It is time for a fresh pair of eyes to oversee Lingua, with a new stream of ideas. While it feels difficult, almost like a break-up, I consider this a healthy moment.
Global Voices Community, Colombo Summit, Sri Lanka, 2017. Photo by Jer Clarke, GV Tech Lead.
I joined GV as a volunteer in 2009 while I was still a college student, translating from English into Arabic, moving up the ranks to Arabic Lingua Translation Manager managing the Arabic site, then Lingua Coordinator, Lingua Manager, and Board Member. Meeting many of the GV community around the world, was quite a journey. I developed a lot, personally and professionally, learning from each GVer! I learned how to accept and embrace people's differences. I also learned to connect through the similarities; in culture, language, kindness, and vulnerable moments. Being in GV greatly satisfied, and will continue so, my need to belong to a community where I feel comfortable and safe.
Lingua at GV Colombo Summit, Sri Lanka, 2017, by Jer Clarke, GV Tech Lead.
Thanking is due for a lot of people in the community. My fellow core team members, for realizing my potential when they approached me to help manage Lingua. The Lingua Translation Managers will always have a special place in my heart, making Lingua possible along with the larger Lingua community and increasing horizontally in size and vertically in languages over the years, making Lingua one of a kind! I believe there is nothing like Lingua anywhere else, not now, not in the past. In Advox, I got to know many people and learned a lot of experiences building upon being an old blogger with a Human Rights focus. Rising Voices, where I learned that so much is happening globally, realizing the vast disparity in power dynamics we endure every day, where solidarity is key through understanding, all while pursuing to know what we don't know and help telling it to the world.
It has been an honor! Happy holidays!
Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
He ain't wrong, he's just different but his pride won't let him do things to make you think he's right. Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
Act Now, Wikimedia Foundation!
Bullying, by Dalia098, used under (CC BY-SA 3.0)
It is a pity that in Wikipedia projects, internal policies are created with no regard for basic community management, no regard for capacity building, no regard for how to write to "normal" people in a virtual environment.
This reminds me of the old tactic of hiring the best engineer as the next CEO, instead of being a consultant. Or maybe hiring the best engineers as an executive board. It can be efficient when starting a project, but it is not sustainable.
It turns into a suffocating environment. Every administrator will eventually turn into a "respect my authority" gatekeeper instead of serving the common-sense role of a cloud-based encyclopedia, to document.
An administrator doesn't spend money from their pocket to enforce a stupid notability rule. An administrator does not have the right or capacity to determine a certain person to be a "bubble"? What the FUCK does that even mean? How can you dehumanize a person to be a bubble?
It is time for the Wikimedia Foundation to take over the internal policies of different Wikipedia projects if you want a non-toxic environment. The administrators in old sites are trained to elude accountability, to get impunity from whatever toxic environment they nurture.
What the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting now, by leaving the administrators of different sites take 100% control of how the site operates, is just enabling bullies. Administrators for major Wikipedia sites have NO SINGLE IDEA what community management even means. Act now!
The Pain of (Not) Giving a Shit
"Sorrow – Dark Series #3" by alexandre.hermans is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
I'm a passionate person. I like to put all my weight in discussions that interest me. But I'm getting older, some might call it growing wiser. I now think a lot more about topics that interest me, before putting my whole weight in one. Increasingly, the phrase "I don't give a shit" keeps repeating like a siren in my head. Thankfully that didn't reach Global Voices yet, just not yet. I don't want to. I can't live without my passion.
Ever since I was a kid I had one kind of passion. My first pc when I was four years old, then came reading, and the internet happened in 1998. I discovered like-minded friends, real-life friends, who shared my passion for the internet. Then came internet communities, and that was my passion ever since, my life was never the same.
I like to think of myself as a quiet person, a kind person, a passionate person. I have this kind of energy when I find something I like to do, my face lights like a bulb that turns on like in a cartoon, and bursts of productivity start like fireworks, like endless blasts of lightning. This is my choice of drugs, the adrenaline tsunami inside of me.
There are people I know who don't understand this, and that's so unfortunate.
When I first meet a person I listen a lot. I ask open-ended questions. I like to think of myself after many years online that I can analyze a character from their writing style. "Listening" to text, plus my introvert nature, transformed me into a very patient person.
That also meant that at some point I can be a very angry person, internally at first, leading to a very visibly angry person when the person in front of me doesn't get the hint.
Coming back to not understanding my passion, it is unfortunate. I've worked for corporate before, and I judged people a lot, for my own sanity. Not the usual or standard meaning of judging, but more of, classifying a colleague, a manager, or someone who reported to me. I will keep this understanding to myself, ok, that manager is a moron, I will create this one workflow where I clear my responsibility, do my job, and that's it. No passion here, nothing, no feelings. Just do my job and I won't give a shit what happens to the company for they don't have adequate management, or proper HR department, or colleagues who don't do their job.
This is not the case with Global Voices. When I first started, or even before as a volunteer, it was a personal thing, a new passion that still burns after more than 11 years. I give a shit. I go the extra mile when I can. The problem is that you can't explain this to people who can't feel that way, or even who don't understand that feeling. It is like blowing a faulty balloon, the more you blow, the more your energy is wasted.
At some point, anger builds inside me, and I internalize it. I deal with it by screaming profanities at the screen, by listening to different kinds of music. Music has always been my kind of meditation. The anger disappears, but then it is replaced by frustration, by sorrow, by a heavy heart that keeps asking why. If you don't understand, why not just leave things as they are, live and let live. I keep reminding myself that the world doesn't revolve around me, but I also will be considered rude if I say the same to someone else.
I'm a simple person, at least now. I used to have big dreams, but not anymore, growing old and tired. I feel like a hundred-year-old, and it is not pretty.
I intend to keep this fire and passion burning in my heart for as long as I can. Nothing to worry. I just miss a lot of things, but life is dirty and cruel and unfair, and everyone needs to own their shit.
Please stay safe. Keep your body safe, keep your mind safe, keep your heart safe, because you is the most important for you.
"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever." by deeplifequotes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
New year, new life and asking for help!
Welcome to the 2019 Global Voices Lingua newsletter! And happy new year everyone! 2018 was a difficult and equally wonderful year. It was quite an experience going through the birth of my girl, Sophia, and experience the beautiful responsibility of parenthood.
So, 2018 was an exciting year, we did a lot of interviews, conducted meetups, shared tips, remembered friends, continued partnerships and created Lingua sites!
Lingua in Colombo Summit, Sri Lanka
Before I go forward with the next topic in the newsletter, I wanted to say that one of the strongest perks of being in Global Voices, and especially Lingua, is the diversity and connectedness of this community. You are usually one step away from knowing a culture you will probably not going to experience, at least not easily. For me personally, it is not only about translation, being professional about it, or even put one’s skills into our work, but it is also about being personal when you translate. Being personal as your passion pushes you towards more. This connection with each other, this passion, grows and grows leading to wear other hats like writing, drawing, podcasting, community management, and many more!
Taiwan Meetup, Oct 2018
After saying all this, I now realize that I need to ask you for help, and not only this once, but let’s do it one step at a time. In this issue, I want to know if you are interested in helping me recruit new applicants and create new users for Lingua sites in need, as a form of inter-language-region activity, to continue keeping this community vibrant and connected. Trust me, this experience will widen your horizon and open your mind, eyes, and soul to things you never thought existed. Contact me if you are interested!
Even if you don't have the time, I highly encourage you to get to know your fellow contributors, as well as the authors of the posts you translate! I understand that many of us can be introverts or shy, so was I when I first joined Lingua. If you need help with an introduction, I'm just a click away!
Lingua in Santiago summit, Chile. 2010
Finally, I want to thank each Lingua contributor for their time and effort towards Global Voices! And a special thank you goes to our Lingua Translation Managers, who work every day to make Lingua the way it is!
Here’s to 2019, a new year full of great expectations, full of positive changes, full of knowing exceptional people. Here’s to a new year where each one of you feels how important you are, to yourselves and to each other. Thank you for being you. I wish I can be good enough a person helping and mentoring, as much as I learn from you every day. Power to Lingua!
Fly away, lost souls. Fly away!
It is hard to be misunderstood and cut loose by people you invested so much of your time mentoring them, but one always learn how to get over it :) Fly away lost souls, fly away!
Ahlan Wasahlan: The Global Voices Lingua Newsletter
Dear Lingua Community,
Ahlan Wasahlan, or Welcome (in Arabic), to the Lingua Newsletter. This is my first time that I do a newsletter of this kind, so I hope you bear with me. Let me introduce myself, in case you don’t know me yet. My name is Mohamed ElGohary, and I work for Lingua.
For several years now and I have been working out on finding the best way to communicate with our wonderful community of translators in GV. Going through different platforms, different tactics. I know I can be boring with the way I present information through text, so I thought of making a newsletter like a story this time.
A story each month that tells you what is happening with Lingua, what ideas I’m interested in sharing with you, and the most important thing of all, letting you know that you can do that too! One thing that fuels my passion for contributing to GV is you, the Lingua Community. How diverse you are, how sophisticated you are, how different you are and how the same you are.
Lingua in the GV Summit, in Colombo, Sri Lanka
I value you so much, you satisfy my need for belonging, and it is a huge deal for me! As an introvert, you are one big reason for how I slowly opened and still opening my mind to the world, and how to open up myself to people I can talk to without getting judged or ridiculed. I hope this monthly newsletter will make opening up a more fun experience, for you to know me better, and for me to know you more.
So, back to the story mode :) Back in 2014, after lots of meetings with GVers and lots of strategy discussions, we now have the Community Blog. We share stories of getting together around the world, we publish reports and updates, we express our opinions, and even celebrate! We can do a lot more! I would love to read each one of you :)
This newsletter is just the beginning of many future months. I hope I can always be my best for you, and not just good enough. That’s because you deserve everything great in life, for your care, for your commitment, your time and energy, for investing yourself. I hope I don’t let you down.
Finally, do let me know if you don’t have a community blog account. If you enjoy this newsletter, let your fellow GVers subscribe!
Power to Lingua!
Reflections
I wrote this some time ago, not knowing if I should publish. I decided that it is good now instead of deleting it later.
Trump, Trump, Trump. This has been what we were consuming for the last couple of months, or was it last couple of years? As someone who resides in the Middle East, as someone who resides in Egypt, I live in a constate state of fear. I wake up in fear, I live my day in fear, I sleep after spending the evening thinking in fear. Fear is just a thing you have to endure in everyday life, just like bills, tax, traffic, you can't escape it.
As time passes by, you cope with this fear, as much as you can. Fear pushes your limits; it pushes it so hard to the extent you discover things you were not able you could do to protect your sanity.
From time to time, though, things happen that makes you feel you can't handle it anymore. This vicious cycle of waiting for awful things to happen, seeing them happening, denial, sarcasm, thinking, more thinking, feeling down, then just live with it, adding to the endless list of fears you have to endure every day.
I fear a lot of things. I fear my safety in my country. I fear that I can get sick, I fear my mother can get sick, I fear my wife can get sick. There is no health facilities in Egypt, heck even medications disappear. I fear I can't afford my future children the education they deserve, or even an education equivalent to what I got. and I was privileged in that.
I fear the consequences of increasing pressure on everybody. Financial, psychological, social, all kinds of burdens on my fellow Egyptians and my friends and loved ones.
I used to think, that if everything collapsed, if all hell broke lose, there would always be the chance to leave. To escape. To forget everything behind. I used to think that the only reason I didn't decide to leave for, is my mother. She can't leave, heck she doesn't even want to leave her city. But now, I feel that the world is slowly transforming to another Egypt. A dehumanized country. I don't want a dehumanized environment, for anyone. Not for me, not for others.
I don't know what do do, but I know something is wrong. I know there are a lot of people who work just for the status quo. But you can't keep the status quo; it turns back at you, and it kicks, it kicks hard. I hope I can have the opportunity to contribute to fixing this. I just hope.
CEOs & COOs, and non-profits
I learned from my experience in entrepreneurship and working in non-profits that non-profit has so much to learn from the for-profit world. Every non-profit should have its equivalent of a CEO, and its equivalent of a COO. This is one thing I learned that is very highly over-looked when you hire or promote people inside your organization during expansion or when you organization structure changes with time.
COO’s job is about standardization and improving consistency. It is an analytical job. It’s a mindset focused on consolidation and risk elimination.
While a CEO needs creativity and needs to have a focus that seeks out strategic opportunities for growth and expansion, and they need to engage in intelligent risk-taking sometimes by being willing to invest in risky development projects that fizzle out into nothing.
It is very hard to have both in the same person. It is very hard from a COO to be CEO without much work, and without a strong oversight.
The Workshops Acquired by Al Maqarr
In October 2012, I joined my very dear friend Rasha Hassan in creating a startup based on our shared dream of contributing to rebuilding the Egypt we hoped to see after the 25th of January. We shared the common passion for stuff like blogging, music, and many other little joys. We believed that education is key for the welfare of fellow Egyptians. "The Workshops" came to life. The goal was transferring skills, as our current educational system is, simply put, a waste of time.
This may not be the first time I worked in a company from its start, but it is the first time to be involved in starting one. To share ownership and responsibility. Responsibility, when you invest your own hard-earned money, changes the whole perspective where you see life. A whole new experience you can't gain otherwise. Mistakes cost you money and give you experience.
I must say that I was privileged to invest in a startup at such a young age of 25 and privileged to learn until this moment, where all of us, the founders, are no longer able to contribute to this project.
So, after years of facing and bypassing challenges, agreements and disagreements, losses and gains, Al Maqarr, who are a long business friend of ours has acquired "The Workshops". AlMaqarr is one of the leading coworking spaces in Egypt since 2012. It manages a solid diversified community of innovation and collaboration between startups, student organizations, social initiatives, and freelancers. I'm happy that the project will be in their good hands. Wishing you guys all the luck.
Follow "The Workshops" on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you happen to be in Cairo, give them a visit.
Help Bridging the Gap Between Circumvention Tool Developers and Civil Society
A friend is participating in a RightsCon Workshop to improve communication model between users and developers. Can you send questions you have for the circumvention development community to frame the discussions at the session? Feedback from civil society is highly appreciated.
Arabic Survey: http://goo.gl/forms/AJsQrc2K9z
English Survey: http://goo.gl/forms/jixWB9cRFT
Please share widely to your relevant groups!
