> Paid professionals work alongside volunteers in
fire departments and
> hospitals throughout the world. Are there any essential
> characteristics which exclude such cooperation in Wikipedia?
There is a difference, and that is the degree of
professionalization. The
role of admin is not a profession because there are no stablished bodies
that have defined who is a professional admin and who is not.
I'm not sure that's true. Whether it started as a game of Nomic or
not, almost all of the admins have been elected through a certainly
established process.
On Fri, May 25, 2018 at 4:48 PM, David Cuenca Tudela <dacuetu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 25, 2018 at 9:16 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Paid professionals work alongside volunteers in
fire departments and
> hospitals throughout the world. Are there any essential
> characteristics which exclude such cooperation in Wikipedia?
>>
>
> There is a difference, and that is the degree of professionalization. The
> role of admin is not a profession because there are no stablished bodies
> that have defined who is a professional admin and who is not. And still it
> would be difficult to professionalize since the distinction between
> volunteer/paid professional could make some people feel excluded (as in,
> "why is this person getting money for something I do for free?").
>
>
>> > the will to cooperate in our mission should have precedence over the
>> will to make a profit out of it
>>
>> Does that exclude the financially disadvantaged?
>
>
> The wikimedia projects assume that you have time to spare without any
> compensation and that everybody can do the same. That is not true. In my
> view the wikimedia projects are already excluding the financially
> disadvantaged, because the people who are part of this project do not have
> the direct experience necessary to understand that their reality is not the
> same as the reality out there, and as a result they might find difficult to
> take the perspective of a person who needs the financial means in order to
> be able to contribute.
>
> However, if the doors of generosity were open towards volunteers and flocks
> of people were attracted because of it, there wouldn't be enough resources
> for everyone, then how could I tell who deserves it most? I would follow a
> progressive approach by offering first little, and then more depending on
> how much the community appreciates the skills and involvement of this
> person in the mission. There are many ways to keep track of said
> appreciation, but writing encyclopedic articles about each
> community-supported volunteer (not on Wikipedia) could be very effective,
> also to create community bonds and to understand better the person behind
> the nickname.
>
> If anything, we would remove the financial barrier that is keeping some
> (many?) people from contributing in the first place.
>
> The thing is that a project like this should start small in order to learn
> from the experience what works socially/practically, and how it integrates
> conceptually into our worldview. I believe that it should be totally in the
> hands of the volunteer community, because appraisal of every day tasks can
> only be done if you are involved in the project and understand the
> challenges, the tasks, the pitfalls, and what it means to do a good job.
> For instance I normally review property proposals for creation in Wikidata,
> it requires a set of skills and dedication that only the handful of people
> who understand the challenge could evaluate. And there is more, how do you
> evaluate the time spent building community and creating a good atmosphere
> unless you are part of it?
>
> I appreciate your questions because they are very interesting to examine.
> Regarding the reputation tracking system I assume that it would only work
> for the restricted use-case of direct article editing (cf. exopedianism),
> but not for the whole range of tasks that volunteers perform. In any case,
> thanks for bringing it to my attention.
>
> Regards,
> Micru
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