Ni!
A wise man once said... whenever you start a message with "don't get me wrong" you raise your chances of being misinterpreted to 100% =D
I should have listened. : )P
But, back to matters, there were two things in my message.
A) One assessment, which I still hold on to, that we are being fed consummated facts when we could be assisting in the strategic choices of the foundation's actions a lot more. This would actually be better phrased as 'whereas the foundation should be seeking our assistance a lot more'.
B) One rant, in fact one last and isolated phrase in my e-mail, where I voice an indiscriminate and wrongfully exaggerated concern over the unstated fact, that we're moving towards a chapter plus office situation, which I don't currently understand.
Your comments, Tom, though intermingled with A and B, only address B, making it clear it is "indiscriminate and wrongfully exaggerated". Well, my bad, but that's what rants are for ; )
However, back to A, while I do agree that we have had a lot of opening during Carol's work to discuss and provide input, the fact remains that, after she left and decisions started being announced, we had no traceable influence nor the opportunity to understand, let alone have a referendum, on why some paths were chosen over others and some actions are being given priority.
We had, instead, a back-and-forth of positions regarding the office and finally a sudden announcement that in a few days a job position would be announced and sought through a specific channel with set criteria and a given scope of work.
That, in this particular case, we could so obviously be doing things better together, only calls attention to a wider pattern I feel.
So that's what still bothers me.
Welly well droogs, I hope to have made my previous statement more understandable in face of Tom's thoughtful observations.
Hugs,
ale
2011/11/22 Everton Zanella Alvarenga everton137@gmail.com:
Em 22 de novembro de 2011 14:15, Alexandre Hannud Abdo abdo@member.fsf.org escreveu:
Why weren't we consulted about this?
I don't intend to answer in name of WMF, but Jessie has sent an email on 10th of November. Then we had 9 days to discuss it.
Besides that, I was also wondering why this job position if we have this other
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/RFP/Global_Education_Program_Consultant
My question is how both job positions fit with each other? There seems to be a connection, but it isn't clear to me and think important to Wikimedia community (beyond Brazil) understand it.
- Michael Page does not understand the job and does not have the
competence to recognize the right people, not even for a raw selection.
I don't know anything about Michael Page to say about their competence, but I have to say I am also a bit skeptical about it and I hope I am wrong. This is a reason I proposed a more open selection process and I hope it's possible to Michael Page do so.
- I am not the only one here who could have arranged a pro-bono
headhunter at least as good with one or two phone calls.
You don't know our country (at all, don't fool yourselves) and you don't know the resources our community has at its disposal. If we do not cooperate, you will be wasting money, resources and opportunities all the time.
Abdo, I believe they have used Carol's recommendations:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global/Brazil/BCP_Recommendations#Establish_a...
So I believe the discussion on this was open. Maybe a notice about Carol's report was sent to the mailing list, I cannot remember, and we haven't seen it because of the sea of arguments ad hominem and some useless messages sometimes we have here.
Finally, on a funny detail, I don't think this person should have "director" in his title. It gives the wrong impression towards others and the community itself, and we Brazilians are very easily impressed.
Maybe you are right and another name for this person who will coordinate a national program would be better. But I believe this is a detail which can be solved easily.
Actually, my personal opinion is that this whole Brazilian office affair is a huge mistake, but that was not even put on the table for us to discuss.
I am not sure about this being a mistake. My feeling is that it's good idea to have someone to coordinate a project such as Wikipedia Ambassadors. Besides incredible people working here as volunteers and doing a great job to start a legal entity, *maybe* the group is no mature enough (or don't have volunteers enough) to lead an important project such this one. As I am saying for years, using the knowledge *locked* inside Brazilian universities (mainly when paid by public money) is very strategical and will help to improve the commons of free knowledge.
But as I said during the last Wikimania discussion, things should be more open and transparent. Besides I tend to think a good idea to have this "director" (or whatever name it will be), it's strange that firstly we were going to have an office, then we would not have anymore, and, finally, we are going to have. There are discussions in between that the Brazilian community is not part of it and maybe this is an atitude from WMF bothering you. (My feeling is that this can indicate WMF perception about our community - or not community ; )
Hugs,
Tom
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