Michael, thank you for weighing in. Your background in the movement and
perspective is unique and valuable. (For those who don't know, Michael was
an early WMF board chair, and also the founder of the Signpost newspaper.)
I'll respond to everybody in this thread, but I want to start with
Michael's comments.
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 6:11 PM Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com> wrote:
I think [Pete's closing point] overrates the
effect of the individual
Executive Director/CEO on what are, after all, institutional and
collective processes. While I recognize the importance of the role in
heading the organization, that person may try to shape the overall
culture, but they are not really the source of it.
This is a valid point, but I was trying to look at this from a broad
perspective. I think the source of any dissonance is this:
Institutional memory is important BOTH to staff of WMF, AND to the
volunteer community.
I think both you and I, Michael, have blurred these two issues to some
degree. It would be possible for (a) WMF to fully and privately document
the relevant history (which could be a function of top-down leadership
and/or staff culture), and for (b) volunteers to fully and publicly
document relevant history (growing out of volunteer culture, presumably
with some input from staff). To some degree this already happens. It would
be worthwhile to discuss the possible benefits, and the possible design, of
a system that facilitates those things happening in a mutually supportive,
or even merged way; I expect you and I have probably both explored that to
some degree in the past. But, getting into that would substantially expand
the scope of the present discussion, and I'm not going to assume we, or
anyone, want to go there right now.
In my message, I was only addressing the WMF's *institutional* memory (a).
Just consider what
transpired between the two Executive Directors
mentioned above; while
that was a difficult time and the organizational culture suffered
significantly, I would argue that the underlying culture at the
community/staff/"grassroots" level is what forced the organization to
reconsider and change directions.
Well, this illustrates the point I was making rather nicely: In order to
consider it, wouldn't it be nice to have an existing summary or two of
facts that allowed you and me to assess whether or not we share an
understanding of the facts, and permitted those unfamiliar with the facts
to catch up and follow what we're saying? (Maybe that exists, to some
degree, in the form of the volunteer-built Knowledge Engine
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(Wikimedia_Foundation)> article
on English Wikipedia. But for many other topics, that are vitally important
to our history but have not attracted independent journalistic inquiry, we
have no such Wikipedia article.)
WMF staff actually attempted to do much of that at the time. The transparency
gap <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap>
page on Meta Wiki was started by WMF staff. I think it's an
excellent example that a unified "culture" of the staff and volunteer
community has often existed, and can produce valuable documents. But as far
as I could tell, it has never attracted significant notice from the WMF
board or executives. If there were directed outcomes from this body of
work, in terms of changing the policies or high-level practices of the
organization, I'm not aware of them.
Grassroots efforts are valuable (which in general is why most of us are
here), but when it comes to an organization like the WMF, much of their
value is only realized when they are recognized, and used as the foundation
for policy changes, at the board or executive level.
<snip>
Pete also offers much good advice about maintaining
institutional
knowledge, but I think it's a mistaken dichotomy to view two different
modes of presenting information ("encyclopedic" and "communications")
as
if they are conflicting philosophies rather than merely separate
skillsets.
My apologies if I gave that impression. I agree with you 100% that the
skills are not mutually exclusive. As I have written about extensively
elsewhere, I think the Wikimedia community often mistakenly sees this issue
as more black-and-white than it is.
Still, I think the distinction is significant, and it does surprise me that
a community that is often so deeply opposed to communications and public
relations activities *outside* its own world (influencing corporate
Wikipedia articles, etc.) can be so blasé about these dynamics when it
comes to the Wikimedia Foundation itself. For instance, in 2017 Tony1 and I
wrote a Signpost article about WMF hiring a reputation management firm in
the early planning of its strategy process
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-06/In_focus>.
That story, to which I devoted far more attention to the research and
writing than much of my other Signpost work, attracted comparatively little
interest. (Admittedly though, I think everyone trying to attract the
community's interest to strategic matters has found it challenging.)
<snip>To the extent the Wikimedia
Foundation struggles to have an encyclopedic approach
to institutional
memory, frankly that problem is nearly universal among organizations.
It's less the background of a particular leader than the general
emphasis on "getting things done" over documenting what was done, how,
and why.
Many organizations are designed to be financially competitive, and must
focus on "getting things done" in service to that goal. I think we all take
some pride that the Wikimedia movement has created a different kind of
reality. But the WMF has not fully leveraged that advantage.
I would argue that in many cases, the urgency of the WMF of "getting things
done" on a certain schedule (Vector, Visual Editor, Media Viewer, Echo,
etc.) has actually set the organization and the movement back (even in
cases where the underlying software was highly beneficial), while
documenting the lessons of those efforts carefully would yield substantial
benefits to both the community and the organization. That is a choice of
the organization's *leadership* on whether to direct resources toward
accomplishing technical vs. social goals. My argument is, that choice
(which has been more or less continuous for ~15 years) has always been a
mistake.
Going back to the earlier point, it's good to recognize Sue and Erik's
leadership in an assessment that can serve as a positive model.
<snip>
I'm going to respectfully decline to further discuss this aspect. I like
and admire everyone under discussion in this thread, but liking and
admiring someone is not the same thing as agreeing with every one of their
decisions. I prefer to talk about the decisions, not the people deciding.
My comment on all the executives discussed here is pretty much the same:
they've done some good things, and some things that have been harmful. I'm
sure the same could be said of my own career, and most people. I'm not
looking to dig into all that.
Gnangarra, your suggestion of a staff historian is worthwhile, but I think
that approach also has drawbacks; if the function of documenting
experiences is relegated to distinct staff or departments, it makes it easy
for the rest of staff to pay little attention to the practice. I'd advise
working careful debrief and post mortem practices into the work of all
departments, rather than hiring separately. (But I suppose you could also
do both.)
In fact (and Delphine may be interested in this as well), the challenges of
separating the function were visible in a consulting engagement I had with
WMF in about 2012. The then-Talent & Culture executive hired my company to
design a program around onboarding and institutional memory. We did all the
preliminary work, but when the time came when active participation of
various WMF staff was necessary, the executive was unable to get that
participation. We had to end the engagement. (Others here may have a
different perspective on that, of course; I wasn't in direct touch with
staff beyond Talent & Culture about it.)
Finally, Delphine, I am pleased to learn that you have been hired to do
this work! Your history in the movement and your strong understanding of
community dynamics will surely serve the WMF well. My experience suggests
that your job involves moving mountains, but if anyone can do it, I have
faith in you. I wish you the best.
Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]