Let's continue with a clearer subject, then. :)
On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
- Prioritize work on the open badges system.
There is https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/916/, which has seen recent activity thanks to Lokal_Profil https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/p/Lokal_Profil/ (and Wikimedia Sweden?) https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T62064
Still, as much as I have pushed Open Badges in the past, I feel hard to prioritize this work when Mozilla (their initial maintainers) just de-prioritized the whole framework. I'm happy to be convinced, and I agree that the idea is good.
- Make information about WMF contract positions more public. Currently,
the system for hiring contractors seems to be opaque and largely at the discretion of the C staff. The discretion is fine, but some additional openness could be beneficial here, for recruiting purposes and for financial & programmatic transparency.
This is a topic more for Legal & HR. Since your interest is based on giving more chances for volunteers to access to contract work, feel free creating a Phabricator task and adding it to the #Engineering-Community backlog, so at least is not forgotten in a mailing list archive.
- Develop a central hub where WMF, Wikimedia affiliates, and
mission-aligned organizations can post links to intern, contract, and staff openings. WMF could do this in partnership with an organization like Mozilla, the Free Software Foundation, Code for America, or the Ford Foundation. This hub might fit well with the WMF Partnership Department's mission, in addition to WMF HR's recruiting mission.
I have heard this idea many times before. Creating a successful "central hub" takes a lot of work. A lot. It's one of those things that should exist somewhere already, if only as a seed, and we should support more than create our own.
- Support the Volunteer Supporters Network
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network initiative on Meta; encourage peer support and networking opportunities among Wikimedia volunteers.
Sounds interesting. How? I'm not very familiar with this initiative (I should), but could it be one of those Wikimedia efforts suffering a non-tech/tech divide? Anyway, #Engineering-Community would welcome another task to our backlog about connecting better our tech volunteers with that network (and other implementable ways of supporting this initiative).
- Post monthly emails to appropriate Wikimedia mailing lists about intern,
contract, and full-time openings at WMF and affiliates that may be of interest to members of those lists.
This is also for HR. Advertizing better our open position is important indeed. The trick here is "appropriate Wikimedia mailing lists". Where are the good candidates ready to apply? For what is worth: https://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
6. Develop an active mentorship program at WMF that encourages WMF
employees to mentor high-potential volunteers in their career development, ideally leading to a role at WMF or a mission-aligned organization. The Individual Engagement Grants Program and GSOC already do some of this with their grantees and interns, and the concept could be expanded to other programs and departments.
Yes, but mentoring well also takes a lot of effort. A lot. And even if a % of those interns does end up working at Wikimedia, at least in the tech area we are struggling with very low retention rates. High effort and low retention is a risky combination. We are trying to do better (which, heh, takes more energy), but we need to be careful and realistic. After two years of ~20 tech interns during the (Northern Hemisphere) Summer, I was the one proposing to be less pushy, aiming for quality, reliability, and retention. Currently we have 10 tech interns, and I'm personally very happy of seeing that this is a more sustainable effort.
7. Continue to expand the number of intern opportunities at WMF. WMF
benefits from the inexpensive labor, and the interns benefit from the experience and the networking opportunities.
I don't have numbers, but I think every year we have more interns? The WMF is growing as well, of course. In any case, note that there is no "inexpensive labor" in our context. Finding interns, onboarding, and mentoring them takes significant effort. Still, I think we all agree that this is an area that can be expanded, also in Engineering.
Thoughts? We can take this discussion to Meta if it's getting to
complicated and diverging too much from the original purpose of this thread.
I'm biased, but if you want results, I'd rather log and discuss every task/goal in Phabricator.