So i think you would want a compromise approach with the email. Having the email be 20 pages long would be bad, but its still possible to have more of a "hook" without turning it into a massive wall of text.
That said, i think the lack of details in the email is not the main problem here.
To attract candidates you basically have to answer the following questions:
* what exactly would candidates be doing, practically speaking? The process is very opaque from the outside, and most people aren't going to sign up for it blind.
* why does the committee want community members. What value does it hope to get from us?
** more specificly, to put it bluntly, are we being used as tokens to give the appearence of community consultation, or are people legitametely interested in what we have to say? Quite frankly, the current appointments of an anon, or listing fandom as a "volunteer organization" does feel a bit dehumanizing, as if the committee doesn't care who the community representitives are, as long as they can check that box.
* What do committee members get out of the process? Just because we are volunteers, doesn't mean we do things purely out of the goodness of our hearts.
These questions weren't really answered anywhere, which i expect reduced interest.
For me personally, some other factors that came to mind:
* This is a committee of like 40 people. I've never seen a group of more than 5 people that is actually useful. Its unclear why you would want a committee of half the world, instead of just an open comment period (actually i suspect the answer is to force wmf staff to actually participate by having a directly responsible individual, but this approach doesn't mesh well with the community)
* opinions of people currently on the committee seem quite mixed. Some are positive, but some are very negative. When WMF staff behind closed doors describe there experience on the committee in such negative terms, it really puts a damper on enthusiasm.
* the opaqueness of the committee makes it unclear how feedback is actually taken and used. There is an underlying fear that the committee is a long winded process where decisions that have already been made get a rubber stamp of approval regardless of any feedback brought up.
* inconsistent updates and response to feedback on wiki make the committee look dead. This puts a damper on interest.
--
Brian
On Monday, October 10, 2022, Erica Litrenta <
elitrenta@wikimedia.org> wrote:
(Sorry to "hijack" the thread, I am not personally involved in TDF but since I was the original "messenger", I'm interested in learning more about Daniel's POV.
While I'm well aware that info a click away is not optimal, I'm definitely more against walls of text that may be hard to understand for non-native readers.
That page was marked for translation instead, and among other things, it offered exactly the process you are describing, and the second email asked specifically for recommendations.
We had /also/ asked for recs to a few dozens colleagues, and none of the people pinged gave their availability.
Interested to hear what could have been done differently.)
Am 06.10.2022 um 08:52 schrieb Linh
Nguyen:
Kunal,
I hear you but we only have 3 people who actually put the
effort into applying for the position. We are appointing
people who are at least trying to help. If you want to help
in the process please feel free to put your name on the list.
The original mail doesn't really make it clear what impact one
might have by joining, or what would be expected of a member.
Asking people to click a link for details loses most of the
audience already.
One thing that has worked pretty well in the past when we were
looking for people to join TechCom was to ask for nominations,
rather than volunteers. We'd then reach out to the people who were
nominated, and asked them if they were interested.
Self-nominations were of course also fine.
Another thing that might work is to directly approach active
volunteer contributors to production code. There really aren't so
many really active ones. Ten, maybe.
--
Daniel Kinzler
Principal Software Engineer, Platform Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation
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| Erica Litrenta (she/her) Senior Manager, Community Relations Specialists (Product) Wikimedia Foundation |