... list of causes - many of which have little or no
correlation with
anything even vaguely related to the operation of the WMF, its core
philosophies, or its purpose....
If the Trustees have decided that we should pay advocates, why not
advocate on the issues most likely to increase the number,
persistence, and availability of our volunteers? What proportion of
past Wikimedia volunteer surveys asked about any issues which would
tend to attract new editors, retain existing editors, or increase the
time availability of potential editors? I know of three, and only one
was produced by Foundation staff. Just because Foundation staff avoid
advocacy questions out of an abundance of caution concerning their
nonprofit organization restrictions, there is no reason to censor the
assessment of volunteer opinion on those topics. On the contrary, the
restrictions cause a clear systemic bias in the formal statistical
sense, and I would be professionally negligent if I did not recommend
countering that bias. If there are actual reasons to believe that the
additions I have chosen "have little or no correlation" with such
factors then I would like to read them, because they can be expected
to improve the ability to attract, retain, and ease the contributions
of volunteers for concrete reasons in the most reliable sources.
very americo-centric
If there is some reason to say more than 4 out of 32 of the items are
US-specific, I would be surprised. Some of the items can easily be
internationalized further, and I will endeavor to do so. For better or
worse, the Foundation is in the US, and Foundation employees have to
live with, e.g., the US healthcare system, US tax incidence, US
working hours, US public education, US infrastructure, US national
security eavesdropping, etc. Therefore all of those issues affect all
of our volunteers.
Just as importantly, it says that 12 topics will be
"elected". Elected for
what? Why 12 of them?
The cut-off is arbitrary and was intended to be roughly proportional
to the number of issues listed in the abstract of the most recent EU
survey.
What about if lots of people think one of these topics
is really important,
but for different reasons?
Advocacy staff should have access to volunteer opinion data in ways
which would allow them to tailor advocacy opportunities to those which
are considered most important by the largest number of volunteers, and
also in ways where the subset of volunteers who consider less popular
issues important can still help to act on them when the evidence
suggests the outcomes would justify the effort.
Best regards,
James