I made this point earlier this month, but let me make it again.
Money generated by volunteers should indeed go back to volunteers. It just can not go back as a salary. If it goes back as a salary, you have people working together, some of them being paid for the work, and some doing it for free. If there is any conflict, "volunteers" getting salary will defend their decision until they get blocked. We have seen this happening with some of the WMF staffers who were not succeptible to any feedback of the community. We have seen it with people who were not paid but who still got some bonuses from WMF or the chapters. If a considerable amount of volunteers get paid we are going to have it all over the place.
Concerning the motivation and the lack of time. Well, we all have real-time obligations. I am a professor in a top research university. An hour of my time costs, well, a lot. If I spent these three-four hours per day I am currently spending for Wikimedia projects instead for my primary duties (and our working time is essentially unlimited despite the 40 hr/week legal restriction), I would probably produce much more results than I currently do. And what I am doing on Wikipedia nobody else is doing. If I disappear, the work just stays not done. But this is our choice. If someone has no time for editing Wikipedia - well, obviously, they have other priorities. In this sense I fully symphatize with Bodhisattwa's example of a user spending their last money to go to internet cafe to edit Wikipedia. Wikimedia projects have grown as bottom-up institutions. All attempts to rebuild them top-down failed miserably. We indeed have a lot of people who shout loud, do very little, and get all kinds of credits for the work others have done. But paying these other people if not the way to go.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 7:01 AM, Natacha Rault n.rault@me.com wrote:
Thanks for having this conversation. Having a balanced life is important, but why should the revenues generated by volunteer work not go back to volunteers also? In truth, wikimedia projects are addictive, time consuming, they generate passionate debates and I have seen many going down the black hole and finding it hard to manage “priorities”. This situation is detrimental to those who struggle most to survive. Should contributing be the activity of only those rich people who can afford to be volunteers on their free time? I dont think so. Tackling with gendergap issues, I see many women not contributing because they say “it’s time consuming” and they cant afford it. I don’t know how to deal with these issues, but at the core of implementing “strategic orientations” which include diversity issues, well it is a must have conversation. As for the wikimedia blog I dont really have an idea on that: if the WMF does it, finances it, well ... At the same time it would need to remain under free licence so that we can use the stories in our projects, because the revenue paying it is generated from our volunteer work.
Have a nice day, I have just bought myself a canoe kayak, which is the only way for me not to get entangled in contributing on a bright sunny day. I cant bring my computer on the river! I think we should finance “wikimedians go green off wiki for the week end projects”. Some days off the internet walking, swimming, having chats by a fire wood and just taking care of ourselves off wiki.
Nattes à chat
Le 10 juin 2018 à 05:38, Bodhisattwa Mandal bodhisattwa.rgkmc@gmail.com
a écrit :
Hi David,
I hear you.
I live in that part of the world where getting any job and earning money, by any means possible, is the topmost priority of life, as unemployment
and
corruption has become intimate part of most of the people. Involvement in volunteer works with no personal or financial gain, is not appreciated at all and sanity is frequently questioned even by family members and close friends. The real life is far more harsh for us than the issues we face
in
Wikipedia.
But, I have seen people, who have fought against all extreme odds to
create
contents in Wikimedia. I met an Wikimedian, who would have no food or
money
for the next day to survive, if he didn't go and look for some labour
work
and earn some money for his family, yet learned advanced computer works from scratch with the help of a Jurassic age broken laptop gifted by a well-wisher and built the most impactful project in his language, believe me, I have seen that laptop with my own eyes. I know someone, very close
to
my heart, who once spent the small amount of money he had with him, to
pay
the cyber cafe, he went almost everyday to edit Wikipedia, even if he
knew,
that the money he was spending, was his last resort for that day. These Wikimedians are no less than a legend to me and whenever I feel
frustrated
and burnt out, I remember them. I am pretty sure, everyone in this
movement
knows someone amazing.
You are absolutely right, people who build Wikipedia from their core of their heart are not heard or appreciated in larger Wikimedia world, some
of
them are silently contributing forl a long time , without any expectation from anyone. On the other hand, I have seen loud mouths with almost no substantial or impactful contribution at all, being featured everywhere
on
a regular basis. That's an unfair world we everyday deal with and
Wikimedia
is not an exception.
I will totally support you, if you create a meta page for these silent volunteers, who needs to be seen.
Best, Bodhisattwa
On Sun, 10 Jun 2018, 01:56 David Cuenca Tudela, dacuetu@gmail.com
wrote:
Aubrey,
You speak so much truth in your words that I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. Because like a doctor who cares about his patient, you have just
very
lovingly and figuratively told me, "you are deeply sick". It hurts, I struggle accepting the truth, but deep inside I know that the only
thing I
can do is to acknowledge your words, and as every human before of me ask the perennial questions: "why me? what could have I done differently?"
You are right, I put my whole being into this project, I have seen it
as a
way to find purpose, meaning, liberation, and instead what I have found
is
the emptiness, my own and that of the people who are in the same
situation
as me. Maybe they also need the same things as I do, but we never talked about it so I don't know what they need, they never told me. Unlike
other
people, however, I do know what I need to find purpose here.
To me purpose comes from the mutual acknowledgment with my peers that we are here for something bigger than ourselves. We might never achieve
those
dreams, but being next to someone who understands you because they are
in
the same situation, makes life more bearable. But do we share the same dream or aspiration at all? Has anyone ever take a collective vow to
show
to themselves and to others that this is what matters in their life, and that they are committing to it? I do not think anyone has ever done
that.
You say that you have given up, but I do not want to reach that point. I feel I want to try to build a real community environment and give
everyone
a chance before giving up on them.
My desire as I was typing my email was to be seen, to be recognized by
who
I am, to be understood even. That is something that only a true friend could do for me, but as you say we are not good friends even if we did
some
cool things together. We want to collect "all human knowledge", but
what do
we actually know about each other? Is that not valid knowledge or what?
In
my opinion the knowledge about the people in this movement, what they
do,
who they are, what are their dreams, their aspirations, should be
collected
with at least as much interest as we collect all other kind of
knowledge.
Yet nobody does that.
If there is no collective information about who I am and what I have
done
these years, how can I expect other people to value me as much as I
want to
value them? I am as guilty as anyone else for not caring about my fellow volunteers in this project, but that doesn't need to continue being that way, it can change. I can commit to write a page on Meta about any volunteer who wants their work on this project to be seen and
recognized,
and of course anyone can do that for me to. We only need the will.
You say that that WMF bears responsibility in the "failure" of our Wikisource community project, and that it is not important now. I do not agree about the timing, I find it is very relevant now, because the same pattern that has happened before, it is happening again now. And the pattern is that of the individual voice vs. the organization. We are
like
ants next to a giant, we complain and say what we need, but we are so little in comparison that our voice doesn't reach any ears. For
Wikisource
we thought, ok, if we are not being heard as individuals maybe we'll be heard as an organization, but that didn't happen either! So now that I
have
this issue about the Wikimedia Blog and I complain about it, I feel helpless because it is again an individual standing up against a
behemoth
that will not listen neither to myself as individual nor to myself as an organization. What is there for me left to do?
The only thing it is left for me to do is to question the legitimacy of
the
WMF as the leadership organization of the Wikimedia movement,
understanding
leadership as the capacity to listen to many individual voices and act
in a
way that is beneficial to all of them. If the WMF is incapable of
listening
to my individual voice, then I want either a reform in the WMF to
include
people who are able to listen at the top of the hierarchy, or a new organization who can listen and create a common vision out of what it hears. Things like the Strategy process are supposed to help with this goal, however I feel it doesn't offer the space for day to day
activities
or to challenge participants with new ideas, then it has no use for me.
So yes, I will follow your advice and I will pick my battles, putting myself first. In this case my battle from this moment on is to recognize the authority of the Wikimedia movement as a whole, and build leadership legitimacy for me and all those in the movement who are able to listen.
I
do believe that such people exist in our movement (I know a few), and
that
they have a very high capacity for listening, but they themselves are
not
being heard, and that is extremely unfair, and it is something I would
like
to correct because me and the movement would benefit greatly. And as you said money is necessary, so it has to be paid.
@SJ: as you can see from my email, there are deeper issues than just the blog.
@Pine: Thank you for our conversation this morning. I learnt a lot from hearing your perspective, and I felt heard by you because you gave me
the
opportunity to voice my concerns, and you asked me questions about them.
@Frederick: Yes, money is an issue that has to be discussed with the community broadly. I think it might be too much to elaborate about it
now
on this conversation, but it can be the topic for another thread. About volunteer burnout, I feel many of us feel underappreciated because there is no space in our projects for appreciation. For now the only proposal I had in mind is about creating pages on Meta for volunteers,
so
the work of individuals can be seen completely. Perhaps it needs more discussion.
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