Hi all,
I would like to thank Thomas Morton for his well thought explanation
addressed to Roger (Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:51:10 +0100). It covered a number
of points I felt need addressing and Tom put them in a useful and tactful
way - much better than I could have hoped to do.
However, I would like to address some ramifications of this.
>This is one reason why charities are often run by older, retired, types who
>do not need to go out and earn a living.
Quite so. However, one of the consequences of the phenomenal success of WP
is that the potential development of where we are now has created space
for activity beyond that which WMUK as a charity is best placed to carry
out.
a) Wikiversity has a great potential, however the development of such a
repository of Open Educational Resources (OERs) will be very slow without
people being paid - not so much for editing but for delivering teaching
which uses WV as a platform, creating OERs free for other people to use.
The dynamic for this is quite different from WP and Wikicommons.
I have not been involved in all the sister projects, but suspect that they
will each have their own dynamic, which needs to be addressed in its own
terms.
b) Linked to a) is the delivery of training in how to use WP. It seems to
me very straight forward to see WV as an ideal platform for this. There is
also much to be learnt from WikiEducator, which uses a Mediawiki in
conjunction wit the moodle software.
c) Another aspect of this is that I have noticed that some of the people
who attend WMUK training sessions are people who are employed by learned
societies as Social Media Officers. While I find volunteering to train
other volunteers quite attractive, when it comes to giving time freely in
order help in the training for paid workers of organisations I am
confident that i am not the only person who finds this a bit awkward.
Likewise as we welcome academics who stipulate that their students achieve
certain goals in order to pass a course, this to me creates a market for
delivering training outside a volunteer - to -volunteer framework.
Aside from the problems which have arisen from Roger being a trustee, I
think the work he has done is amazing and really innovative. I would like
to see it continue. However what I feel would really facilitate this is
the creation of a not-for-profit social enterprise which would provide a
structured way in which innovations like QRpedia could be placed in
relation to both WMUK, WMF and the broader community.
I feel that our community has an amazing range of diverse talents, and
that if the possibilities provoked by WPs success are to be realised, then
we need to develop a way in which the ethos of unpaid editing of WP itself
can be balanced with other roles which are emerging which are peripheral
to editing but which can greatly enhance WP and its sister projects.
I hope that the recent experiences at WMUK will stimulate a discussion
about how such a social enterprise might be set up, how the ethos of
collaborative working and sharing of resources might be taken forward, how
this can be done in a way which does not disrupt the very success which WP
has enjoyed, and how such a social enterprise can contribute towards
fundraising for WMUK to deliver its charitable goals.
If such a discussion is got going now, there is some prospect that we
could have a concrete proposal which has been mulled over by the community
in time for the next AGM.
As Tom said:
>Bottom line; you (as a board), we even, fucked up. Not maliciously, but
>very badly. You lost sight of the wider objective.
>But it's not something to beat each other up over. Learn from it, make
>improvements, move on.
I am proposing this as a way of moving on in a way which keeps people like
Roger with their brilliant ideas involved but not as trustees.
all the best
Fabian
(User:Leutha)