The Board restructuring appears to have triggered discontent among some community members. This seems to be in part motivated by the fact that previous community propositions for the Board to encourage the exploration of a Volunteer Council by means of a Board resolution were declined, while at the same time, the structure of the Board was changed to designate the responsibility for two seats to the chapters. Another part of the dissatisfaction appears to be rooted in the perceived lack of public communication about these changes.
I was not part of the Board meeting in San Francisco, and I'm not speaking from an organizational position, nor am I writing this on the basis of inside information about the meeting. Based on my own experience as a former member of the Board and a longtime member of this community, I would like to offer an alternative interpretation for what I think is happening here.
My own understanding of this decision is exactly the opposite of what some people seem to interpret it as: The Board has, through its decision not to create a Volunteer Council but to encourage community exploration of self-governance, made an explicit statement that it is up to volunteers working on the projects to explore and propose processes to decide what new projects & languages to create, what decision making processes to use to resolve disputes, what major software changes to enable, and so forth. The Board and the organization will be minimally prescriptive in these processes. This is in the organization's interest, as the top-down method of implementing decisions affecting the projects doesn't scale well. I interpret it as encouragement to "be bold" and develop scalable volunteer-driven processes on all levels.
The Board, through its commitment to bringing in new Board members with expertise in relevant legal, accounting, fundraising and governance issues, has made it clear that it understands its governance obligation and its fiduciary responsibility towards a tax-exempt non-profit organization. Through its commitment to bringing in chapters into the governance process, it has made an important attempt to share lessons and recognize the chapters' role in the international Wikimedia movement. Through its clear, continuing commitment to community membership on the Board, it has stated its long term view that, in order to guard and nurture our values, we need individuals on the Board who live and breathe these values.
So, what I get from this is:
* The Board has given the community a clear "go" signal to explore models of self-governance and decision making processes, be they councils, direct voting, committees, or other processes which work. This allows for the rapid, parallel evolution of mechanisms of self-governance and a "survival of the fittest" decision-making processes. That's a very real alternative to a top-down decision to explore one particular model (Volunteer Council) and, arguably, preferable.
* The Board has attempted to develop a reasonable balance in its own composition to address the challenge of running a multi-million dollar non-profit organization while preserving the key values that allow it to exist.
But, the Board is _meant_ to not get involved in daily operations, it is _meant_ to not try to make project-level decisions that cannot scale, it is _meant_ to structure itself so that it can competently hire an Executive Director when needed, so that it can evaluate her performance, so that it can raise funds for the organization, so that it can make sure that we are in compliance with the legal requirements for organizations like ours. You will not get a Board that can do that by simply picking the people with the highest edit counts and giving them responsibility over the organization. That's a way to create an organization that has good intentions but which cannot necessarily balance its books or hire competent staff. In other words, it's a way to create purely a social movement and not an organizational support layer for one. But WMF is the support layer: We all are the social movement.
Our Board of Trustees is present on wikis, IRC and mailing lists; it's electronically reachable and responsive in ways I would posit no other Board of Trustees of a similarly large organization is. This, and the absence of other decision making bodies, creates a fallacy of power: the false belief that, because the Board exists and participates, it represents an operationally involved ruling body _for_ the social movement, rather than an organizational body for _corporate oversight_. But, really, the primary function of the Board is to sustain and protect the organization. And, if anything, these Board meeting outcomes are the Board's acknowledgment of the fact that the true power rests with the community volunteers, and that the Board should not interfere with community processes.
You can disagree, but the easiest way to prove this point is to look at the decisions the Board actually makes: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions
The most recent Board resolution that was highly project-facing was the one on our content licensing, from December 2007: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:License_update
And this resolution explicitly called for a community decision making process. Other recent resolutions include: * Approval of chapter organizations * Approval of financial statements * Approval of a credit card usage policy * Approval of the job description for the Executive Director * Update of the gift policy
What relevance do these decisions have to your daily project work? In contrast, what relevance do they have to WMF as an organization (rather than a social movement)? What qualifications do you need to vote on such resolutions? I believe that the proposed Board structure is a very reasonable response to these questions. It's no coincidence or conspiracy that the current Board, made primarily of respected and trusted community volunteers, has reached the conclusions it has.
It's easy to direct negative energy towards listservs and wiki pages. It's much harder to direct positive energy towards solutions that actually work. It seems to me that volunteer energy would now be most usefully guided towards developing mechanisms of self-governance, per project and across projects. Decision-making bodies and processes have arisen, on a small scale, without any Board involvement. The challenge is to scale them up. And it's a challenge to all of us.
Erik
Erik Möller wrote:
<some wonderful wonderful stuff>
I do believe you have captured the true state of affairs beautifully in that post of yours.
I don't think there was a single word in it that I disagreed with. Perhaps I would have added (as I have previously indicated) that I would have much prefered for the board to give formal acknowledgement and guidance to the council formation process, but my view may well be an overly cautious one, proven by the future to be so, if the council that is actually bootstrapped out of nothing turns out to carve a functionality for itself, which it would not have done, if nursed into being by the board.
Yours in Wikimedia
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Thank you for this email, Erik. It is a pleasure to have so many eloquent writers in the Foundation... perhaps a benefit of starting from a community of writers. (As long as we're updating the bylaws, can we add a writing or artistry requirement for future board members?)
On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Another part of the dissatisfaction appears to be rooted in the perceived lack of public communication about these changes.
Yes.
The Board has, through its
decision not to create a Volunteer Council but to encourage community exploration of self-governance, made an explicit statement... to "be bold" and develop scalable volunteer-driven processes on all levels.
I hope you are right; that would be inspiring.
The Board, through its commitment to bringing in new Board members with expertise in relevant legal, accounting, fundraising and governance issues, has made it clear that it understands its governance obligation and its fiduciary responsibility towards a tax-exempt non-profit organization.
Assuming this is the case, I would appreciate more information on what the governance obligation and fiduciary responsibility of the board entails. I think the board's primary fiduciary responsibility is in ensuring that the oversight of the projects not fall into the hands of any special interests, something which giving outside experts seats on the board makes more likely. (privately apointed directors go through significantly less vetting and scrutiny than publicly elected ones)
How is adding Board members with expertise more suitable than having a deeply trusted Board acquire and rely on a more broadly talented advisory board?
For the benefit of assessing future similar changes to the bylaws, why is 4 expert board members a good idea, but not 40, and why we should not similarly compress all community representation on the board into a few "community expert" seats?
An incremental change over a few years, with regular unannounced updates to the bylaws and board composition, could have dramatic results.
But, the Board is _meant_ to not get involved in daily operations,
agreed
it is _meant_ to not try to make project-level decisions that cannot scale,
agreed
it is _meant_ to structure itself so that it can competently hire an Executive Director when needed, so that it can evaluate her performance, so that it can raise funds for the organization, so that it can make sure that we are in compliance with the legal requirements for organizations like ours.
agreed. this, but not /only/ this. most of these goals are not incompatible with qualified community representation. Please make the case that talented outsiders can serve better in their capacity as board members than talented long-standing community members.
My case for the converse is a worry about corruption. Community members who have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity of the projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented outsiders; while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit of contributions from experts from all walks of life.
You will not get a Board that can do that by simply picking the people with
the highest edit counts and giving them responsibility over the organization.
This is a strawman. The current board is a good one, and recognizes that the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and creative content movements lies with the community. The /reason/ that this board is wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the projects, and its community membership. As that changes, the likelihood that future boards will be insular, or will include hidden outside interests, rises. Insular boards are more prone to making big mistakes, and to undercutting or selling out their founding communities.
Two further points:
1. When the board changes the bylaws on short notice, it sets a precedent for future boards to do the same. The current system has little in the way of checks and balances; something that should be addressed while all parties involved mean well.
2. You said elsewhere in this email:
- The Board has attempted to develop a reasonable balance in its own
composition to address the challenge of running a multi-million dollar non-profit organization while preserving the key values that allow it to exist.
As an aside -- the Foundation is coming to see itself as "a multi-million dollar non-profit" and not "a foundation to support and expand a polylingual collaborative the size and output of the Marshall Islands". That may lead it to tackle the problem of being a good multi-million dollar non-profit (not a novel problem, and one for which active community involvement might be a distraction), and to avoid the novel problems posed by our polylingual collab. It may also lead it to forget that the community with its many passions and skills make up most of the first 100 "key values" that allow the foundation to exist (leading to inefficiency, if not worse).
I concede that strong community governance and organization can provide direction and avoid stagnation; but in the meantime the Foundation with its own goals should be setting priorities in line with the unique constellation that the projects could become, not in line with what would make for a successful mid-sized knowledge-disseminating English-speaking foundation.
SJ
Samuel Klein wrote:
Assuming this is the case, I would appreciate more information on what the governance obligation and fiduciary responsibility of the board entails. I think the board's primary fiduciary responsibility is in ensuring that the oversight of the projects not fall into the hands of any special interests, something which giving outside experts seats on the board makes more likely. (privately apointed directors go through significantly less vetting and scrutiny than publicly elected ones)
Is vetting and scrutiny better just because there's more of it? The election process vets for some things and not for others. I appreciate the concern about capture by special interests, but can you articulate why that's more likely with outside experts? Financial and employment relationships seem to be the primary vehicle by which people imagine this capture. It seems to me that a resume-interviews-background-check approach does more to vet these issues than has historically been the case in our elections.
How is adding Board members with expertise more suitable than having a deeply trusted Board acquire and rely on a more broadly talented advisory board?
Because unlike the Board of Trustees, members of the Advisory Board do not have the fiduciary obligations you so rightly emphasize. Being able to bounce questions off an advisor with a financial background is not a substitute for having someone who has both the expertise and the fiduciary responsibility to guide the board through its oversight of financial matters.
You are right that we need a more broadly talented advisory board, as are others who say the foundation needs to make better use of it. The advisory board was also the topic of some discussion in our meeting, although its future development is still taking shape. Right now its primary competencies are in the areas of technology and free culture, which aren't really the issues we were dealing with. More details on the advisory board will come when they are ready, but for now I'd welcome ideas - what additional areas, broadly speaking, do we need represented on the advisory board to provide useful working groups to advise the Wikimedia Foundation?
--Michael Snow
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 2:26 AM, Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net wrote:
Is vetting and scrutiny better just because there's more of it? The election process vets for some things and not for others. I appreciate the concern about capture by special interests, but can you articulate why that's more likely with outside experts? Financial and employment relationships seem to be the primary vehicle by which people imagine this capture. It seems to me that a resume-interviews-background-check approach does more to vet these issues than has historically been the case in our elections.
I worry more about special interests coming in after the fact and working out who is susceptible to influence. A person who has spent a few hundred hours working to improve a project before engaging in governance seems to me both more likely to weigh the values of the project well above his/her own personal fortune, and more likely to be wary of such influence on its face.
How is adding Board members with expertise more suitable than having a deeply trusted Board acquire and rely on a more broadly talented
advisory
board?
Because unlike the Board of Trustees, members of the Advisory Board do not have the fiduciary obligations you so rightly emphasize. Being able to bounce questions off an advisor with a financial background ...
Interesting. But the specter of fiduciary obligation alone is not enough to compel work from everyone... mistakes can be made by conflating the need for experienced staff, the need for experienced advisors, and the need for talented board members. Selecting the latter by expertise and not devotion doesn't seem right, though I understand weighing expertise in considerations.
Is there a list of skillsets currently being sought?
More details on the
advisory board will come when they are ready, but for now I'd welcome ideas - what additional areas, broadly speaking, do we need represented on the advisory board to provide useful working groups to advise the Wikimedia Foundation?
Off the top of my head: - Long-term sustainability (preparing for the future, for contingencies) - NGO & government relations (synchronizing with / inspiring new initiatives) - Education & learning (improving usefulness to / working with learners) - Music; multimedia broadly (how to better include and reach out for media) - Information analaysis & research (improving work with researchers) - Effective multilingual [internal] communication (something we continue to avoid) - Product design, marketing, and distribution (free knowledge is cool, wikipedia should help make it more so)
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 2:26 AM, Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
How is adding Board members with expertise more suitable than having a deeply trusted Board acquire and rely on a more broadly talented advisory board?
Because unlike the Board of Trustees, members of the Advisory Board do not have the fiduciary obligations you so rightly emphasize. Being able to bounce questions off an advisor with a financial background is not a substitute for having someone who has both the expertise and the fiduciary responsibility to guide the board through its oversight of financial matters.
True, but an *employee* does have a fiduciary duty toward his/her employer. Board member is not the right position for someone "to bounce questions off". Expertise is a factor, but I'd say it's a weak one, especially under the current structure where board members can't be paid. General intelligence, a good knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses, and a willingness to learn, should be enough for a board member in the expertise department. Strong commitment to the founding principals of the organization should be the main factor for selection, in my opinion.
I don't mean this to criticize Stuart, as I didn't agree with the stringent qualifications to begin with, but I don't see where he he fits all of the required qualifications. If he has "an accounting or other financial designation (i.e. CPA, CA, CFA, or other International equivalent)", please point this out. If he "has previously served as a treasurer on another non-profit board (at least five years)", please let us know.
Again, I'm not criticizing Stuart. He may be a great board member, he may not. I don't really know anything about him on which to guess. Presumably the board does, though.
Samuel Klein wrote:
My case for the converse is a worry about corruption. Community members who have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity of the projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented outsiders; while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit of contributions from experts from all walks of life.
I see no reason to think this is true or false. It is an interesting speculation.
This is a strawman. The current board is a good one, and recognizes that the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and creative content movements lies with the community. The /reason/ that this board is wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the projects, and its community membership.
And that board, with all that experience, has come to an understanding born in a long process of work that we need some outside expertise on the board, and that we have not managed to get the kinds of expertise that we need solely by drawing from a community process that has tended to choose excellent community members and editors (who we also need).
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
My case for the converse is a worry about corruption. Community members
who
have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity of
the
projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented
outsiders;
while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit of contributions from experts from all walks of life.
I see no reason to think this is true or false. It is an interesting speculation.
Perhaps I should start with the simpler claim that talented people who have already given of their energies to contribute somehow to the projects make more devoted stewards than those who bring talent an 'outside perspective' but don't get where the projects originated.
This is a strawman. The current board is a good one, and recognizes
that
the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and
creative
content movements lies with the community. The /reason/ that this board
is
wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the projects,
and
its community membership.
And that board, with all that experience, has come to an understanding born in a long process of work that we need some outside expertise on the board, and that we have not managed to get the kinds of expertise that we need solely by drawing from a community process that has tended to choose excellent community members and editors (who we also need).
You distinguish the current process from the community itself -- which I posit contains all of the skills so far suggested as needed. I think that a year spent immersed in one of the projects is a better preparation for board membership than many other pasttimes, and think that dedicating some resources to being able to effectively seek out specific talent within our community is something those concerned about hand-picking talents for the Board should consider.
SJ
Hoi, Both Erik and Anthere indicated their wish that the communities, the projects organise themselves. The one big thing missing in the WMF is that the community looks after itself. All projects are isolated, do not cooperate, think the other projects scary. Holy cows like the English notion that Featured articles are NPOV are routinely slaughtered in other projects. The notion that an article sourced to the hilt can be POV as it does not address what is written in other scholarly traditions is a notion that is hardly considered.
When there is fear about interference of the board in the projects, then the only reason why the board can do and would do such things is because there is a big vacuum. The projects are not organised. The community has no voice and as Anthere put it, when a council is started by fiat of the board, it defines the relation.
The board of trustees and the WMF organisation enable our projects but because of the lack of evident organisation, the autonomy of the projects is fracrtured. There is no voice of the community, all that can be done is post a question and find that entropy establishes itself so what is the point ?
When criticism of the board centres around fear, fear of what a future board might do, then the only reasonable answer is to ensure that there is no reason to fear. This is done best by organising a community / project council, the place where the policies of the projects, the communities are managed. When the community lookst after itself, there will be less room for the board, the organisation to interfere.
This does not mean that a council cannot go rogue. However, they would be completely and utterly our own rogues. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Samuel Klein wrote:
My case for the converse is a worry about corruption. Community
members
who
have devoted a significant portion of their lives to the project and demonstrated their gut-level appreciation of the value and necessity
of
the
projects are far less corruptible than interested and talented
outsiders;
while the breadth of the projects' appeal has granted us the benefit
of
contributions from experts from all walks of life.
I see no reason to think this is true or false. It is an interesting speculation.
Perhaps I should start with the simpler claim that talented people who have already given of their energies to contribute somehow to the projects make more devoted stewards than those who bring talent an 'outside perspective' but don't get where the projects originated.
This is a strawman. The current board is a good one, and recognizes
that
the power to organize, inform, and guide the projects' social and
creative
content movements lies with the community. The /reason/ that this
board
is
wise has to do with its history, its long experience with the
projects,
and
its community membership.
And that board, with all that experience, has come to an understanding born in a long process of work that we need some outside expertise on the board, and that we have not managed to get the kinds of expertise that we need solely by drawing from a community process that has tended to choose excellent community members and editors (who we also need).
You distinguish the current process from the community itself -- which I posit contains all of the skills so far suggested as needed. I think that a year spent immersed in one of the projects is a better preparation for board membership than many other pasttimes, and think that dedicating some resources to being able to effectively seek out specific talent within our community is something those concerned about hand-picking talents for the Board should consider.
SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Erik Moeller wrote:
The Board restructuring appears ...
Erik
This is a brillant email Erik. Thank you for it.
There is little to add to it. But I would like to expand one of your points.
Maybe am I getting too old that I start repeating myself, but I feel the desire to talk about barnraising again ;-) http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-March/040652.html
A month ago, I went to the office in San Francisco for the first time. It was very early in the morning, and only Mary-Lou was there yet. She gave me a tour of the office (not that it takes a lot of time), and I played at guessing "who's desk is this ?". I looked at the Stillman Wall, just on the left hand side after the entrance door. The Wall displays pictures of wikipedians. In the middle of the office, there is a corner with a coffee table and sitting couch. With a bookshelf, on which sit various books, in particular those written about our projects. And a wall, with dozen of pictures of wikipedians in a variety of situations. Some pictures taken at Wikimania, some in various wikimeets, some in the office... Behind this spot, there is a small kitchen corner, with a small table, a sink, two bins (to be able to recycle... took me a very short time to notice that the recycling part was not very well done...).
And a coffee machine.
Soon enough, Mary-Lou and I gathered around the coffee machine. And Mary-Lou made me a capuccino with this nice creamy top (be reassured, I learned how to do them myself afterwards). I looked around for plastic cups... and found brand new mugs. All the same.
The "be-bold mugs".
A creamy plain-looking, sturdy, stimulating mug.
This mug is right here. Near my laptop. On my desk. (I "borrowed" one of the mugs). With Brasilian coffee made in an Italian Coffee-Machine, topped with Swiss cream. It is now my favorite mug.
During the board meeting, after we decided to create these two board seats to be "selected" by chapters, someone asked :
"Should we give guidelines to the chapters ? Perhaps we could suggest them the right process to follow to nominate the representants ?"
My answer was
"NO WAY". Let them figure out all by themselves. It will be a fabulous opportunity for them to work together to achieve something in common. Afaik, for the first time. It will push them to "find a common ground", "cooperate", and certainly in the process "create bonds". Hopefully, the incentive will be sufficient for them to feel motivated to go through all the disagreements that we can guess they will meet... to reach a decision. It may be that this decision will be a bit broken, but it will be their decision and they will have worked it by themselves. And hopefully, they will improve it over time.
"Barnraising is not church raising. Although it is often valuable to build an immaculate example of some ideal or utopian philosophy, these projects often require a large investment and religious zeal to hold them together. Sure, churches are often beautiful, but they are unpractical en masses. Conversely, barns are practical, functional, cheap, full of horseshit, and you don't need to be a hallowed Prophet to make one. Don't we prefer barns to churches here ?"
/me sips a bit of coffee.
Sj pointed out "the wikipedia community is weakening. This is not inherent; we are nowhere near our potential even as a meme; it is due to restriction and neglect. This is also not new; though easier to see over time -- the community has been on a broad decline since 2006. We have stopped founding major new projects, poured cold water on various community initiatives in the spirit of unification of brand, and generally eroded the community's boldness, authority, and implicit entrustedness with the success of the projects. "
I actually agree with Sj that we suffer an erosion of boldness. Some suffers an erosion of boldness out of fear for their personal public reputation. Some suffers an erosion of boldness out of fear of upsetting donors. Some suffers an erosion of boldness out of fear of losing power. Some suffers an erosion of boldness out of fear of being singled out. Some suffers an erosion of boldness out of fear to ... just receive "no" as an answer, or worse, no answer at all. We are ALL concerned. Fortunately, we also RESIST and stay quite bold. But not quite enough.
In spite of actively resisting, the Board or some staff members are considered as the ultimate authority on many topics. Perhaps is it the human nature to try to build hierarchical structures, even in the flatter environments. But I do not think that is quite right.
A solution to avoid stagnation, foster various leaderships, and plan in case of the worse, is ... to ensure the existence of several parallel nodes of power.
The Foundation is such a node. A VC could be another. A Council of chapters could be a third. Or maybe will it be One chapter. Or a TradeUnion ;-) I do not know yet.
But balances of power can only exist in a multipolar context.
This might be our biggest challenge for the next few years. We can not stay a flat informal organization (as in 2004). We should not stay either a mono-polar bloated organization. And one way to foster the creation of new organization is to kick the new bird out of nest and let it fly by itself.
Ant
PS:want to join the mug party ? http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia.105855895
You will not get a Board that can do that by simply picking the people with the highest edit counts and giving them responsibility over the organization.
I recently suggested prior editing experience and community involvement, and directed my comments towards not only board members but foundation employees. I suggested, and still maintain, that people who do not have this prior experience do not understand the relevant processes at work and, whatever their prior qualifications, are less qualified to serve in these positions than someone who does. Luckily, for now, we have Jimbo, Anthere, yourself and others. This will not always be the case, and I feel that now is the appropriate time to address that issue. Further down the road will not be in time.
I would like the important decisions that are being made on a daily basis by board members and foundation employees to be made by people who understand the global communities. Is it too much to ask that their be an explicit, wikified guiding principle that we will introspect and look within the projects for qualified people before looking outside? To a large degree it obviates much of the worries expressed by the community because the people who are serving are still a part of it and not some external "support" platform.
I was taken aback when I read the new job postings (starting after Sue came in, I believe), and I still am, every time. These are extremely qualified people, but they are complete outsiders. Should they really be making important decisions about something they don't "get," and something that they might never get? Isn't there something missing from the following job description, a qualification that you happen to have, but that foundation employees are increasingly lacking with every new hire? How many of these people is the foundation going to absorb? How detached from the community is it going to become? How can it support the community if it doesn't understand it because most of the people "supporting" it just wanted a job?
*JOB TITLE*
Head of Major Gifts, Wikimedia Foundation
*REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS*
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent required; advanced degree preferred - 7+ years of major gifts experience, preferably in a well-known organization that is active internationally; - Excellent interpersonal communication skills including the ability to persuade, inspire and negotiate with a diverse array of people, primarily verbally - Confident, flexible and outgoing personal style - Experience creating and delivering presentations - Good knowledge of donor pools, trends in giving, prospect research, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship; - Experience with venture philanthropy and/or philanthropy in the technology, education and media sectors, and/or in the Bay Area is helpful; - Comfortable and proficient using a variety of communications and networking tools (e.g., mailing lists, IM, IRC, wikis, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.); - The ability to speak multiple languages is a major plus; - Experience living or working outside the United States is a major plus.
--- On Wed, 4/30/08, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote: <snip WMF job qualifications lack community experience> How can it support the community if it
doesn't understand it because most of the people "supporting" it just wanted a job?
This is so off-base I really don't know where to begin. What mature person "just wants a job"? Do you realize that the large majority of people spend more energy focused on their job than anything outside of their nuclear family? If anyone was hired that only cared to collect a paycheck, they would quit in a month. There are much easier paychecks around. Do you realize the public crap WMF employees get from this list alone? And it must be threefold flowing around the informal blogs and IRC chat rooms floating around that are less public but guaranteed to eventually get back to the subject. It was nearly unbearable for me to have one gossiping troublemaker in an office. I can't imagine what it is like to be exposed to this crap on such widespread forums as WMF employees are. And it is not like they can go on wikibreak when it gets too stressful. This is their *job*. Many of them have moved to a new city and invested in a new life for this career. It is not simple for them to "leave or fork" if things go badly. That means they care a great deal more about all things WMF running smoothly than most of us do. That means they are more likely to sacrifice their personal objectives for the broader operation of WMF.
I wouldn't work for WMF if you tripled my salary. Seriously sometimes people on this list really cross the line of rationality when discussing WMF employees. I don't think half the people who venture to comment on the subject have any clue what it takes to run even a very small office. Employees are not interchangeable robots, and they are not being done any favor to be offered a job by WMF. You don't find people that are willing to put up with this kind of criticism and second guessing on a 24 hour cycle unless they not only believe strongly in the mission but they believe that they can make a positive change in the organization. Anyone that wants to punch in and out and simply do what they are told will take a job where there is only one supervisor evaluating their work. Not where a hundred people evaluate the work and court anyone they believe can act as a supervisor to do something. Only ambitious high-minded sort people that *want* to be a part of this community would go for a career in the WMF.
Birgitte SB
____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
2008/5/1 Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com:
--- On Wed, 4/30/08, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
How can it support the community if it
doesn't understand it because most of the people "supporting" it just wanted a job?
This is so off-base I really don't know where to begin. What mature person "just wants a job"? Do you realize that the large majority of people spend more energy focused on their job than anything outside of their nuclear family? If anyone was hired that only cared to collect a paycheck, they would quit in a month. There are much easier paychecks around. Do you realize the public crap WMF employees get from this list alone? And it must be threefold flowing around the informal blogs and IRC chat rooms floating around that are less public but guaranteed to eventually get back to the subject. It was nearly unbearable for me to have one gossiping troublemaker in an office. I can't imagine what it is like to be exposed to this crap on such widespread forums as WMF employees are. And it is not like they can go on wikibreak when it gets too stressful. This is their *job*. Many of them have moved to a new city and invested in a new life for this career.
Indeed. People don't go to work for small charities (and in this context WMF is a very small charity) for the beer and chicks. They generally take a substantial opportunity cost hit in order to do something for a living that helps the world.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Indeed. People don't go to work for small charities (and in this context WMF is a very small charity) for the beer and chicks. They generally take a substantial opportunity cost hit in order to do something for a living that helps the world.
Hmmm! And I would have thought that Wikipedia would have some of the best chicks with whom to have a beer.
Ec
On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 10:55 PM, Brian Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu wrote:
I would like the important decisions that are being made on a daily basis by board members and foundation employees to be made by people who understand the global communities. Is it too much to ask that their be an explicit, wikified guiding principle that we will introspect and look within the projects for qualified people before looking outside? To a large degree it obviates much of the worries expressed by the community... Isn't there
something missing from the following job
description, a qualification that you happen to have, but that foundation employees are increasingly lacking with every new hire? How many of these people is the foundation going to absorb? How detached from the community is it going to become?
I agree with Birgitte and David that everyone joining the foundation cares deeply about it, and none of them 'just want a job'. That said, Brian, your comments above resonate as well; I think the foundation will do its job best if it makes an effort to find resources within its community, rather than creating a class of staffers who are a few steps further removed from the projects.
Especially when a project becomes sufficiently famous, people who care about it (and want to take it home and hug it and squeeze it and fix it and call it George) may have counterproductive ideas about how to do so, and may also become detached. The WP Review, for instance.
@Mark : thanks for the followup on the practical protection offered by the corporate check of fiduciary duty. which means that bringing experts onto the board because of that legal duty may not be very effective. On the other hand, the honor of being on an important board often is effective. I would suggest that this honor is more effective for community members than for outsiders, with an eye towards keeping the support of the community -- whereas outsiders, even when they are deeply motivated by this honor, then see their goal as keeping the support of the other board members... they have no social stake in the opinion of the community, and want mainly to extend their membership. All of which contributes to inbreeding of Board policymaking, amplifying any founder effects and increasing the likelihood of a synchronized movement in a well-meant but misguided direction.
SJ
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