please could you unsubscribe me. thank you esther fiteni
From: foundation-l-request@wikimedia.org Reply-To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: foundation-l Digest, Vol 26, Issue 50 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 20:00:30 +0000
Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to foundation-l@wikimedia.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to foundation-l-request@wikimedia.org
You can reach the person managing the list at foundation-l-owner@wikimedia.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of foundation-l digest..."
Today's Topics:
- Re: Where we are headed (Samuel Klein)
- Re: Where we are headed (Ray Saintonge)
- Re: Wikimedia main office (Daniel Mayer)
- Re: Where we are headed (Gavin Chait)
- Re: Catalan Wikinews set up (Arbeo M)
- Re: Where we are headed (Jimmy Wales)
- Re: Wikimedia main office (Ray Saintonge)
- Re: Wikimedia main office (Ray Saintonge)
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:02:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: Pine.LNX.4.64.0605292200340.31303@hcs.harvard.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset="x-unknown"
On Tue, 30 May 2006, Anthere wrote:
Jimbo says
"... nous souhaitons g?n?rer une version ? stable ? des articles, v?rifi?e et approuv?e par des experts sur le sujet, tout en maintenant la possibilit? de le modifier. Il est hors de question de demander aux b?n?voles de faire le plus gros du travail, et de demander ? un expert de peaufiner le rest."
Translation
"We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and approved by experts on the topic, whilst keeping the option of modification of the article. It is excluded to ask volunteers to do most of the bulk work, and to ask to an expert to just take care of the polishing".
What was meant here ?
I don't know, but experts are volunteers too, something most of the world constantly forgets. We need a list of contributors who are experts -- divided into those who contribute in their field of expertise, and those who avoid that like the plague.
Sj
Message: 2 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 21:44:48 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 447BCDC0.3020903@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Gavin Chait wrote:
The most immediate concern for the Wiki Foundation is less the idea of an office with furniture and windows, or even the difficulties of collaboration, mostly it is continuity.
At the moment the founders are involved. They have an idea of what they want and how to achieve that. There are now thousands of regular contributors who are influencing that direction. There are millions of occasional contributors who muddy the edges. How do you ensure
continuity?
This is a question with profound implications. Accomodating these segments of our society without losing focus is no trivial problem.
One of the first development organisations I worked in 15 years ago was a student-run endeavour at the University of Cape Town. Every year
hundreds
of students volunteer and contribute to different projects. Each project
is
run by older students. Continuity is difficult where students graduate
and
leave each year. Sometimes entire projects vanish when the students who know how to run them fail to come back.
Students enrolled in a programme of finite duration are more likely to make provision for their successors. If a project vanishes when they leave maybe it has outlived its value. Our senior people are here for an indefinite period, and may find it more difficult to envision their project mortality.
The solution was to employ a small band of professionals whose task is to make sure that projects are properly budgeted and accounted for, keep
track
of how the different projects interact, and ensure that the overall
emphasis
of the organisation remains focused. The professionals ensure
consistency
while the volunteers contribute fresh ideas, fresh thinking, new
directions
and lots of enthusiasm.
It has worked well for more than 50 years for this organisation.
Offices are far less important than continuity. And the more you rely on volunteers, the more important it is to have a solid base of
professionals -
where-ever they may be.
Your conclusion is well taken. But before this can happen there needs to be a fundamental understanding about the role of the professional and the role of the volunteer. Larry Sanger was good for Wikipedia at the time that he was here, but someone like him would be totally unsuitable to the present circumstances. Decisions often _must_ be made without waiting around debating like the Paris Commune. The questions that then arise are What do we want our professional to do? What do we want him not to do?
Ec
Message: 3 Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 22:02:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 20060530050209.7068.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
--- Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
What you seem to forget is that Wikipedia's strength rests with its amateurs. While there may be evident need for some amount of administrative staff it is as important to avoid pretensions of being
a
professional organization. If you look at staff as an investment you are assuming an economic model that runs contrary to Wikipedia's free nature.
But you can also make the case that getting professionals to do the work that needs to be done (legal, finance, fundraising, etc.) offloads those tasks so that the "strength of the amateurs" can be more productively tapped and scaled up to keep Wikipedia evolving in what it does best.
Exactly. The amateur model just does not scale well *at all* for the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia and the other wikis are a different matter). I, for example, am an amateur when it comes to finance. My day job and education have nothing to do with it. And yet I'm the CFO. Which may have been fine when Wikipedia was a top 500 website and had a small budget, but not now.
I'm a quick learner and always have been able to handle widely varied responsibilities that require different skill sets (thus my ability, with the help of the Wikimedia treasurer who does have the relevant experience and training, to perform in my role), but there simply is a limit to what I can do; both from a time perspective (I can only devote an hour or two - at most - a day to this) AND, perhaps more importantly, from an experience/education perspective.
That is why I've had a standing letter of resignation that will go into effect once the foundation finally gets around to hiring a properly qualified finance director.
The foundation is not a wiki. It needs to grow up.
-- mav
Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Message: 4 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 09:46:26 +0200 From: "Gavin Chait" gchait@gmx.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 003e01c683c0$1ccaa580$7a7219c4@nowdomore Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original
Continuity is less about individuals than it is about systems and the organisation of information.
This means that the system must be defined. Definition does not imply limitation. It is important to know how new projects are organised, run and scrutinised without declaring what they should be. How far one goes with the hierarchy is also important. Are different language versions or large sub-projects of a common project different projects? Many "embarrassing" moments have come out of English content wikis. How many potential pitfalls are waiting in other languages? How feasible is it to have language experts for each of the wikis? Recognising limitations inherent in the system is also important - these should be declared.
The professional project manager can still be a volunteer. There are large numbers of astonishingly talented people willing to work for free for causes they believe in. The difference between a volunteer and a "professional" is not about paid / unpaid it is about the time dedicated to a project and their accountability. Some projects are large enough to require full-time commitment. Project managers must accept this and be responsible. Not all the things that need doing are glamorous.
Project management may not be about content generation alone. It is also about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and answerable to the organisation at large. If something goes wrong, they must sort it out immediately and understand and report back on how it happened. They are also there to find their own successor.
There must be a project log, and project manual that details exactly how things are done (thus ensuring a consistent approach). Clearly the manual can evolve but it must be the DNA for the project.
A simple project blog or mailing list isn't good enough since the quantity of information produced (and the various diversions it follows) makes rapid decision making impossible. In reality, each project needs its own moderated (and access limited) wiki where the basics are paired down: how things are done, daily / weekly / monthly ... tasks, etc. At the moment projects may be run by the person who started them or someone one or two iterations away. What happens in 50 years?
The organisation itself requires a similar approach with a slightly larger set of responsibilities: PR, legal, accounting, admin and an overall director. These are the trappings of any formal development organisation. Having them doesn't limit the activity of the volunteers, it is simply a responsible way of handling information generated by the organisation.
The director also needs feedback and that will come from your board.
Each of the tasks can be defined and each of the roles can be filled. A mechanism for recruiting and training new people to fill each task is much more straightforward when you know exactly what that task is.
I would imagine that a simple flow could be as follows: volunteer works on a project, gets more involved, gets groomed to become the project leader, stays in that for a year and grooms his / her replacement, gets invited to join the core team, gets groomed to become director, serves for a set period, becomes a board member. Some of these tasks are full-time, some are not. The person accepting major tasks does so recognising what the commitment is and what it will cost them (if the tasks are unpaid).
This is continuity. It doesn't limit the content, projects or creativity of the organisation. It channels the most capable people through a system that maintains the integrity of their knowledge while still allowing the organisation to evolve and meet future needs.
Message: 5 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 13:35:53 +0200 From: "Arbeo M" arbeo.wiki@googlemail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Catalan Wikinews set up To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: e1406ce00605300435o2aff3f82ia2d17204ee8b8cc@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 5/26/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
Wikinews has a bit of an unusual process. Individual Wikinews language editions have to meet much higher standards than, for example, Wikipedias to be launched. ... The procedure for creating a new Wikinews edition is at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition
Thanks for the info. Didn't know about this special procedure wrt Wikinews.
A.
Message: 6 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 16:22:05 +0200 From: Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Where we are headed To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 447C550D.7050301@wikia.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Anthere wrote:
By the way, a citation published on a french site recently (an interview from Jimbo).
Jimbo says
"... nous souhaitons g?n?rer une version ? stable ? des articles, v?rifi?e et approuv?e par des experts sur le sujet, tout en maintenant la possibilit? de le modifier. Il est hors de question de demander aux b?n?voles de faire le plus gros du travail, et de demander ? un expert de peaufiner le rest."
Translation
"We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and approved by experts on the topic, whilst keeping the option of modification of the article. It is excluded to ask volunteers to do most of the bulk work, and to ask to an expert to just take care of the polishing".
"We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and approved by the community, using a process which meets or exceeds the quality level of traditional encyclopedias. Such a process should involve people with expertise, of course, but it would not be acceptable for us to take the attitude that "ah, thank you to the volunteers, but now we have experts to come in and finish the job". Rather, we seek to extend our community process in new ways over time, always remaining open to new ideas for higher quality."
--Jimbo
Message: 7 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 12:51:13 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office To: dmayer@wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 447CA231.90902@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
What you seem to forget is that Wikipedia's strength rests with its amateurs. While there may be evident need for some amount of administrative staff it is as important to avoid pretensions of being a professional organization. If you look at staff as an investment you are assuming an economic model that runs contrary to Wikipedia's free nature.
But you can also make the case that getting professionals to do the work that needs to be done (legal, finance, fundraising, etc.) offloads those tasks so that the "strength of the amateurs" can be more productively tapped and scaled up to keep Wikipedia evolving in what it does best.
Exactly. The amateur model just does not scale well *at all* for the
Wikimedia Foundation
(Wikipedia and the other wikis are a different matter). I, for example,
am an amateur when it
comes to finance. My day job and education have nothing to do with it.
And yet I'm the CFO. Which
may have been fine when Wikipedia was a top 500 website and had a small
budget, but not now.
I'm a quick learner and always have been able to handle widely varied
responsibilities that
require different skill sets (thus my ability, with the help of the
Wikimedia treasurer who does
have the relevant experience and training, to perform in my role), but
there simply is a limit to
what I can do; both from a time perspective (I can only devote an hour or
two - at most - a day to
this) AND, perhaps more importantly, from an experience/education
perspective.
That is why I've had a standing letter of resignation that will go into
effect once the foundation
finally gets around to hiring a properly qualified finance director.
The foundation is not a wiki. It needs to grow up.
I don't dispute the need for the Foundation to have some level of paid staff. I also feel some concern about the way you have been hung out to dry in the CFO job. While you have no doubt worked at the position to the best of your ability, Wikipedians having a little more familiarity with such matters probably could see the potential difficulties, and avoided volunteering for the task. I really don't think that the Board has ever been on top of this portfolio.
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia are indeed two different concepts, and the relative roles of professionals and amateurs will indeed be different in these two organizations. In many respects we need to start building a firewall between the two. This would leave the WMF responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructural assets, while Wikipedia and its sisterprojects could be free to pursue their innovative strategies without the need to be guided by a paranoia that any small legal oversight could bring the entire empire crashing. There are certainly profitable enterprises out there who would welcome that development with great glee. There needs to be an arm's length relationship between the two, and I don't see much being said to address that.
Ec
Message: 8 Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 12:42:43 -0700 From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikimedia main office To: dmayer@wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Message-ID: 447CA033.8090709@telus.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/29/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
What you seem to forget is that Wikipedia's strength rests with its amateurs. While there may be evident need for some amount of administrative staff it is as important to avoid pretensions of being a professional organization. If you look at staff as an investment you are assuming an economic model that runs contrary to Wikipedia's free nature.
But you can also make the case that getting professionals to do the work that needs to be done (legal, finance, fundraising, etc.) offloads those tasks so that the "strength of the amateurs" can be more productively tapped and scaled up to keep Wikipedia evolving in what it does best.
Exactly. The amateur model just does not scale well *at all* for the
Wikimedia Foundation
(Wikipedia and the other wikis are a different matter). I, for example,
am an amateur when it
comes to finance. My day job and education have nothing to do with it.
And yet I'm the CFO. Which
may have been fine when Wikipedia was a top 500 website and had a small
budget, but not now.
I'm a quick learner and always have been able to handle widely varied
responsibilities that
require different skill sets (thus my ability, with the help of the
Wikimedia treasurer who does
have the relevant experience and training, to perform in my role), but
there simply is a limit to
what I can do; both from a time perspective (I can only devote an hour or
two - at most - a day to
this) AND, perhaps more importantly, from an experience/education
perspective.
That is why I've had a standing letter of resignation that will go into
effect once the foundation
finally gets around to hiring a properly qualified finance director.
The foundation is not a wiki. It needs to grow up.
I don't dispute the need for the Foundation to have some level of paid staff. I also feel some concern about the way you have been hung out to dry in the CFO job. While you have no doubt worked at the position to the best of your ability, Wikipedians having a little more familiarity with such matters probably could see the potential difficulties, and avoided volunteering for the task. I really don't think that the Board has ever been on top of this portfolio.
The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia are indeed two different concepts, and the relative roles of professionals and amateurs will indeed be different in these two organizations. In many respects we need to start building a firewall between the two. This would leave the WMF responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructural assets, while Wikipedia and its sisterprojects could be free to pursue their innovative strategies without the need to be guided by a paranoia that any small legal oversight could bring the entire empire crashing. There are certainly profitable enterprises out there who would welcome that development with great glee. There needs to be an arm's length relationship between the two, and I don't see much being said to address that.
Ec
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
End of foundation-l Digest, Vol 26, Issue 50
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org