Although many people do wonderful for Wikimedia and its projects, I would like to formally recognize a few of those people today. Daniel Mayer has had the title of Chief Financial Officer for the last year, and has done some amazing work in this role, often despite being in the difficult situation of not having access to the Foundation's bank account. I would like to invite him to continue in this role for the following year, with the promise of getting him better access to the data, by changing banks if necessary. (Don't get me started about stupid online banking systems!)
In addition, there are a number of positions where it would be extremely useful to the Foundation to have a key person the Board can maintain contact with, and as such, I would like to appoint the following people, subject to them being happy with these positions:
Chief Technical Officer (servers and development): Brion Vibber Hardware Officer: Domas Mituzas Developer Liaison: Jens Frank Chief Research Officer: Erik Möller Grants Coordinator: Danny Wool Press Officer: Elian Lead Legal co-ordination: Jean-Baptiste Soufron
Angela has written some brief descriptions of these roles at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Official_position#New_positions_proposed but the exact tasks are not yet defined, and will more likely become apparent as each of these people makes the role their own.
I would encourage these people to work closely with, and even help to formulate committees within Wikimedia. Sj has made a very good suggestion at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Official_position#Special_Interest_Group... for a number of Special Interest Groups. These appointed positions do not have any special power within any of those groups, but serve as a point of contact to the Board, and to the community, to ensure that information is flowing between all concerned parties within their own fields of expertise. The appointment is a reflection of the work these people are already doing in these areas, and should not be seen as a disincentive to others to become involved. (To the contrary, I hope that formal recognition and appreciation can serve as a further incentive, not that we really need a lot of that since everyone is working so hard already!)
-- Jimbo
These official positions are intended for assisting external collaboration, and for honour and recognition, is that correct? Rather than authority and leadership? Also, people will be allowed to deal with external organisations without an official title, on the same terms that they do now, won't they? That is to say, although certain official positions may carry the power to speak "on behalf of the foundation", that won't inhibit other people from doing various external activities in aid of the foundation, such as Thomas Koll's WikiReader publication, or Erik's collaboration with Kennisnet?
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling wrote:
These official positions are intended for assisting external collaboration, and for honour and recognition, is that correct? Rather than authority and leadership? Also, people will be allowed to deal with external organisations without an official title, on the same terms that they do now, won't they? That is to say, although certain official positions may carry the power to speak "on behalf of the foundation", that won't inhibit other people from doing various external activities in aid of the foundation, such as Thomas Koll's WikiReader publication, or Erik's collaboration with Kennisnet?
wikimedia is a community project - and as such I see these people's roles mostly in coordinating work in one field. It should of course not limit anyone from undertaking anything, it should rather give them someone to speak to (the past has shown that the three people on the board doing the work were often a bit overwhelmed with questions, offers for help/cooperations/approval of such things as the wikireaders etc.).
That's at least how I define my role in this: not writing all press releases myself, but helping to establish press teams in the projects, ensure that they are in contact with each other, that they get the necessary tools for their work, that people get help when they want to organize a wikipedia presentation at their university etc.
greetings, elian
It sounds as though these positions are responsibilities to stay informed and to be available to the Board, as much as they are for 'assisting external collaboration,' which, as Anthere noted, dozens of community members do every month. Let's make sure that explicit community groups form around each of these topics, so that there is also parallel internal collaboration.
When opportunities for external collaboration arise, I hope the points of contact continue to be distributed among those active in that area, to further spread recognition of effort beyond these eight named positions and to avoid overloading anyone.
By the way, we may be slowly countering our own systemic bias, but we are still enormous geeks -- half of the positions are related to technology! And the rest to money, glory, and the Law. Content and usability must fit in somewhere... I suppose those are too fundamental and important to have made the list, rather than too boring and silent. Still, a usability group and a content quality group are much needed; and similar officers would have work enough to stay busy.
-- SJ
On 5/25/05, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
These official positions are intended for assisting external collaboration, and for honour and recognition, is that correct? Rather than authority and leadership? Also, people will be allowed to deal with external organisations without an official title, on the same terms that they do now, won't they? That is to say, although certain official positions may carry the power to speak "on behalf of the foundation", that won't inhibit other people from doing various external activities in aid of the foundation, such as Thomas Koll's WikiReader publication, or Erik's collaboration with Kennisnet?
-- Tim Starling
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Sj a écrit:
It sounds as though these positions are responsibilities to stay informed and to be available to the Board, as much as they are for 'assisting external collaboration,' which, as Anthere noted, dozens of community members do every month. Let's make sure that explicit community groups form around each of these topics, so that there is also parallel internal collaboration.
When opportunities for external collaboration arise, I hope the points of contact continue to be distributed among those active in that area, to further spread recognition of effort beyond these eight named positions and to avoid overloading anyone.
By the way, we may be slowly countering our own systemic bias, but we are still enormous geeks -- half of the positions are related to technology! And the rest to money, glory, and the Law. Content and usability must fit in somewhere... I suppose those are too fundamental and important to have made the list, rather than too boring and silent. Still, a usability group and a content quality group are much needed; and similar officers would have work enough to stay busy.
-- SJ
I am not very convinced. I think the positions selected really stick to the Foundation issues. And it is not the Foundation role imho to get involved with "content" or "quality" or "usability" directly. These are more communities issues. Imho. Well, at least, this is my opinion right now, I could be convinced otherwise.
Ant
On 5/26/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I am not very convinced. I think the positions selected really stick to the Foundation issues. And it is not the Foundation role imho to get involved with "content" or "quality" or "usability" directly. These are more communities issues. Imho.
From the bylaws, as good a starting point as any :
"The goals of the foundation are to encourage the further growth and development of open content, social sofware WikiWiki-based projects (see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge."
"further growth" - why encourage 'further growth', and not just 'growth'? Growth is not merely in size. The projects should continue to find new dimensions in which to grow; in audience and quality and a variety of verbosity levels and more... as well as in breadth and depth.
"and development" - it is not enough for projects to grow, they should also develop in accordance with with other goals. improved interfaces and improved usability, for instance, also improve the ability of the projects to 'provide their contents to the public.'
"social sofware" - (a typo in the original pdf) the social aspects of the project are not incidental to the foundation, but central to its growth and success. Any collection of contact points tasked by the Board with keeping up with developments on the projects should include someone with a sense of how the social aspects of the existing software are working, how users feel about it, and how this can be improved.
As to Chris M's suggestion of an additional government-relations focus, I agree that this subject too merits regular attention, and a few people who attend specifically to keeping up with it. Many governments have subsections devoted to archiving, librarianship, promotion of free knowledge and education, and other goals closely aligned with those of Wiki[mp]edia.
SJ
Sj a écrit:
On 5/26/05, Anthere
anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I am not very convinced. I think the positions selected really stick to the Foundation issues. And it is not the Foundation role imho to get involved with "content" or "quality" or "usability" directly. These are more communities issues. Imho.
From the bylaws, as good a starting point as any :
"The goals of the foundation are to encourage the further growthand development of open content, social sofware WikiWiki-based projects (see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge."
"further growth" - why encourage 'further growth', and not just 'growth'? Growth is not merely in size. The projects should continue to find new dimensions in which to grow; in audience and quality and a variety of verbosity levels and more... as well as in breadth and depth.
"and development" - it is not enough for projects to grow, they should also develop in accordance with with other goals. improved interfaces and improved usability, for instance, also improve the ability of the projects to 'provide their contents to the public.'
"social sofware" - (a typo in the original pdf) the social aspects of the project are not incidental to the foundation, but central to its growth and success. Any collection of contact points tasked by the Board with keeping up with developments on the projects should include someone with a sense of how the social aspects of the existing software are working, how users feel about it, and how this can be improved.
Okay :-)
As to Chris M's suggestion of an additional government-relations focus, I agree that this subject too merits regular attention, and a few people who attend specifically to keeping up with it. Many governments have subsections devoted to archiving, librarianship, promotion of free knowledge and education, and other goals closely aligned with those of Wiki[mp]edia.
SJ
Hmmm, I must have been distracted and missed this. where is this discussion ?
Ant
Tim Starling wrote:
These official positions are intended for assisting external collaboration, and for honour and recognition, is that correct? Rather than authority and leadership?
Hmm, I think that's right, although to me the word "leadership" implies something natural and normal, not imposed, so yes I expect these people to embody qualities of leadership.
You didn't mention "communication", which for me is quite important. One problem we have been having more often lately is that it's hard to know who to talk to, if we want to know what's going on in some area. Having someone be the focal point is hopefully helpful in that regard.
Also, people will be allowed to deal with external organisations without an official title, on the same terms that they do now, won't they? That is to say, although certain official positions may carry the power to speak "on behalf of the foundation", that won't inhibit other people from doing various external activities in aid of the foundation, such as Thomas Koll's WikiReader publication, or Erik's collaboration with Kennisnet?
Absolutely.
--Jimbo
Jimbo,
I accept the appointment as Chief Research Officer, and thank you for your trust, and for this recognition. Given Anthere's posting here on positions that were appointed by you before the Board was created:
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-April/002998.html
.. I would briefly like to ask the rest of the Board to comment on whether they consider these new official positions to be fully valid, i.e. "official" official positions that will be listed on the Foundation website etc. It is my understanding that this appointment reflects an internal agreement of the Board, but it would be nice to have a confirmation of that belief.
As for what exactly Chief Research Officer means, I am working on a more comprehensive proposal for an open (!) Wikimedia Research Team that I will put on Meta later today, and which includes a definition of this role. (The Board is familiar with this proposal.) I will state here in advance that I consider it to be a role that exists *alongside* development and is in no way intended to interfere with the existing software development processes.
As Tim correctly notes, it's important that we're not introducing a new element of authority here, but primarily first points of contact for certain issues. Beyond that, I think the holders of these official positions should take a basic *organizational* role in the fields they are working in, e.g., propose meetings and agendas, though that is certainly also an open process. I also see it as my role to write regular reports, and to build bridges between the Board, other researchers, and the community.
Regarding Sj's earlier arguments, I believe it *is* important that we have titles like these. Giving people a title is free, and it's a nice way to show appreciation, especially when we only have 2 elected members of the community on the Board. It would not be fair to have these two titles, "Vice President of Wikimedia" (Anthere) and "Executive Secretary of Wikimedia" (Angela), while delegating all other users to be mere members of vague "Special Interest Groups" -- this only creates jealousy and friction, not to mention that it overloads these two members of the community. More on this in my Research Team proposal.
All that being said, with the exception of Brion and Chad, Wikimedia is still just a hobby for all of us, including even the trustees. I therefore hope it goes without saying that any time commitments I can give to this may change based on real life requirements. However, I consider this role more important than anything else I've done within Wikimedia, and will shift most of my activities towards it.
I personally consider Wikimedia and the principles for which it stands to be of historical significance. There's more than just the much-cited peer review issues (which I definitely want to work on), and Wikimedia is not just Wikipedia. One of my key goals, in fact, is to help these other ideas to really take off: * to create and distribute free and reliable learning resources on any topic (Wikibooks) * to build a neutral and open news source with citizen reporters around the planet (Wikinews) * to digitize and translate source texts into as many languages as possible (Wikisource) * to define every word in every language (including sign languages) and to make these free dictionaries easy to search, download, use and interface with (Wiktionary) * to build the world's largest repository of useful and free media content, to harness the creative energy of millions to create original videos, photos and artwork for our projects, and to make the whole thing easy to search and use (Wikimedia Commons) * to open up the gigantic field of structured databases to the wiki model, from databases of scientific articles to catalogs of movies and books, from chemical structures to biological taxonomies (Wikidata) * to establish a free, world-wide institution of learning, certification, research and publication that allows anyone to participate (what I call Wikisophia).
Take all this, and everything else we're doing and will be doing, and imagine we succeed in only half of the goals we set for ourselves, and you get an idea how important the whole thing is. It's a massive challenge, but it would be a grave error in judgment not to undertake it.
As Jimmy said in a recent radio interview, "There's no going back." The collaborative model is here to stay. We have the chance to lay the groundwork for the knowldege society of tomorrow. In many ways, we have already done it, but Wikipedia today is merely scratching the surface of what is possible.
I'm too much of a futurist to imagine Wikimedia's technology in 10 or 20 years as recognizable from our perspective today, but the content we are creating, the global community we are building, and the basic organizational framework: these things will continue to exist. I cannot imagine being part of a single more interesting project in the world today.
All best,
Erik
Jimmy Wales wrote:
In addition, there are a number of positions where it would be extremely useful to the Foundation to have a key person the Board can maintain contact with, and as such, I would like to appoint the following people, subject to them being happy with these positions:
Chief Technical Officer (servers and development): Brion Vibber
In case anybody was wondering otherwise, I do humbly accept. :)
Right now I'm engaged primarily in cleaning up MediaWiki 1.5 and readying it for release and use on our servers. Performance testing, bug fixes, final schema tweaks, and of course confirming that the upgrader system works.
Actually taking the new system live will depend on a) it being ready ;) and b) the database servers having sufficient space to work in. Right now our master server Ariel is running very close to full; JeLuF and others on the team are doing excellent work on tweaking things up and setting up the external bulk text storage so we'll have room to manipulate the data tables.
Probably we'll take a weekend to run conversions, a week or two from now. It's not totally clear yet whether we'll have to take everything to read-only during conversion, or if we'll be able to do a wiki at a time without disruption.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org