Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Hey, Can you elaborate what happened? if It's public of course. It's hard to understand the problem without proper context.
Is it https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261133 ?
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 10:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
No, not related in the least. He's probably talking about a recent situation discussed at this ML where a WMF employee at T&S emergency role directed someone complaining of harassment to the AN/I because they thought it was the appropriate venue.
Amir Sarabadani ladsgroup@gmail.com escreveu no dia terça, 25/08/2020 à(s) 22:03:
Hey, Can you elaborate what happened? if It's public of course. It's hard to understand the problem without proper context.
Is it https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261133 ?
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 10:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Amir (he/him) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
În mie., 26 aug. 2020 la 00:03, Amir Sarabadani ladsgroup@gmail.com a scris:
Hey, Can you elaborate what happened? if It's public of course. It's hard to understand the problem without proper context.
The edits are public, but I don't really want to be specific, as that would likely derail the discussion.
The pattern I'm seeing is: team gets a big project (in this case UCoC) -> team hires -> newbie makes good faith edits that are known to cause offense to some members of the community. This pattern can be broken only if the organization has a process to teach newcomers things that seem obvious to old timers ("don't go over community decisions if you can avoid it", "don't change content", "try to talk to people before doing a major change", "not everyone speaks English", "affiliates are not the community" etc.)
My question is: does the WMF has such a process?
Is it https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261133 ?
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 10:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Amir (he/him) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 22:26, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
The pattern I'm seeing is: team gets a big project (in this case UCoC) -> team hires -> newbie makes good faith edits that are known to cause offense to some members of the community.
This is basically always going to happen when new people are onboarded, or, indeed, as people make mistakes. By my observations, this happens a lot less nowadays than it used to. This is anecdotal on my part, but in the absence of any rigorous study of the frequency with which this occurs, this thread as a whole is anecdotal. That's not to say it's not valuable to discuss it, but it's worth bearing that in mind.
This pattern can be broken only if the organization has a process to teach newcomers things that seem obvious to old timers ("don't go over community decisions if you can avoid it", "don't change content", "try to talk to people before doing a major change", "not everyone speaks English", "affiliates are not the community" etc.)
My question is: does the WMF has such a process?
When people are onboarded a lot of this is explained to them, and people are encouraged to reach out to those more experienced with the communities. That people get it wrong occasionally is expected.
Dan
În mie., 26 aug. 2020 la 13:07, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com a scris:
On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 22:26, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
The pattern I'm seeing is: team gets a big project (in this case UCoC) -> team hires -> newbie makes good faith edits that are known to cause offense to some members of the community.
This is basically always going to happen when new people are onboarded, or, indeed, as people make mistakes. By my observations, this happens a lot less nowadays than it used to. This is anecdotal on my part, but in the absence of any rigorous study of the frequency with which this occurs, this thread as a whole is anecdotal. That's not to say it's not valuable to discuss it, but it's worth bearing that in mind.
Thanks for the response Dan!
A rigorous study is IMHO impossible, since we're lacking a rigorous definition of the limits between WMF and community.
This pattern can be broken only if the organization has a process to teach newcomers things that seem obvious to old timers ("don't go over community decisions if you can avoid it", "don't change content", "try to talk to people before doing a major change", "not everyone speaks English", "affiliates are not the community" etc.)
My question is: does the WMF has such a process?
When people are onboarded a lot of this is explained to them, and people are encouraged to reach out to those more experienced with the communities. That people get it wrong occasionally is expected.
OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors? Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
Strainu
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 12:16, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the response Dan!
A rigorous study is IMHO impossible, since we're lacking a rigorous definition of the limits between WMF and community.
Absolutely agreed.
OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors? Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
In my experience, all of the above. What is done exactly depends on the situation, but all of those things you've listed can and do happen, depending on the nature and size of the project, the people involved, and so on. People keep their eye out, through both formal and informal mechanisms, and help out if they think they can.
I don't want to go into specific details, as I'm doing it purely from memory and might misremember things, and things might've changed since I left the WMF two years ago. To be clear, I'm not under any kind of non-disclosure agreement, I just don't want to be inaccurate.
Dan
Dan, you're right, it's a bit of all, formal and informal, and it is important that we keep this process flexible. This allows us to adapt to changing circumstances and a movement which well... moves. :-)
This fiscal year, Talent & Culture (HR) will be working on streamlining the onboarding experience at the Foundation. This is why I joined the Talent & Culture department, to coordinate this project and contribute my Wikimedia experience. One of my mandates is to tackle the piece of onboarding that takes into account our history as a movement, our common failures and successes and the cultural pieces that are at the heart of our relationship with each other (Individuals in the community, Foundation, affiliates, external partners...).
Our movement is complex, and there are no amount of explanations that will portray its richness. I will be working to make sure that new hires at the Foundation know to ask the right questions at the right time and to the right people to minimize errors. Of course, I want to set realistic expectations, this will not happen in a day, nor will it happen in a year only. My goal is to start a process that will change and evolve with time, as does our movement.
If any of you have any questions about how we are working on this, or want to contribute ideas, please talk to me offlist!
Best,
Delphine
Le mer. 26 août 2020 à 14:40, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com a écrit :
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 12:16, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the response Dan!
A rigorous study is IMHO impossible, since we're lacking a rigorous definition of the limits between WMF and community.
Absolutely agreed.
OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors? Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
In my experience, all of the above. What is done exactly depends on the situation, but all of those things you've listed can and do happen, depending on the nature and size of the project, the people involved, and so on. People keep their eye out, through both formal and informal mechanisms, and help out if they think they can.
I don't want to go into specific details, as I'm doing it purely from memory and might misremember things, and things might've changed since I left the WMF two years ago. To be clear, I'm not under any kind of non-disclosure agreement, I just don't want to be inaccurate.
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Maybe you could take on an official historian. Cheers, P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Delphine Ménard Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 19:06 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF
Dan, you're right, it's a bit of all, formal and informal, and it is important that we keep this process flexible. This allows us to adapt to changing circumstances and a movement which well... moves. :-)
This fiscal year, Talent & Culture (HR) will be working on streamlining the onboarding experience at the Foundation. This is why I joined the Talent & Culture department, to coordinate this project and contribute my Wikimedia experience. One of my mandates is to tackle the piece of onboarding that takes into account our history as a movement, our common failures and successes and the cultural pieces that are at the heart of our relationship with each other (Individuals in the community, Foundation, affiliates, external partners...).
Our movement is complex, and there are no amount of explanations that will portray its richness. I will be working to make sure that new hires at the Foundation know to ask the right questions at the right time and to the right people to minimize errors. Of course, I want to set realistic expectations, this will not happen in a day, nor will it happen in a year only. My goal is to start a process that will change and evolve with time, as does our movement.
If any of you have any questions about how we are working on this, or want to contribute ideas, please talk to me offlist!
Best,
Delphine
Le mer. 26 août 2020 à 14:40, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com a écrit :
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 12:16, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the response Dan!
A rigorous study is IMHO impossible, since we're lacking a rigorous definition of the limits between WMF and community.
Absolutely agreed.
OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors? Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
In my experience, all of the above. What is done exactly depends on the situation, but all of those things you've listed can and do happen, depending on the nature and size of the project, the people involved, and so on. People keep their eye out, through both formal and informal mechanisms, and help out if they think they can.
I don't want to go into specific details, as I'm doing it purely from memory and might misremember things, and things might've changed since I left the WMF two years ago. To be clear, I'm not under any kind of non-disclosure agreement, I just don't want to be inaccurate.
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped working at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
1. Often, institutional memory is measured in terms of staff/executive/board turnover; while there has indeed been a very high rate of turnover at times, I would argue that another factor (see #2) is actually more important. 2. An organization can do a great deal, with a well-planned top-down approach, to ensure institutional memory is *generated* and *retained* even if there's a lot of turnover. 3. The main thing that can be done is to ensure that significant events are *debriefed and summarized *("documented") in a way that is clearly and concisely articulated, supported by evidence and logic, and fair to various good faith perspectives. 4. We might call that an "encyclopedic" approach. (The skills required are almost exactly the skills that tend to be cultivated in our Wikipedia volunteer community, as codified in its policies and norms, and learned through practice by its core volunteers.) 5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in terms of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in its history. There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has been done and done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her deputy Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 6. But many events have never been documented with guidance/resourcing/participation by the WMF. It's worthwhile to debrief and summarize both positive and negative experiences. 7. If you don't document positive outcomes, WMF staff may have difficulty replicating that success, because the experience is not widely understood within the WMF (or in the community, etc.) The example foremost in my mind is the 2012 rewrite of the Terms of Use, overseen by then-General Counsel Geoff Brigham. He made changes to his process to leverage the knowledge and experience within the volunteer community, and ended up with a document substantially superior to his initial draft, and that also had the buy-in of many volunteers whose fingerprints were on the final document. (I hope to write this up myself some day; if I ever get around to it, it'll be linked here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_governance . 8. If you don't summarize/debrief negative outcomes, you don't learn in the moment what went wrong (so as to avoid repeating the mistakes), and you leave anybody impacted by the problems (e.g. volunteers) with the impression that you don't care. The example I think of is Superprotect https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect. As the author of a diplomatic letter, signed by more than 1000 people, making straightforward requests of the WMF, I am not too bothered that they didn't do what we requested; but I am very bothered that they never acknowledged the existence of the letter, nor stated which parts of it they agreed/disagreed with, or what motivated the subsequent decisions they did make. (These are things they could still do, even several years later, that would still make a difference.) 9. As any seasoned Wikipedia writer/editor knows, there is an important difference between writing that aims first and foremost to be useful and informative ("encyclopedic"), vs. writing that aims first and foremost to present an organization in a good light, or to advance an agenda ("public relations" or "communications" for an organization). People who excel at one of those types of writing are not always great at doing the other kind; the two types of writing require a different mindset. 10. The kind of writing required to summarize and debrief important events, to create and preserve institutional memory, is (in terms of the ways I defined them above) *encyclopedic* writing. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind person. But I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgment of what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not surprising, if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its own self-knowledge.
If the Board wants to build an organization that learns about its assets (first among them, IMO, is its extensive and passionate volunteer community) and its history, and retains what knowledge it gains, I believe it is entirely within the power of the Board to make that happen. The Board has several tools at its disposal to ensure that kind of outcome. It can make its wishes known through directives and motions passed in its meetings, and it can exert its influence on documents like Annual Plans and budgets.
So, I would argue that if there are observable patterns that the WMF is not doing a great job of retaining institutional memory, and if anybody has the energy to try to change that (I don't), advocating to the Board is the most worthwhile way to bring that about. Anything less, it seems to me, is rather pointless.
-Pete -- [[User:Peteforsyth]]
p.s. If interested, please review my own (work in progress) list of significant events in Wikipedia's history, with links to more detailed information. I'm interested in feedback, additions, or criticism of this list. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_governance
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pete, one thing that I loved about my time at reddit was the existence of a subreddit called “r/museumofreddit”. It was mandatory reading for every new hire on my team and every other team I could convince and it was critical to onboarding me.
It lived to serve just the documentary process that you mention.
Regards, pb
Philippe Beaudette
On Aug 25, 2020, at 6:35 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped working at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
- Often, institutional memory is measured in terms of
staff/executive/board turnover; while there has indeed been a very high rate of turnover at times, I would argue that another factor (see #2) is actually more important. 2. An organization can do a great deal, with a well-planned top-down approach, to ensure institutional memory is *generated* and *retained* even if there's a lot of turnover. 3. The main thing that can be done is to ensure that significant events are *debriefed and summarized *("documented") in a way that is clearly and concisely articulated, supported by evidence and logic, and fair to various good faith perspectives. 4. We might call that an "encyclopedic" approach. (The skills required are almost exactly the skills that tend to be cultivated in our Wikipedia volunteer community, as codified in its policies and norms, and learned through practice by its core volunteers.) 5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in terms of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in its history. There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has been done and done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her deputy Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 6. But many events have never been documented with guidance/resourcing/participation by the WMF. It's worthwhile to debrief and summarize both positive and negative experiences. 7. If you don't document positive outcomes, WMF staff may have difficulty replicating that success, because the experience is not widely understood within the WMF (or in the community, etc.) The example foremost in my mind is the 2012 rewrite of the Terms of Use, overseen by then-General Counsel Geoff Brigham. He made changes to his process to leverage the knowledge and experience within the volunteer community, and ended up with a document substantially superior to his initial draft, and that also had the buy-in of many volunteers whose fingerprints were on the final document. (I hope to write this up myself some day; if I ever get around to it, it'll be linked here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_governance . 8. If you don't summarize/debrief negative outcomes, you don't learn in the moment what went wrong (so as to avoid repeating the mistakes), and you leave anybody impacted by the problems (e.g. volunteers) with the impression that you don't care. The example I think of is Superprotect https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect. As the author of a diplomatic letter, signed by more than 1000 people, making straightforward requests of the WMF, I am not too bothered that they didn't do what we requested; but I am very bothered that they never acknowledged the existence of the letter, nor stated which parts of it they agreed/disagreed with, or what motivated the subsequent decisions they did make. (These are things they could still do, even several years later, that would still make a difference.) 9. As any seasoned Wikipedia writer/editor knows, there is an important difference between writing that aims first and foremost to be useful and informative ("encyclopedic"), vs. writing that aims first and foremost to present an organization in a good light, or to advance an agenda ("public relations" or "communications" for an organization). People who excel at one of those types of writing are not always great at doing the other kind; the two types of writing require a different mindset. 10. The kind of writing required to summarize and debrief important events, to create and preserve institutional memory, is (in terms of the ways I defined them above) *encyclopedic* writing. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind person. But I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgment of what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not surprising, if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its own self-knowledge.
If the Board wants to build an organization that learns about its assets (first among them, IMO, is its extensive and passionate volunteer community) and its history, and retains what knowledge it gains, I believe it is entirely within the power of the Board to make that happen. The Board has several tools at its disposal to ensure that kind of outcome. It can make its wishes known through directives and motions passed in its meetings, and it can exert its influence on documents like Annual Plans and budgets.
So, I would argue that if there are observable patterns that the WMF is not doing a great job of retaining institutional memory, and if anybody has the energy to try to change that (I don't), advocating to the Board is the most worthwhile way to bring that about. Anything less, it seems to me, is rather pointless.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
p.s. If interested, please review my own (work in progress) list of significant events in Wikipedia's history, with links to more detailed information. I'm interested in feedback, additions, or criticism of this list. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_governance
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Thanks Philippe. Funny, the minute I hit "send" I thought of you -- I don't know whether or not it was your idea originally, but the "Wikimedia-Pedia" that was created during the 2010 Strategic Planning process was probably the closest thing I've seen to an organized effort to do this.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 5:25 PM Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me wrote:
Pete, one thing that I loved about my time at reddit was the existence of a subreddit called “r/museumofreddit”. It was mandatory reading for every new hire on my team and every other team I could convince and it was critical to onboarding me.
It lived to serve just the documentary process that you mention.
Regards, pb
Philippe Beaudette
On Aug 25, 2020, at 6:35 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped
working
at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
- Often, institutional memory is measured in terms of
staff/executive/board turnover; while there has indeed been a very high rate of turnover at times, I would argue that another factor (see #2)
is
actually more important. 2. An organization can do a great deal, with a well-planned top-down approach, to ensure institutional memory is *generated* and *retained*
even
if there's a lot of turnover. 3. The main thing that can be done is to ensure that significant events are *debriefed and summarized *("documented") in a way that is clearly and concisely articulated, supported by evidence and logic, and fair to various good faith perspectives. 4. We might call that an "encyclopedic" approach. (The skills required are almost exactly the skills that tend to be cultivated in our
Wikipedia
volunteer community, as codified in its policies and norms, and learned through practice by its core volunteers.) 5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in
terms
of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in its
history.
There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has been done
and
done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Re...
. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her
deputy
Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 6. But many events have never been documented with guidance/resourcing/participation by the WMF. It's worthwhile to
debrief
and summarize both positive and negative experiences. 7. If you don't document positive outcomes, WMF staff may have difficulty replicating that success, because the experience is not
widely
understood within the WMF (or in the community, etc.) The example
foremost
in my mind is the 2012 rewrite of the Terms of Use, overseen by then-General Counsel Geoff Brigham. He made changes to his process to leverage the knowledge and experience within the volunteer community,
and
ended up with a document substantially superior to his initial draft,
and
that also had the buy-in of many volunteers whose fingerprints were on
the
final document. (I hope to write this up myself some day; if I ever get around to it, it'll be linked here <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_g...
. 8. If you don't summarize/debrief negative outcomes, you don't learn in the moment what went wrong (so as to avoid repeating the mistakes),
and you
leave anybody impacted by the problems (e.g. volunteers) with the impression that you don't care. The example I think of is Superprotect https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect. As the author of a diplomatic letter, signed by more than 1000 people, making
straightforward
requests of the WMF, I am not too bothered that they didn't do what we requested; but I am very bothered that they never acknowledged the existence of the letter, nor stated which parts of it they
agreed/disagreed
with, or what motivated the subsequent decisions they did make. (These
are
things they could still do, even several years later, that would still
make
a difference.) 9. As any seasoned Wikipedia writer/editor knows, there is an important difference between writing that aims first and foremost to be useful
and
informative ("encyclopedic"), vs. writing that aims first and foremost
to
present an organization in a good light, or to advance an agenda
("public
relations" or "communications" for an organization). People who excel
at
one of those types of writing are not always great at doing the other
kind;
the two types of writing require a different mindset. 10. The kind of writing required to summarize and debrief important events, to create and preserve institutional memory, is (in
terms
of the ways I defined them above) *encyclopedic* writing. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind
person. But
I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgment of what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not
surprising,
if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its
own
self-knowledge.
If the Board wants to build an organization that learns about its assets (first among them, IMO, is its extensive and passionate volunteer community) and its history, and retains what knowledge it gains, I
believe
it is entirely within the power of the Board to make that happen. The
Board
has several tools at its disposal to ensure that kind of outcome. It can make its wishes known through directives and motions passed in its meetings, and it can exert its influence on documents like Annual Plans
and
budgets.
So, I would argue that if there are observable patterns that the WMF is
not
doing a great job of retaining institutional memory, and if anybody has
the
energy to try to change that (I don't), advocating to the Board is the
most
worthwhile way to bring that about. Anything less, it seems to me, is rather pointless.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
p.s. If interested, please review my own (work in progress) list of significant events in Wikipedia's history, with links to more detailed information. I'm interested in feedback, additions, or criticism of this list. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_g...
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
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Credit for that goes to the inestimable Eugene Eric Kim and the hundreds of Wikimedians who contributed to it. It still exists I believe, at strategy.wikimedia.org.
Regards, pb
Philippe Beaudette philippe.beaudette@icloud.com
On Aug 25, 2020, at 7:32 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Philippe. Funny, the minute I hit "send" I thought of you -- I don't know whether or not it was your idea originally, but the "Wikimedia-Pedia" that was created during the 2010 Strategic Planning process was probably the closest thing I've seen to an organized effort to do this.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 5:25 PM Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me wrote:
Pete, one thing that I loved about my time at reddit was the existence of a subreddit called “r/museumofreddit”. It was mandatory reading for every new hire on my team and every other team I could convince and it was critical to onboarding me.
It lived to serve just the documentary process that you mention.
Regards, pb
Philippe Beaudette
On Aug 25, 2020, at 6:35 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped
working
at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
- Often, institutional memory is measured in terms of
staff/executive/board turnover; while there has indeed been a very high rate of turnover at times, I would argue that another factor (see #2)
is
actually more important. 2. An organization can do a great deal, with a well-planned top-down approach, to ensure institutional memory is *generated* and *retained*
even
if there's a lot of turnover. 3. The main thing that can be done is to ensure that significant events are *debriefed and summarized *("documented") in a way that is clearly and concisely articulated, supported by evidence and logic, and fair to various good faith perspectives. 4. We might call that an "encyclopedic" approach. (The skills required are almost exactly the skills that tend to be cultivated in our
Wikipedia
volunteer community, as codified in its policies and norms, and learned through practice by its core volunteers.) 5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in
terms
of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in its
history.
There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has been done
and
done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Re...
. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her
deputy
Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 6. But many events have never been documented with guidance/resourcing/participation by the WMF. It's worthwhile to
debrief
and summarize both positive and negative experiences. 7. If you don't document positive outcomes, WMF staff may have difficulty replicating that success, because the experience is not
widely
understood within the WMF (or in the community, etc.) The example
foremost
in my mind is the 2012 rewrite of the Terms of Use, overseen by then-General Counsel Geoff Brigham. He made changes to his process to leverage the knowledge and experience within the volunteer community,
and
ended up with a document substantially superior to his initial draft,
and
that also had the buy-in of many volunteers whose fingerprints were on
the
final document. (I hope to write this up myself some day; if I ever get around to it, it'll be linked here <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_g...
. 8. If you don't summarize/debrief negative outcomes, you don't learn in the moment what went wrong (so as to avoid repeating the mistakes),
and you
leave anybody impacted by the problems (e.g. volunteers) with the impression that you don't care. The example I think of is Superprotect https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Superprotect. As the author of a diplomatic letter, signed by more than 1000 people, making
straightforward
requests of the WMF, I am not too bothered that they didn't do what we requested; but I am very bothered that they never acknowledged the existence of the letter, nor stated which parts of it they
agreed/disagreed
with, or what motivated the subsequent decisions they did make. (These
are
things they could still do, even several years later, that would still
make
a difference.) 9. As any seasoned Wikipedia writer/editor knows, there is an important difference between writing that aims first and foremost to be useful
and
informative ("encyclopedic"), vs. writing that aims first and foremost
to
present an organization in a good light, or to advance an agenda
("public
relations" or "communications" for an organization). People who excel
at
one of those types of writing are not always great at doing the other
kind;
the two types of writing require a different mindset. 10. The kind of writing required to summarize and debrief important events, to create and preserve institutional memory, is (in
terms
of the ways I defined them above) *encyclopedic* writing. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind
person. But
I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgment of what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not
surprising,
if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its
own
self-knowledge.
If the Board wants to build an organization that learns about its assets (first among them, IMO, is its extensive and passionate volunteer community) and its history, and retains what knowledge it gains, I
believe
it is entirely within the power of the Board to make that happen. The
Board
has several tools at its disposal to ensure that kind of outcome. It can make its wishes known through directives and motions passed in its meetings, and it can exert its influence on documents like Annual Plans
and
budgets.
So, I would argue that if there are observable patterns that the WMF is
not
doing a great job of retaining institutional memory, and if anybody has
the
energy to try to change that (I don't), advocating to the Board is the
most
worthwhile way to bring that about. Anything less, it seems to me, is rather pointless.
-Pete
[[User:Peteforsyth]]
p.s. If interested, please review my own (work in progress) list of significant events in Wikipedia's history, with links to more detailed information. I'm interested in feedback, additions, or criticism of this list. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Peteforsyth/governance#Organizational_g...
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 1:52 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory, with the T&S team taking center stage. It's not really important what they did wrong, it's minor compared with other faux-pas they did in the past.
I was wondering though if the organization as a whole has learned anything from major crisis in the past and if there is a formal way of passing to newcomers information such as when and how to contact communities, what's the difference between a wiki, a community and an affiliate etc.?
Strainu
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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On 8/25/2020 4:34 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped working at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in terms of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in its history. There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has been done and done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Residence_program>. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her deputy Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire the WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kind person. But I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgment of what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not surprising, if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to its own self-knowledge.
I want to react to a couple of Pete's points here. First, as to the closing point, I think it overrates the effect of the individual Executive Director/CEO on what are, after all, institutional and collective processes. While I recognize the importance of the role in heading the organization, that person may try to shape the overall culture, but they are not really the source of it. Just consider what transpired between the two Executive Directors mentioned above; while that was a difficult time and the organizational culture suffered significantly, I would argue that the underlying culture at the community/staff/"grassroots" level is what forced the organization to reconsider and change directions. Organizational culture determines how institutional memory is transmitted, and simultaneously that memory becomes part of the culture and shapes it.
Pete also offers much good advice about maintaining institutional knowledge, but I think it's a mistaken dichotomy to view two different modes of presenting information ("encyclopedic" and "communications") as if they are conflicting philosophies rather than merely separate skillsets. People can have both, or value both even when their personal skills are stronger in one or the other. To the extent the Wikimedia Foundation struggles to have an encyclopedic approach to institutional memory, frankly that problem is nearly universal among organizations. It's less the background of a particular leader than the general emphasis on "getting things done" over documenting what was done, how, and why.
Going back to the earlier point, it's good to recognize Sue and Erik's leadership in an assessment that can serve as a positive model. With respect to encouraging a more "encyclopedic" approach, I think it's worth observing that from a conventional organizational leadership perspective, Erik was a pretty nontraditional choice for the deputy role (and even a sometimes controversial figure within the community). Nevertheless, he and Sue made an excellent pairing in their roles, and he was an important part of ensuring that the organization understood and valued the community, its culture, and the "encyclopedic" approach. I believe this illustrates why it's important for the Wikimedia Foundation to continue valuing experience in the community for all of its hiring, so that the staff can maintain a culture that stays in sync with the movement. It's less about one or two specific leadership positions, and more that every Wikimedia ED/CEO needs to surround themselves with a variety of people who bring different pieces of institutional memory with them.
--Michael Snow
Institutional memory and Institutional knowledge are two subtle and unique characteristics, sharing knowledge is what we are supposed to be good at yet internally its our biggest weakness. The WMF would do well to have a "historian" on staff to document and maintain our movements' history. Internally it is the responsibility of the human resources department to ensure that the knowledge required and collected in any position is captured and then transferred appropriately as people and positions change.
One issue we have is that a very significant amount of our Institution knowledge is held by volunteers that knowledge is held closely as it builds their reputation while creating a power base that gives them leverage for special opportunities. Its difficult to get volunteers to willingly hand over knowledge that makes them special and able to stand out. Part of that is ensuring that at least WMF staff are able to connect directly with a wider selection of the community at events, and why its so important that conduits of knowledge are broadly dispersed beyond just these gatekeepers.
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 09:11, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
On 8/25/2020 4:34 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite a lot since I stopped
working
at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth considering:
5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much interms
of thorough encyclopedic documentation of important events in itshistory.
There have been exceptions, and I believe that where it has beendone and
done well, much good has come of it. The best example of this, in my opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence program <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_Re...
. This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her
deputy
Erik Möller, who participated actively in it. Specific programmatic improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome. 11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admirethe
WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is highly skilled, and a kindperson. But
I am continually surprised that there has been little acknowledgmentof
what the board did by hiring her, and the direction the WMF has (unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in communications. I would urge others to consider that it is notsurprising,
if an organization is guided by an executive with a Communications background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach toits own
self-knowledge.I want to react to a couple of Pete's points here. First, as to the closing point, I think it overrates the effect of the individual Executive Director/CEO on what are, after all, institutional and collective processes. While I recognize the importance of the role in heading the organization, that person may try to shape the overall culture, but they are not really the source of it. Just consider what transpired between the two Executive Directors mentioned above; while that was a difficult time and the organizational culture suffered significantly, I would argue that the underlying culture at the community/staff/"grassroots" level is what forced the organization to reconsider and change directions. Organizational culture determines how institutional memory is transmitted, and simultaneously that memory becomes part of the culture and shapes it.
Pete also offers much good advice about maintaining institutional knowledge, but I think it's a mistaken dichotomy to view two different modes of presenting information ("encyclopedic" and "communications") as if they are conflicting philosophies rather than merely separate skillsets. People can have both, or value both even when their personal skills are stronger in one or the other. To the extent the Wikimedia Foundation struggles to have an encyclopedic approach to institutional memory, frankly that problem is nearly universal among organizations. It's less the background of a particular leader than the general emphasis on "getting things done" over documenting what was done, how, and why.
Going back to the earlier point, it's good to recognize Sue and Erik's leadership in an assessment that can serve as a positive model. With respect to encouraging a more "encyclopedic" approach, I think it's worth observing that from a conventional organizational leadership perspective, Erik was a pretty nontraditional choice for the deputy role (and even a sometimes controversial figure within the community). Nevertheless, he and Sue made an excellent pairing in their roles, and he was an important part of ensuring that the organization understood and valued the community, its culture, and the "encyclopedic" approach. I believe this illustrates why it's important for the Wikimedia Foundation to continue valuing experience in the community for all of its hiring, so that the staff can maintain a culture that stays in sync with the movement. It's less about one or two specific leadership positions, and more that every Wikimedia ED/CEO needs to surround themselves with a variety of people who bring different pieces of institutional memory with them.
--Michael Snow
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Michael, thank you for weighing in. Your background in the movement and perspective is unique and valuable. (For those who don't know, Michael was an early WMF board chair, and also the founder of the Signpost newspaper.)
I'll respond to everybody in this thread, but I want to start with Michael's comments.
On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 6:11 PM Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
I think [Pete's closing point] overrates the effect of the individual Executive Director/CEO on what are, after all, institutional and collective processes. While I recognize the importance of the role in heading the organization, that person may try to shape the overall culture, but they are not really the source of it.
This is a valid point, but I was trying to look at this from a broad perspective. I think the source of any dissonance is this:
Institutional memory is important BOTH to staff of WMF, AND to the volunteer community.
I think both you and I, Michael, have blurred these two issues to some degree. It would be possible for (a) WMF to fully and privately document the relevant history (which could be a function of top-down leadership and/or staff culture), and for (b) volunteers to fully and publicly document relevant history (growing out of volunteer culture, presumably with some input from staff). To some degree this already happens. It would be worthwhile to discuss the possible benefits, and the possible design, of a system that facilitates those things happening in a mutually supportive, or even merged way; I expect you and I have probably both explored that to some degree in the past. But, getting into that would substantially expand the scope of the present discussion, and I'm not going to assume we, or anyone, want to go there right now.
In my message, I was only addressing the WMF's *institutional* memory (a).
Just consider what
transpired between the two Executive Directors mentioned above; while that was a difficult time and the organizational culture suffered significantly, I would argue that the underlying culture at the community/staff/"grassroots" level is what forced the organization to reconsider and change directions.
Well, this illustrates the point I was making rather nicely: In order to consider it, wouldn't it be nice to have an existing summary or two of facts that allowed you and me to assess whether or not we share an understanding of the facts, and permitted those unfamiliar with the facts to catch up and follow what we're saying? (Maybe that exists, to some degree, in the form of the volunteer-built Knowledge Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Engine_(Wikimedia_Foundation) article on English Wikipedia. But for many other topics, that are vitally important to our history but have not attracted independent journalistic inquiry, we have no such Wikipedia article.)
WMF staff actually attempted to do much of that at the time. The transparency gap https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap page on Meta Wiki was started by WMF staff. I think it's an excellent example that a unified "culture" of the staff and volunteer community has often existed, and can produce valuable documents. But as far as I could tell, it has never attracted significant notice from the WMF board or executives. If there were directed outcomes from this body of work, in terms of changing the policies or high-level practices of the organization, I'm not aware of them.
Grassroots efforts are valuable (which in general is why most of us are here), but when it comes to an organization like the WMF, much of their value is only realized when they are recognized, and used as the foundation for policy changes, at the board or executive level.
<snip>
Pete also offers much good advice about maintaining institutional knowledge, but I think it's a mistaken dichotomy to view two different modes of presenting information ("encyclopedic" and "communications") as if they are conflicting philosophies rather than merely separate skillsets.
My apologies if I gave that impression. I agree with you 100% that the skills are not mutually exclusive. As I have written about extensively elsewhere, I think the Wikimedia community often mistakenly sees this issue as more black-and-white than it is.
Still, I think the distinction is significant, and it does surprise me that a community that is often so deeply opposed to communications and public relations activities *outside* its own world (influencing corporate Wikipedia articles, etc.) can be so blasé about these dynamics when it comes to the Wikimedia Foundation itself. For instance, in 2017 Tony1 and I wrote a Signpost article about WMF hiring a reputation management firm in the early planning of its strategy process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-06/In_focus. That story, to which I devoted far more attention to the research and writing than much of my other Signpost work, attracted comparatively little interest. (Admittedly though, I think everyone trying to attract the community's interest to strategic matters has found it challenging.)
<snip>To the extent the Wikimedia
Foundation struggles to have an encyclopedic approach to institutional memory, frankly that problem is nearly universal among organizations. It's less the background of a particular leader than the general emphasis on "getting things done" over documenting what was done, how, and why.
Many organizations are designed to be financially competitive, and must focus on "getting things done" in service to that goal. I think we all take some pride that the Wikimedia movement has created a different kind of reality. But the WMF has not fully leveraged that advantage.
I would argue that in many cases, the urgency of the WMF of "getting things done" on a certain schedule (Vector, Visual Editor, Media Viewer, Echo, etc.) has actually set the organization and the movement back (even in cases where the underlying software was highly beneficial), while documenting the lessons of those efforts carefully would yield substantial benefits to both the community and the organization. That is a choice of the organization's *leadership* on whether to direct resources toward accomplishing technical vs. social goals. My argument is, that choice (which has been more or less continuous for ~15 years) has always been a mistake.
Going back to the earlier point, it's good to recognize Sue and Erik's leadership in an assessment that can serve as a positive model.
<snip>
I'm going to respectfully decline to further discuss this aspect. I like and admire everyone under discussion in this thread, but liking and admiring someone is not the same thing as agreeing with every one of their decisions. I prefer to talk about the decisions, not the people deciding. My comment on all the executives discussed here is pretty much the same: they've done some good things, and some things that have been harmful. I'm sure the same could be said of my own career, and most people. I'm not looking to dig into all that.
Gnangarra, your suggestion of a staff historian is worthwhile, but I think that approach also has drawbacks; if the function of documenting experiences is relegated to distinct staff or departments, it makes it easy for the rest of staff to pay little attention to the practice. I'd advise working careful debrief and post mortem practices into the work of all departments, rather than hiring separately. (But I suppose you could also do both.)
In fact (and Delphine may be interested in this as well), the challenges of separating the function were visible in a consulting engagement I had with WMF in about 2012. The then-Talent & Culture executive hired my company to design a program around onboarding and institutional memory. We did all the preliminary work, but when the time came when active participation of various WMF staff was necessary, the executive was unable to get that participation. We had to end the engagement. (Others here may have a different perspective on that, of course; I wasn't in direct touch with staff beyond Talent & Culture about it.)
Finally, Delphine, I am pleased to learn that you have been hired to do this work! Your history in the movement and your strong understanding of community dynamics will surely serve the WMF well. My experience suggests that your job involves moving mountains, but if anyone can do it, I have faith in you. I wish you the best.
Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
Correction:
It's been pointed out that I erred in two significant ways when discussing Katherine's background: Prior to becoming CEO, she was Chief Communications Officer, which is a more senior position than the one I named; and, where I said that prior to her time at WMF her career was "largely in communications," I was simply mistaken. Her background is covered in her Wikipedia bio, and is indeed quite varied.
I regret both of those errors.
Pete
This is the sort of information that should be in the official history. Cheers, P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pete Forsyth Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2020 22:37 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Institutional memory @ WMF
Correction:
It's been pointed out that I erred in two significant ways when discussing Katherine's background: Prior to becoming CEO, she was Chief Communications Officer, which is a more senior position than the one I named; and, where I said that prior to her time at WMF her career was "largely in communications," I was simply mistaken. Her background is covered in her Wikipedia bio, and is indeed quite varied.
I regret both of those errors.
Pete
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I just want to comment on one particular point made by Pete.
On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 8:27 PM Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Institutional memory is important BOTH to staff of WMF, AND to the volunteer community.
I think both you and I, Michael, have blurred these two issues to some degree. It would be possible for (a) WMF to fully and privately document the relevant history (which could be a function of top-down leadership and/or staff culture), and for (b) volunteers to fully and publicly document relevant history (growing out of volunteer culture, presumably with some input from staff).
Whereas this is correct as a general statement, in practice, volunteers
can not document the institutional history. This documentation can not be a bottom-up process similar to writing a Wikipedia article. For a very simple reason: There are many viewpoints at every particular event, and the documentation of volunteers will inevitably reflect one of the points. Sure, one person can write an analysis of a particular incident from their point of view, or even a book on the history of Wikipedia. This person can be a knowledgeable volunteer having general trust of the community or it could be a user under a site ban. However, a collective product will inevitably face the necessity of choice. In writing a Wikipedia article, we use reliable sources to select material (and when reliable sources clash, we usually face a disaster). Here, we are talking about the events which no reliable sources describe in detail. An organization can document them on a basis of performed investigation. A single person can document them on the basis of their memory and experience. But I do not see how any grassroot collaboration could be possible here. Any attempt to document these things from the volunteer side would lead to projects similar to V-ocracy (which already happened in some languages).
Best regards Yaroslav
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The Wikimedia-pedia [1] is a treasure, thank you Philippe for linking! I'd love to see this content migrated to a public wiki, where maybe it can come to life again.
Nearly every time I'm involved in onboarding, I find a chance to mention the Visual Editor rollout, Wikimedia's origins and the Foundation's transformation away from being a membership organization, and other formative episodes from our rich history. It's great to see this historical enculturation process explicitly called out, I support any efforts to write about our history.
However, it would be a mistake to hire an official WMF staff historian, there's a clear conflict of interest. Even the most conscientious staff historian would have strong motivations to accomplish organizational goals ("spin"), and would be less likely to cover embarrassing bits such as the wiki first emerging from under a porn company. But maybe we can still get professional help, for example through an external grant funding an editor-in-residence?
- [[mw:User:Adamw]]
(Views here are my own and do not represent my employer, WMDE.)
Adam writes:
“The Wikimedia-pedia [1] is a treasure, thank you Philippe for linking! I'd love to see this content migrated to a public wiki, where maybe it can come to life again.”
Not-terribly-secretly, Eugene and I had always hoped that this section of the deliverables would continue to be updated and would then be useful for the next strategy design process. Obviously, once the wiki was locked, that ceased to be an option without moving/transcluding/transmogrifying/something-scary-sounding the content somewhere else. I’ve always thought that was a great loss.
Philippe
On 8/25/20 10:51 PM, Strainu wrote:
It seems the WMF is going through another crisis of institutional memory
I think I see where you're coming from, and I appreciate the generous turn away from individuals and towards potential structural problems. Whatever the latest incident was, we can assume good faith and find constructive ways to prevent it from happening again.
Still, it's strange to see this thread veer into "onboarding" and building up an archive of knowledge and experiences. These are important topics, perennial even, but I feel it totally misses the point of the incident itself.
As a service organization potentially liable for content stored on their infrastructure, it makes sense that the WMF would have a large team dedicated to threats of physical harm like terrorism, suicide. It also makes sense that they wouldn't invest explicitly in the emotional well-being of editors and mediating interpersonal problems.
Perhaps we shouldn't expect this of an organization not ultimately accountable to the editors? No amount of onboarding can change the Foundation's corporate Bylaws or the fact that it owns the trademarks whose value is based on editor labor. Perhaps if we had a membership organization instead, which would have to report to the editors and justify its progress on initiatives directly voted on by its members...
Just my usual 2 cents! -[[mw:User:Adamw]]
(Views here are my own and do not represent my employer, WMDE.)
A few responses in random order:
OK, but how is this done precisely? Are there written docs? Mentors? Is cross-team help common? Or is this kept at the anecdotal level ("oh yeah, you should also keep in mind..." )?
In my experience, all of the above
That doesn't sound so good. For me, it means 2 things: 1. There is no uniform approach to onboarding re community collaboration. 2. Some teams choose to keep it anecdotal
Perhaps we shouldn't expect this of an organization not ultimately accountable to the editors? No amount of onboarding can change the Foundation's corporate Bylaws or the fact that it owns the trademarks whose value is based on editor labor. Perhaps if we had a membership organization instead, which would have to report to the editors and justify its progress on initiatives directly voted on by its members...
I'm afraid that changing the "ownership model" wouldn't help much. It's highly unlikely that the WMF, regardless of who they respond to, will find employees with adequate experience and a willingness to work for them only within the community. That means that they will still need to address the onboarding part and implicitly the documentation task.
Our movement is complex, and there are no amount of explanations that will portray its richness. I will be working to make sure that new hires at the Foundation know to ask the right questions at the right time and to the right people to minimize errors. Of course, I want to set realistic expectations, this will not happen in a day, nor will it happen in a year only. My goal is to start a process that will change and evolve with time, as does our movement.
Delphine, it's great to hear that someone with a lot of community experience is taking on this task. Obviously mistakes will never go away completely, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results of your work. I just hope you have some measure of success in mind, it would be a pity to evaluate the program based on wikimedia-l feedback. :)
If any of you have any questions about how we are working on this, or want to contribute ideas, please talk to me offlist!
I think documenting the process should be part of the process :) That way it can be replicated or adapted by other organizations with similar growth pains.
Strainu
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