Ray Saintonge wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
What you seem to forget is that Wikipedia's strength rests with its amateurs. While there may be evident need for some amount of administrative staff it is as important to avoid pretensions of being a professional organization. If you look at staff as an investment you are assuming an economic model that runs contrary to Wikipedia's free nature.
But you can also make the case that getting professionals to do the work that needs to be done (legal, finance, fundraising, etc.) offloads those tasks so that the "strength of the amateurs" can be more productively tapped and scaled up to keep Wikipedia evolving in what it does best.
Exactly. The amateur model just does not scale well *at all* for the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia and the other wikis are a different matter). I, for example, am an amateur when it comes to finance. My day job and education have nothing to do with it. And yet I'm the CFO. Which may have been fine when Wikipedia was a top 500 website and had a small budget, but not now.
I'm a quick learner and always have been able to handle widely varied responsibilities that require different skill sets (thus my ability, with the help of the Wikimedia treasurer who does have the relevant experience and training, to perform in my role), but there simply is a limit to what I can do; both from a time perspective (I can only devote an hour or two - at most - a day to this) AND, perhaps more importantly, from an experience/education perspective.
That is why I've had a standing letter of resignation that will go into effect once the foundation finally gets around to hiring a properly qualified finance director.
The foundation is not a wiki. It needs to grow up.
I don't dispute the need for the Foundation to have some level of paid staff. I also feel some concern about the way you have been hung out to dry in the CFO job. While you have no doubt worked at the position to the best of your ability, Wikipedians having a little more familiarity with such matters probably could see the potential difficulties, and avoided volunteering for the task. I really don't think that the Board has ever been on top of this portfolio.
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia are indeed two different concepts, and the relative roles of professionals and amateurs will indeed be different in these two organizations. In many respects we need to start building a firewall between the two. This would leave the WMF responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructural assets, while Wikipedia and its sisterprojects could be free to pursue their innovative strategies without the need to be guided by a paranoia that any small legal oversight could bring the entire empire crashing. There are certainly profitable enterprises out there who would welcome that development with great glee. There needs to be an arm's length relationship between the two, and I don't see much being said to address that.
Ec
Hello
You are absolutely correct both Foundation and Wikipedia are two different conceps, and this is why Gavin comments are interesting. Some of his comments mix the two systems resulting in a description which would be neither acceptable from the community (Wikipedia) point of view nor from the board (Foundation) point of view.
Gavin : "I would imagine that a simple flow could be as follows: volunteer works on a project, gets more involved, gets groomed to become the project leader, stays in that for a year and grooms his / her replacement, gets invited to join the core team, gets groomed to become director, serves for a set period, becomes a board member."
Implies a pyramidal organisation of Wikipedia with the Foundation on top, which is absolutely not the way we are currently organised. There are some non-official project leaders, but they lead only by voice and reputation, not by authority.
Gavin : "Project management may not be about content generation alone. It is also about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and answerable to the organisation at large."
Precisely mixes the two jobs. Collecting, organising and creating content PLUS settling disputes between editors is entirely a Wikipedia job and should not involve Foundation. It does only because there is a confusion between a role at the Foundation and a moral authority AND because the Foundation hosts the project (so, is liable, has access to logs, can block etc...). Budget or being answerable to the organisation at large is a Foundation issue and absolutely not a Wikipedia one.
This does not remove in any sense the value of his comments on the need for continuity. But the fact is that he seems to see one system... where there are several systems. Wikipedia is one. Wikibooks is another. Wiktionary a third one. These three are tightly related and work under rather similar rules. Foundation is an entirely different system.
Wikipedia system is free to join. Editors may stay anonymous. Foundation system is very closed, based on peer approval. Real names are registered. Foundation is NOT a democracy.
Roughly, all editors are equal in terms of decision making on wikipedia. On Foundation, some have a voting voice, others have an advising voice.
Wikipedia organisation is very flexible and its rules change without much pain, upon editors push. Foundation is pretty static, relying on bylaws which are not easily changed, with decisions made through votes and resolutions; through official delegations to individuals and committees. And all this with the weight of history.
Wikipedia editors are all volunteers. They have no legal obligations. If unhappy, they can easily quit anytime for a wikibreak or definitly. Foundation has paid staff or board members earning money through speaking fees. Others are only volunteers. Earning a living does not imply working harder, so, to the contrary of Wikipedia, people working on Foundation issues have to manage with the concept of mixing volunteers with paid members. Whether paid or not, people are expected to be available 7/7 24/24. For most, there is a binding relationship.
Wikipedia editors may feel accountable... or not. They can actually do many stupid things and not be embarassed by more than losing a sysop status. Foundation activity is scrutinized (an audit has been going on for several weeks now), the board is accountable and lawsuits DO happen.
In most cases, Wikipedia can run at its own peace. Nothing is really urgent, everything can be delayed. It is easy enough to call for more volunteers as well. Editors may go on a rant for days. On Foundation, this is not true. If a bill is not paid, the site stop working. If a cease and desist is not answered, we can get in big troubles. When a japanese editor complains at 4 am that personal data is posted on the website and should be *immediately* removed... it must be *immediately* removed. When there is too much work to do, one reduces its sleep time. Foundation people are expected to behave professional.
And I could go on forever.
One of the hardest things is to identify the needs of "system Foundation", talk about these needs, and read criticism from people belonging to "system Wikipedia", who have no beginning of an idea of where the need comes from, why it is critical... but who considers they have a say nevertheless.
I think Ec, that you are correct in saying we need a firewall between the two systems; You, as an editor, feels this need. Me, as a board member, feel it as well. I think it is slowly being put into place.
A huge limitation for the construction of the firewall will stay the legal considerations. Contrary of what you say, much have been said, but it has been said in other places than public mailing lists (precisely due to our paranoia :-)). The WP:Office issue is still unsolved though.