Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
This is not an indictment of volunteers. I believe that they are the lifeblood of this organization. At our size, however, we are faced with enormous responsibilities. All of these efforts at reorganization are attempts to channel volunteer efforts effectively, so that they can continue doing what they do best--fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement by creating and distributing high quality free content resources--while limiting the repercussions that the Foundation, and by extension, the volunteers, face when things do not go right. This is something that requires professional legal and financial knowhow.
Exactly. And while the pool of Wikimedians who can help is large and growing larger, that pool will not always have the right mix of skills we need to run the foundation (sic the oranization NOT the projects). Thus we will sometimes have to look outside that community to fill certain roles within the foundation.
BTW, every board member is also a Wikipedian. :) Some just edit more than others.
-- mav
Having been involved with several other very large volunteer organizations, I beg to differ that you won't find volunteers with the right mix of skill necessary for most aspects of developing with Wikimedia Foundation and associated Wikimedia projects. If it continues to grow, I would agree that there must be some professional staff to deal with things like legal requirements and administrative overhead that somebody must do but nobody really cares to accomplish without getting a paycheck because it is pure drudgery. I am continually amazed though at how many tasks that would appear to me as mindless tedium still get accomplished with Wikimedia projects, like the recent changes patrol and endless battles with trolls.
One of the critical things that happens with large volunteer organizations is that training becomes a critical attribute, where volunteers are trained in critical skills like leadership development and critical aspects of the organization to help that volunteer group accomplish its mission. Usually you can even find "train the trainer" classes, and even people who conduct instruction for those people to conduct the "train the trainer" classes. This is something that is currently missing from Wikimedia projects, where new leaders are usually developed by throwing them into a leadership position and left to either sink or swim.
An example of this is with the American Red Cross, where they have largely volunteers that run almost every aspect of their organization. Yes, they do have professional staff that deals with the mundane day to day issues, but the bulk of what they accomplish could not happen without a huge group of volunteers that are activly involved. The Red Cross also has a huge number of training sessions for these volunteers, and is constantly trying to get its volunteers trained on things like knowledge of First Aid, CPR, and disaster relief. None of these are skills that come naturally to any random volunteer unless you have a medical degree, and even then professional medical personnel still learn things through their association with the Red Cross that they would otherwise not learn.
I could mention examples from other very successful volunteer organizations, but I think this gets the point across fairly well. Volunteer groups can be successful, and some very large mostly volunteer organizations do exist. I would also add that there is a huge diversity of background from those who do participate on Wikimedia projects, and this diversity is something that needs to be exploited to help the growth of all Wikimedia projects.