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Delphine Ménard wrote:
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You will find below a grid of what we think needs to be included in a five year plan for the Wikimedia Foundation. You may fill all parts, or just some, as suits you. You may also give details on how to get there, or not. You're free to say anything that goes through your head. Your ideas should go on this list.
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*Board and management
I imagine that by this time we will probably have a steering committee of some sorts as well as an executive committee, splitting the functions of the Board somewhat - the former is more what normally constitutes a "board", whereas the latter is normally accomplished by the executive officers who we now have begun to (ever-so-slightly) separate from the Board.
The role of President is a semi-steering, semi-executive figure-head one, one which I feel Jimbo would like to fill, and would be involved in both the Board and the Executive Committee (for want of better terms), but would not be the lead in either. The Chair should be a separate, neutral figure (along the lines of European Chairs who are there almost as secretaries, guiding the discussions along and being in charge of their votes). As for membership, as well as the Chair and President (neither of whom would normally 'vote' per se), the Board should have three members directly elected by the general editor population, and a further three appointed there by the chapters collectively. It would have (at least) one paid secretary.
*Staff (the positions, the roles, whether they're paid or not)
The top level of staff would form the Executive Committee - as well as the President, there would be:
* Executive Officer,
The EO would work on general management and co-ordination, as well as major partnerships and co-operation (e.g. with the UN). Under the EO would be a few secretaries to just keep up with all the work they will have.
* Finance Officer,
The FO would be responsible for managing all aspects of the finances, both raising and expending. Under the FO would be the Grants Officer, the Fundraising Officer, and one (or more) professional accountants.
* Internal Communications Officer,
The ICO would be responsible for internal communications, making sure that the top and bottom of organisation all knew what the others were doing, including a massive continuous translation service.
* External Communications Officer,
The ECO would be responsible for external communications - press relations as well as public relations generally.
* Legal Counsel
The LC would deal with legal problems (which we will no doubt have lots of, opportunistic suits, etc. :-(), and would advise the ExCom and the Board. The LC would no doubt have a legal team working under them, possibly an externally contracted-in company like Delphine has suggested.
* Operations Officer,
The OO would be responsible for operations, including development. Under the OO would work the Development Officer and the Hardware Officer.
* Chapter Officer
The CO would co-ordinate with the local chapters. Not sure what this will involve just yet, so I don't know what more to say.
* Research Co-ordination Officer
The RCO would be responsible for helping research, by both internal and external parties, and would work in close partnership with the Operations Officer to effect this (for matters of development research, for example). Possibly would work under the OO instead of along-side, indeed.
* Lobbying Officer
The LO would help the Foundation lobby for freedom of information and press (e.g. against still-further extended copyright laws, or in favour of press freedom, etc.)
*Budget
No idea. Quite possibly vast; a few million Euros a year, certainly.
*Fundraising scheme
Twice-annually there would be a fundraising effort for personal donations, but a large amount of the funding would come from large philanthropic and governmental organisations.
*Philantropic activity and outreach to get our content widely
redistributed
The EO would work with outside agencies (printers, etc.) and distribution organisations to help accomplish our goals with giving the world all the information we can.
*Projects
Hopefully Wikipedia will be recognised as a sub-project of Wikibooks. ;-)
More seriously: maturing of the projects, especially Wikibooks if helped along by environmental improvements, into a much more "natural" project. I don't really see that there would be much scope for further front-end projects.
On the back-end, however, I can foresee a great effort in data-driven projects - a Wikidata-based repository of direct facts that can be then woven into each of the front-end projects in a "live" way - as well as consolidation of our two rather disparate media efforts into one.
*Content objectives
Not sure. We should see where the community takes us, really, and support that, rather than trying to push people towards something specific. Having said that, of course, a Wikipedia 1.0 would be very nice ("sifter"-based, naturally - leverage the power of the community, which is what makes us great, into the venture).
*Software objectives
Broadening of MediaWiki into being not "merely" the best possible article wiki we could have, but also a data- and media- repository and sharing facility.
*Relationship between chapters and parent organisation
The chapters would be involved in purely local matters, of course, but most of their efforts would be devoted to working on international projects organised and led by the Foundation. My view is of quite a centralised system, like the ICRCRC has.
*Relationships with the outside world (PR, partnerships, etc.)
I imagine UNESCO will want to work slowly with us. Certainly, funding would be nice (absolute editorial independence would of course be a cast-iron requirement before any relations were entered into). Others include the EU and the Commonwealth, and I'm sure there are many more international and internationalist pro-education groups out there which would love to give us money, if only we could get to them.
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This is all probably both horribly naïve and unreachable goals, and tremendously unpopular with the rest of you. Ah well. :-)
Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com
==WMF in 5 years== *Board and management The management of the Wikimedia Foundation will show new outlines on how things will be managed. As many of the chapters have grown in prominence and as many have a legal requirement for being independent in many of their activities, the format of the Wikimedia Foundation is becoming more one of a federation. A federation of chapters and projects that share the same ideals and cooperate in realising the shared ideals of bringing information to all people of the world in all languages. The real strength of this federation of Wikimedians can be found in so many efforts on so many levels by so many people all sharing this same sense of purpose already now. For a federation however, we will need clear guidance to ensure it’s continuing existence and growth.
The board is gaining added significance because it is more and more seen as the glue that binds the WMF chapters, projects and communities together. It consists of true citizens of the world and in this it has not changed at all. There is still a lot of talk about how an ideal board should look like but in effect it has not changed much. The stability of the WMF is studied as a management model but it proves quite hard to emulate.
*Staff (the positions, the roles, whether they're paid or not) Even though the WMF relies on its volunteers, there has been an increasing need for the fulfilment of requirements that need full time attention. Some of these roles are part of the WMF some are part of chapters and some are part of projects. As the importance of the role of the WMF as an honest and independent broker in the information society is growing, organisations want the WMF to fulfil roles that the WMF is reluctant to take on. As these roles are defined and as funding is found for the fulfilment of these roles more and more staff will be needed. There is already some discussion if a second person should be hired to manage the ever-increasing number of student projects relating to the Wikimedia Foundations and its projects.
*Budget The budget that the WMF publishes still does not reflect the true amount of money that it takes to actually operate and make things work in the long run. As the WMF is increasingly seen as a partner that helps organisation realise their goals, the WMF becomes increasingly aware of how many costs do not materialise. Next years budget for the WMF and its chapters is estimated to be over 5.000.000 Euro.
*Fundraising scheme Fundraising has two broad goals; there is the need for the continuation of present services and there is the need that is project specific. The scheme of [[Donations: putting your money where your mouth is]] proved a success. Many projects came into being because of this grassroots support. The support for the continuing service is mainly supported by companies, organisations and governments that share our values. There are some that we do not want to cooperate with and this reluctance has made us friends and adversaries.
*Philanthropic activity and outreach to get our content widely redistributed As we are gaining more content in more languages, more DVD schemes like the one premiered for the German Wikipedia are established, these do prove a money spinner and the money earned is used to sponsor the creation of new DVD projects. The foundation is gaining ground in many languages through the cooperation with Universities, much content was realised by providing scholarships for students in return for new encyclopaedic and lexicological content. As the credibility of the Wikimedia Foundation increases, the educational content it provides is becoming increasingly influential. The new educational content published under the aegis of the WMF is characterised by a neutral point of view; this is something that is valued by some and reviled by others.
*Projects The Wikispecies project is fulfilling the early promise after the restart as a Wikidata project, of particular importance was the cooperation on the taxonomy of the Caridea, where it was demonstrated that both the “splitters” and the “lumpers” are of an equal importance to taxonomy. Some projects seem to be increasingly the domain of professionals, however study shows that these professionals have always been there. Being a Wikimedia contributor proves to be increasingly relevant for professional standing.
*Content objectives As we are getting more cooperation with Universities and Standard bodies, we gain more and more resources for inclusion in our databases. The importance of this was shown in the lexicological content where much of the initial data for the less well-known languages came from these sources. An increasing amount of data is available within Wikidata projects; these sometimes however prove divisive because some want to combine data projects while others want to keep them "small and beautiful".
The project that really proved a hit was the WMF version of the 1986 "BBC Domesday Project ", it resulted in over three million pictures of India and some four million pictures of China alone.
*Software objectives. With the increasing specialisation of the projects, there is an increasing need for developers, having a full time liaison person for University grade students proved extremely successful in that the retention rate of developers was over 5%. As the expectations of the look and feel have changed, the content of the projects is becoming increasingly a multi media experience.
*Relationship between chapters and parent organisation. As more chapters are founded, it is increasingly difficult to hard for the chapters to coordinate activities. This need for coordination is however acutely felt. Problematic is that the chapters are not equal; long established chapters have different needs from the more recent chapters, as we assume an organic growth it is not always easy to bridge expectations with reality.
*Relationships with the outside world (PR, partnerships, etc.) As the Wikimedia Foundation becomes more relevant, more organisations seek the cooperation on all kinds of issues. Fortunately the principle of having a neutral point of view was with the WMF from the beginning. This proves to be the guiding principle in deciding whom we want to partner with.
*Other (anything we did not think of) Where to host next years Wikimania, how to find a venue for some 2500 people attending (and press)
*Relationship between projects and the parent organisation. As the communities of the projects outside the Western world are growing, the languages barrier between the WMF and the projects grows. Consequently there is an increasing divergence between the policies of the projects and it becomes more of an effort to ensure that global principles are adhered to.
*Relationship between projects and chapters. Projects are not bound to one country while chapters are. This will result in legal problems. As the communities of projects are autonomous but as it is the chapters who are addressed when there are legal problems, it is important that the independence of the projects is either affirmed or denied.
Thanks, GerardM
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