I see one of the key things in the the movement and the WMF has developed
is thats leaving behind the volunteers and contributors. There is focus on
top down, corporate structures in everything and details fear of failure in
attempting projects in some ways a lost of trust of volunteers altogether.
Significant bias is developing into favouring those who can write great
documents and applications in an academic grant format leaving behind many
of our "anyone can edit" community who arent as proficient in grant writing
especially in an english/european academic format.
Wikipedia started in the academic model with Nupedia, but it was found
that those outside that circle were doing it more effectively in so many
ways that when it shifted. The current system we have fallen into is
symptom of the lack understanding of the communities where contributors
arent as prominent in the decision processes but rather its people entering
from those systems that failed Nupedia making the decisions using complex
talk fests and year on year never ending discussion. You just need to look
at the current BoT elections to see how long it takes to get anywhere,
strategy started 7 years ago and yet we still havent even reached the
implementation of anything. Many of the contributors that brought into and
had input have moved on, there's large cohort of contributors that have
joined since then.
Our biggest successes now are coming from people who move outside the
systems in place. Even now we chose play it safe and over use things like
"Wiki Loves..." rather than step out of the comfortable zones. We need to
think differently again and trust to the community to do what cant be done,
just like it did 20 years ago, less bureaucracy more trust, be bold
nothing should be a big deal.
On Thu, 8 Sept 2022 at 21:19, Nicola Zeuner <nicola.zeuner(a)wikimedia.de>
wrote:
Hi Nathan,
Thanks for bringing up comparability. The paper points out that the
historic development of the international office in the sampled cases is
different from how the WMF was formed. This does not, in my view, preclude
us from comparing systems.
I agree with Andreas that the central value of our movement is provided by
volunteers, and they organize in affiliates. The WMF has many central
functions, which is probably what you are referring to, including
maintaining the platforms, fundraising, grantmaking, community development,
advocacy, to name but a few. The sampled INGOs secretariats have a great
variety of functions as well, but typically not including fundraising and
grantmaking.
With 2030 Movement Strategy's drive toward decentralizing functions (incl.
fundraising), those of us working on and contributing to the charter and
policies should take good care at reviewing functions to see which ones are
still appropriate and effective to be done by a central org, and which ones
make more sense to do locally. Studying other global movements, in my view,
makes a lot of sense here, *especially *if they have grown differently
and gone through cycles of renewal and reform.
This is our moment of redesigning and re-forming.. So let's be open, and
not restrict our view by insisting on our exceptionality.
best,
Nikki
Nikki Zeuner
Senior Advisor Global Partnerships
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 26-32
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Am Mi., 7. Sept. 2022 um 16:06 Uhr schrieb Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>om>:
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for sharing this - very interesting reading so far. I'm hoping you
can elaborate on WMDE's thinking around selecting INGOs for evaluation.
Your criteria is very straightforward - INGOs with a confederation of
independent organizations, connected by a global mission.
But each of your selected INGOs is composed of individual organizations
that deliver the products and services that advance the global mission
within their geographic area, with an "international office" that fulfills
a coordination and governance role. By contrast, the bulk of
mission-related services from the Wikimedia movement are offered to the
world at large centrally by the international office (i.e. the Wikimedia
projects). Did WMDE consider how comparable these INGOs are to the
Wikimedia movement in this sense? I don't see a section of your paper that
compares the service/product delivery structure of these INGOs, so perhaps
this distinction did not come up during your review? Or is the thinking
that decentralization of project hosting and support is on the table, and
the report can inform that consideration?
Thanks for any insight you can share,
Nate
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