Is there a listing of the volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation?
I can think of several areas people volunteer in: system operators, software development, public relations, correspondence management (OTRS), list moderation, event management, conflict resolution (Arbcom), Funds Distribution (FDC), Affiliations Committee, etc.
How many are there?
Regards, Richard.
Hi Richard,
Just wondering: why are editors not volunteers?
best,
2014-06-22 13:12 GMT+02:00 Richard Ames richard@ames.id.au:
Is there a listing of the volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation?
I can think of several areas people volunteer in: system operators, software development, public relations, correspondence management (OTRS), list moderation, event management, conflict resolution (Arbcom), Funds Distribution (FDC), Affiliations Committee, etc.
How many are there?
Regards, Richard.
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2014-06-22 13:59 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Wikimedia volunteers are self-organised, why would there be a list?
Because we love making lists.
That being said, Richard list wiki-specific positions like "ArbCom", which I suppose would mean that "volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation" should be understood in a broad sense, and if so, the answer is definitely no.
Even when some lists exists, like the e.g. the press room list Benjamin linked, they're in no way complete. For example, the press contact for Wikimedia Sweden (which, of course, is technically not a volunteer position for Wikimedia Foundation, since the chapters are independent and sometimes do stuff that's not related to the Wikimedia movement) is listed, but Swedish-language Wikipedia has a volunteer press contact of its own, who isn't.
//Johan Jönsson -- http://wikipediabloggen.se
I think a better formulation of the question might be: "do we have a list of non-editing activities, and do we have a count of the number of people who do them regularly?"
To which the answer is partially-yes, and mostly-no.
Yes: There is a mindmap of activities and roles that was created and is fairly comprehensive.
No: Some of those activities have related logs (lists of users by technical flag) or categories (list of users who have categorized their userpage), or pages (lists of OTRS or press contacts, lists of members or a project or organization). But I've never seen a division of these into active v. passive (committee work v. group membership), or a total count.
SJ
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Johan Jönsson brevlistor@gmail.com wrote:
2014-06-22 13:59 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Wikimedia volunteers are self-organised, why would there be a list?
Because we love making lists.
That being said, Richard list wiki-specific positions like "ArbCom", which I suppose would mean that "volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation" should be understood in a broad sense, and if so, the answer is definitely no.
Even when some lists exists, like the e.g. the press room list Benjamin linked, they're in no way complete. For example, the press contact for Wikimedia Sweden (which, of course, is technically not a volunteer position for Wikimedia Foundation, since the chapters are independent and sometimes do stuff that's not related to the Wikimedia movement) is listed, but Swedish-language Wikipedia has a volunteer press contact of its own, who isn't.
//Johan Jönsson
http://wikipediabloggen.se _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Samuel Klein <meta.sj@...> writes:
I think a better formulation of the question might be: "do we have a list of non-editing activities, and do we have a count of the number of people who do them regularly?"
To which the answer is partially-yes, and mostly-no.
Yes: There is a mindmap of activities and roles that was created and is fairly comprehensive.
No: Some of those activities have related logs (lists of users by technical flag) or categories (list of users who have categorized their userpage), or pages (lists of OTRS or press contacts, lists of members or a project or organization). But I've never seen a division of these into active v. passive (committee work v. group membership), or a total count.
SJ
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Johan Jönsson <brevlistor <at>
gmail.com> wrote:
2014-06-22 13:59 GMT+02:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki <at> gmail.com>:
Wikimedia volunteers are self-organised, why would there be a list?
Because we love making lists.
That being said, Richard list wiki-specific positions like "ArbCom", which I suppose would mean that "volunteers for the Wikimedia Foundation" should be understood in a broad sense, and if so, the answer is definitely no.
Even when some lists exists, like the e.g. the press room list Benjamin linked, they're in no way complete. For example, the press contact for Wikimedia Sweden (which, of course, is technically not a volunteer position for Wikimedia Foundation, since the chapters are independent and sometimes do stuff that's not related to the Wikimedia movement) is listed, but Swedish-language Wikipedia has a volunteer press contact of its own, who isn't.
//Johan Jönsson
(emailing thru Gmane since I only track this thru RSS so my apologies if it comes out funky; I dislike the enormous email volume these lists generate)
I'm surprised no one seems to have mentioned that Part I, question 6 of the Form 990 which asks for total volunteers. For year 2011, 85,000 was the number year 2010 has 100,000. See http://990finder.foundationcenter.org/990results.aspx?990_type=&fn=wikim...
In addition, it is typical for directors and officers liability policies to ask for an estimate of the number of volunteers (no idea if WMF's insurer does, but when I last shopped for nonprofit D&O it was a pretty standard question). While I doubt the IRS cares much about the accuracy of this particular number, the D&O insurer can use a bad estimate as an excuse to void coverage due to material misrepresentation when a claim is filed.
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ImperfectlyInformed, 26/06/2014 02:14:
I'm surprised no one seems to have mentioned that Part I, question 6 of the Form 990 which asks for total volunteers. For year 2011, 85,000 was the number year 2010 has 100,000.
That's just the number of editors taken from WikiStats, as I believe the notes to the actual form 990 explain. You may have missed "the movement" in the subject line; the form 990 is only about WMF properties.
Nemo
I don't see the contradiction. If a person volunteers to do a job and the organisation accepts them; why wouldn't that be considered work?
Regards, Richard.
On 22/06/14 21:59, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Wikimedia volunteers are self-organised, why would there be a list?
Richard Ames, 22/06/2014 13:12:
volunteer positions which work for
I smell a contradiction.
Nemo
There's no master list that I know of, but there are lists of each of those things: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/System_administrators#List https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developers/Accounts https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room#Official_chapters https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Users https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Funds_Dissemination_Committee https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Members#Current_membe...
Many of the people on those lists are not volunteers.
I'm afraid you're on your own for aggregating the many lists of ArbCom members, mailing list moderators, and event coordinators. :-)
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:12 AM, Richard Ames richard@ames.id.au wrote:
Is there a listing of the volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation?
I can think of several areas people volunteer in: system operators, software development, public relations, correspondence management (OTRS), list moderation, event management, conflict resolution (Arbcom), Funds Distribution (FDC), Affiliations Committee, etc.
How many are there?
Regards, Richard.
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On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Benjamin Lees emufarmers@gmail.com wrote:
Many of the people on those lists are not volunteers.
How's your definition of volunteers?
Alice.
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Alice Wiegand me.lyzzy@gmail.com wrote:
How's your definition of volunteers?
In this case, I just mean that some of the people on those lists are paid
employees of the WMF or a chapter, so I can't guarantee that everyone on a list of volunteers is acting in a purely volunteer role.
In that case, 'many people are not volunteers' is probably an overstatement :) At least for AffCom, FDC, OTRS are almost fully employees. The list of chapter people is much longer (boards alone: ~40 * 6 est. average = 240 people, all volunteers) than the list of press contacts. In Wiki Loves Monuments probably some 200-400 volunteers were involved too - but there is some overlap. All in all, I guess that we may end up around a thousand volunteers quite easily.
Lodewijk
2014-06-22 17:43 GMT+02:00 Benjamin Lees emufarmers@gmail.com:
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Alice Wiegand me.lyzzy@gmail.com wrote:
How's your definition of volunteers?
In this case, I just mean that some of the people on those lists are paid
employees of the WMF or a chapter, so I can't guarantee that everyone on a list of volunteers is acting in a purely volunteer role. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I have done a very rough estimate / count:
OTRS - 180 Sysops - 50 List Moderators -410 SW Developers - 400 FDC members - 9 Affiliations committee - 9
for a total of about 1060.
Who is the 'Volunteer Coordinator' whose duties are listed at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteer_Coordinator ??
Regards, Richard.
On 22/06/14 21:12, Richard Ames wrote:
Is there a listing of the volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation?
<snip>
How many are there?
Regards, Richard.
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 7:59 PM, Richard Ames richard@ames.id.au wrote:
I have done a very rough estimate / count:
OTRS - 180 Sysops - 50 List Moderators -410 SW Developers - 400 FDC members - 9 Affiliations committee - 9
for a total of about 1060.
Who is the 'Volunteer Coordinator' whose duties are listed at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteer_Coordinator ??
Regards, Richard.
I won't speak for the other numbers you presented but your OTRS count is extremely off-base. Currently, there are about 1400 open/active OTRS accounts. Many are staff but that would be less than 50%. (I am an OTRS admin - I get my number from record.)
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 8:08 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 7:59 PM, Richard Ames richard@ames.id.au wrote:
I have done a very rough estimate / count:
OTRS - 180 Sysops - 50 List Moderators -410 SW Developers - 400 FDC members - 9 Affiliations committee - 9
for a total of about 1060.
Who is the 'Volunteer Coordinator' whose duties are listed at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Volunteer_Coordinator ??
Regards, Richard.
I won't speak for the other numbers you presented but your OTRS count is extremely off-base. Currently, there are about 1400 open/active OTRS accounts. Many are staff but that would be less than 50%. (I am an OTRS admin - I get my number from record.)
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
To correct myself, there are ~650 open & active accounts. I was looking at the wrong list. :-) Not nearly as high as my first number, but you still see that it's a lot higher.
See also, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Users
Rjd0060 wrote:
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
Indeed.
There was also a Volunteer Development Coordinator position for a bit: https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/87987.
The original question remains unclear to me. How are "volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation" defined? It seems unlikely we'll ever have completely accurate numbers here, but even ballparking is almost impossible without first establishing a very clear definition of who is and is not considered a volunteer and who is and is not considered working for the Wikimedia Foundation. And there are other important questions such as whether we're counting people or positions (e.g., there is overlap between sysops and OTRS responders).
MZMcBride
Is sysop supposed to be an on wiki sysop?
James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 5:23 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Rjd0060 wrote:
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
Indeed.
There was also a Volunteer Development Coordinator position for a bit: https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/87987.
The original question remains unclear to me. How are "volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation" defined? It seems unlikely we'll ever have completely accurate numbers here, but even ballparking is almost impossible without first establishing a very clear definition of who is and is not considered a volunteer and who is and is not considered working for the Wikimedia Foundation. And there are other important questions such as whether we're counting people or positions (e.g., there is overlap between sysops and OTRS responders).
MZMcBride
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Hm. If we're assigning some special status to Meta-level committees, there are many more of them in addition to the Board, AffCom and FDC. Just to name some of them: we have 4 grants committees that I know of, the board's Audit Committee which has some non-Board members, the Research Committee, and the Ombudsman Commission. We also have some Meta and Outreach groups like the volunteers who produce This Month in Education, This Month in GLAM, and the weekly Tech News.
At one time I compiled a list of Meta committees because there was some discussion that we might have a combined annual or semi-annual recruiting drive for committee openings which would save some time and emails.
Pine
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 5:28 PM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
Is sysop supposed to be an on wiki sysop?
James Alexander Legal and Community Advocacy Wikimedia Foundation (415) 839-6885 x6716 @jamesofur
On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 5:23 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Rjd0060 wrote:
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
Indeed.
There was also a Volunteer Development Coordinator position for a bit: https://www.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/87987.
The original question remains unclear to me. How are "volunteer positions which work for the Wikimedia Foundation" defined? It seems unlikely we'll ever have completely accurate numbers here, but even ballparking is almost impossible without first establishing a very clear definition of who is and is not considered a volunteer and who is and is not considered working for the Wikimedia Foundation. And there are other important questions such as whether we're counting people or positions (e.g., there is overlap between sysops and OTRS responders).
MZMcBride
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On 2 July 2014 01:08, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
As for the "Volunteer Coordinator", he was Cary Bass and left the Foundation some time ago. See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bastique or https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cary_Bass .
It's worth remembering that Cary's duties was essentially "everything else"; when he was hired there were ten other staff, and by the time he left there were still only a few dozen.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Staff_and_contractors&o...
This may explain why "volunteer coordinator" seems to cover such a lot :-)
There are over four hundred list moderators?? I'm shocked there are even that many people contributing to official mailing lists!
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