Thanks Philippe. Funny, the minute I hit "send" I thought of you -- I don't
know whether or not it was your idea originally, but the "Wikimedia-Pedia"
that was created during the 2010 Strategic Planning process was probably
the closest thing I've seen to an organized effort to do this.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 5:25 PM Philippe Beaudette <philippe(a)beaudette.me>
wrote:
Pete, one thing that I loved about my time at reddit
was the existence of
a subreddit called “r/museumofreddit”. It was mandatory reading for every
new hire on my team and every other team I could convince and it was
critical to onboarding me.
It lived to serve just the documentary process that you mention.
Regards,
pb
Philippe Beaudette
On Aug 25, 2020, at 6:35 PM, Pete Forsyth
<peteforsyth(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped
working
at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth
considering:
1. Often, institutional memory is measured in terms of
staff/executive/board turnover; while there has indeed been a very high
rate of turnover at times, I would argue that another factor (see #2)
is
actually more important.
2. An organization can do a great deal, with a well-planned top-down
approach, to ensure institutional memory is *generated* and *retained*
even
if there's a lot of turnover.
3. The main thing that can be done is to ensure that significant events
are *debriefed and summarized *("documented") in a way that is clearly
and concisely articulated, supported by evidence and logic, and fair to
various good faith perspectives.
4. We might call that an "encyclopedic" approach. (The skills required
are almost exactly the skills that tend to be cultivated in our
Wikipedia
volunteer community, as codified in its
policies and norms, and learned
through practice by its core volunteers.)
5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in
terms
of thorough encyclopedic documentation of
important events in its
history.
There have been exceptions, and I believe that
where it has been done
and
done well, much good has come of it. The best
example of this, in my
opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence
program
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_R…
.
This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her
deputy
Erik Möller, who participated actively in it.
Specific programmatic
improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome.
6. But many events have never been documented with
guidance/resourcing/participation by the WMF. It's worthwhile to
debrief
and summarize both positive and negative
experiences.
7. If you don't document positive outcomes, WMF staff may have
difficulty replicating that success, because the experience is not
widely
understood within the WMF (or in the community,
etc.) The example
foremost
in my mind is the 2012 rewrite of the Terms of
Use, overseen by
then-General Counsel Geoff Brigham. He made changes to his process to
leverage the knowledge and experience within the volunteer community,
and
ended up with a document substantially superior
to his initial draft,
and
that also had the buy-in of many volunteers
whose fingerprints were on
the
final document. (I hope to write this up myself
some day; if I ever get
around to it, it'll be linked here
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_…
.
8. If you don't summarize/debrief negative outcomes, you don't learn in
the moment what went wrong (so as to avoid repeating the mistakes),
and you
leave anybody impacted by the problems (e.g.
volunteers) with the
impression that you don't care. The example I think of is Superprotect
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect>. As the author of a
diplomatic letter, signed by more than 1000 people, making
straightforward
requests of the WMF, I am not too bothered that
they didn't do what we
requested; but I am very bothered that they never acknowledged the
existence of the letter, nor stated which parts of it they
agreed/disagreed
with, or what motivated the subsequent
decisions they did make. (These
are
things they could still do, even several years
later, that would still
make
a difference.)
9. As any seasoned Wikipedia writer/editor knows, there is an important
difference between writing that aims first and foremost to be useful
and
informative ("encyclopedic"), vs.
writing that aims first and foremost
to
present an organization in a good light, or to
advance an agenda
("public
relations" or "communications"
for an organization). People who excel
at
one of those types of writing are not always
great at doing the other
kind;
the two types of writing require a different
mindset.
10. The kind of writing required to summarize and debrief
important events, to create and preserve institutional memory, is (in
terms
of the ways I defined them above)
*encyclopedic* writing.
11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF
board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the
WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind
person. But
I am continually surprised that there has been
little acknowledgment of
what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has
(unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's
Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in
communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not
surprising,
if an organization is guided by an executive
with a Communications
background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its
own
self-knowledge.
If the Board wants to build an organization that learns about its assets
(first among them, IMO, is its extensive and passionate volunteer
community) and its history, and retains what knowledge it gains, I
believe
it is entirely within the power of the Board to
make that happen. The
Board
has several tools at its disposal to ensure that
kind of outcome. It can
make its wishes known through directives and motions passed in its
meetings, and it can exert its influence on documents like Annual Plans
and
budgets.
So, I would argue that if there are observable patterns that the WMF is
not
doing a great job of retaining institutional
memory, and if anybody has
the
energy to try to change that (I don't),
advocating to the Board is the
most
worthwhile way to bring that about. Anything
less, it seems to me, is
rather pointless.
-Pete
--
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
p.s. If interested, please review my own (work in progress) list of
significant events in Wikipedia's history, with links to more detailed
information. I'm interested in feedback, additions, or criticism of this
list.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_…
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM Strainu
<strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional
memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really
important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas
they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned
anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of
passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact
communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an
affiliate etc.?
Strainu
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