There have been a variety of discussions on meta about Official Positions [OP]; some of them recent. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Official_position http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda/Open_questions_2#Positions
This is one of the major elements of discussion at today's Board meeting.
I would like to present a somewhat contra-OP argument that the core of WP's success has not been its exclusive delegation of responsibility to individuals, but rather its successful empowerment of /all/ of its users, even new ones, to jump in and do what needs to be done. Providing Officers with unique power and authority is a two-edged sword; it encourages those individuals to take extra responsibility, and provides them with authority to herd other volunteers. But simply going out and working diligently on a project provides a similar authority, and an internal, rather than an external, sense of responsibility.
The existence of rare, Board-sanctioned official positions in areas where there is not already an active group of un-official Wikipedians, can discourage the rest of the community from jumping in, and adds heirarchy and single points of failure to what would otherwise (in the case of a pressing event) be an open system.
I would be comfortable with the creation of special interest groups based around the priorities of the community and the foundation, before deciding on individuals to represent those interests. Creating titled individuals to carve out new interest groups, as has been suggested in the past, is certainly unwiki and probably unscalable.
Other hasty thoughts on a busy morning: the following are very different: 1) Entitling a point-of-contact or trusted position with authority to make autonomous decisions without consulting [the board], while requiring in return transparency and discussion with [the community] beforehand 2) Entitling such a person to make decisions without consulting with anyone, to privately filter or veto similar efforts of others, or to force all related efforts to go through him/her.
Hopefully the official positions conceived are of the first type; the current meta page on the subject does not quite specify.
SJ
Sj wrote:
I would like to present a somewhat contra-OP argument that the core of WP's success has not been its exclusive delegation of responsibility to individuals, but rather its successful empowerment of /all/ of its users, even new ones, to jump in and do what needs to be done.
Absolutely. This is key. The official positions should be thought of as people who are co-ordinating and advising and communicating, not people who are solely responsible for doing things, or who are the boss of other people.
Providing Officers with unique power and authority is a two-edged sword; it encourages those individuals to take extra responsibility, and provides them with authority to herd other volunteers. But simply going out and working diligently on a project provides a similar authority, and an internal, rather than an external, sense of responsibility.
This is an excellent observation.
What this should be thought of is as a formalization _only_ of something that has gone on for a long time anyway. People take responsibility for something, they co-ordinate it, they advise, they communicate. And especially when it comes to interfacing with the outside world, or interfacing with the board, it is better if we have some clarity -- this is the primary purpose of identifying people with particular positions.
I would be comfortable with the creation of special interest groups based around the priorities of the community and the foundation, before deciding on individuals to represent those interests. Creating titled individuals to carve out new interest groups, as has been suggested in the past, is certainly unwiki and probably unscalable.
It absolutely should not be a process of creating, but rather of recognizing.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales a écrit:
Sj wrote:
I would like to present a somewhat contra-OP argument that the core of WP's success has not been its exclusive delegation of responsibility to individuals, but rather its successful empowerment of /all/ of its users, even new ones, to jump in and do what needs to be done.
Absolutely. This is key. The official positions should be thought of as people who are co-ordinating and advising and communicating, not people who are solely responsible for doing things, or who are the boss of other people.
I totally agree as well.
I also think that Angela and I were somehow this year in one of those "official position", and though none of us is perfect (admittedly, we fail sometimes), I believe we were more on the side of co-ordinating, advising and communication (at least in the areas we could understand :-)), than just deciding it all with authority without letting room for others to jump in.
I do not see official positions as different. No official should be expected nor encouraged to take care entirely of an issue, nor should he try to force volunteers. I doubt that would work well :-)
This said, there is what is written about a role... and human side...
To my opinion, what might limit the most people from "jumping in" is a mixture of miscommunication or lack of communication or restricted information. If one does not say what is going on, the new comer does not have any grip.
However, if we try to communicate the best we can (through Quarto, the irc channel, various mailing lists, the wmf website), there will always be some issues which will be privately discussed (and which will have to be privately discussed).
At this point, it is at the same time to role of the newbie to be bold, and the role of some involved persons to take care of babysitting the newcomer to get him involved.
It may sounds weird to say... but I think those already involved have little to fear from the multiplication of official positions. They are already part of the team anyway.
What there is to fear is that * some editors leave, so should be replaced * there is more and more work to do, so more help would be good * some projects and some languages are badly represented. We should focus on these ones to get them involved.
Ant
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