[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation in 5 years - Giant brainstorming - a game with rules.

[James D. Forrester]

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Delphine Ménard wrote:

[Snip]

> You will find below a grid of what we think needs to be included in a
> five year plan for the Wikimedia Foundation. You may fill all parts,
> or just some, as suits you. You may also give details on how to get
> there, or not. You're free to say anything that goes through your
> head. Your ideas should go on this list.

[Snip]

> *Board and management

I imagine that by this time we will probably have a steering committee
of some sorts as well as an executive committee, splitting the functions
of the Board somewhat - the former is more what normally constitutes a
"board", whereas the latter is normally accomplished by the executive
officers who we now have begun to (ever-so-slightly) separate from the
Board.

The role of President is a semi-steering, semi-executive figure-head
one, one which I feel Jimbo would like to fill, and would be involved in
both the Board and the Executive Committee (for want of better terms),
but would not be the lead in either. The Chair should be a separate,
neutral figure (along the lines of European Chairs who are there almost
as secretaries, guiding the discussions along and being in charge of
their votes). As for membership, as well as the Chair and President
(neither of whom would normally 'vote' per se), the Board should have
three members directly elected by the general editor population, and a
further three appointed there by the chapters collectively. It would
have (at least) one paid secretary.

> *Staff (the positions, the roles, whether they're paid or not)

The top level of staff would form the Executive Committee - as well as
the President, there would be:

* Executive Officer,

    The EO would work on general management and co-ordination, as well
    as major partnerships and co-operation (e.g. with the UN). Under the
    EO would be a few secretaries to just keep up with all the work they
    will have.

* Finance Officer,

    The FO would be responsible for managing all aspects of the
    finances, both raising and expending. Under the FO would be the
    Grants Officer, the Fundraising Officer, and one (or more)
    professional accountants.

* Internal Communications Officer,

    The ICO would be responsible for internal communications, making
    sure that the top and bottom of organisation all knew what the
    others were doing, including a massive continuous translation
    service.

* External Communications Officer,

    The ECO would be responsible for external communications - press
    relations as well as public relations generally.

* Legal Counsel

    The LC would deal with legal problems (which we will no doubt have
    lots of, opportunistic suits, etc. :-(), and would advise the ExCom
    and the Board. The LC would no doubt have a legal team working under
    them, possibly an externally contracted-in company like Delphine has
    suggested.

* Operations Officer,

    The OO would be responsible for operations, including development.
    Under the OO would work the Development Officer and the Hardware
    Officer.

* Chapter Officer

    The CO would co-ordinate with the local chapters. Not sure what this
    will involve just yet, so I don't know what more to say.

* Research Co-ordination Officer

    The RCO would be responsible for helping research, by both internal
    and external parties, and would work in close partnership with the
    Operations Officer to effect this (for matters of development
    research, for example). Possibly would work under the OO instead of
    along-side, indeed.

* Lobbying Officer

    The LO would help the Foundation lobby for freedom of information
    and press (e.g. against still-further extended copyright laws, or in
    favour of press freedom, etc.)

> *Budget

No idea. Quite possibly vast; a few million Euros a year, certainly.

> *Fundraising scheme

Twice-annually there would be a fundraising effort for personal
donations, but a large amount of the funding would come from large
philanthropic and governmental organisations.

> *Philantropic activity and outreach to get our content widely
redistributed

The EO would work with outside agencies (printers, etc.) and
distribution organisations to help accomplish our goals with giving the
world all the information we can.

> *Projects

Hopefully Wikipedia will be recognised as a sub-project of Wikibooks.  ;-)

More seriously: maturing of the projects, especially Wikibooks if helped
along by environmental improvements, into a much more "natural" project.
I don't really see that there would be much scope for further front-end
projects.

On the back-end, however, I can foresee a great effort in data-driven
projects - a Wikidata-based repository of direct facts that can be then
woven into each of the front-end projects in a "live" way - as well as
consolidation of our two rather disparate media efforts into one.

> *Content objectives

Not sure. We should see where the community takes us, really, and
support that, rather than trying to push people towards something
specific. Having said that, of course, a Wikipedia 1.0 would be very
nice ("sifter"-based, naturally - leverage the power of the community,
which is what makes us great, into the venture).

> *Software objectives

Broadening of MediaWiki into being not "merely" the best possible
article wiki we could have, but also a data- and media- repository and
sharing facility.

> *Relationship between chapters and parent organisation

The chapters would be involved in purely local matters, of course, but
most of their efforts would be devoted to working on international
projects organised and led by the Foundation. My view is of quite a
centralised system, like the ICRCRC has.

> *Relationships with the outside world (PR, partnerships, etc.)

I imagine UNESCO will want to work slowly with us. Certainly, funding
would be nice (absolute editorial independence would of course be a
cast-iron requirement before any relations were entered into). Others
include the EU and the Commonwealth, and I'm sure there are many more
international and internationalist pro-education groups out there which
would love to give us money, if only we could get to them.

- ----

This is all probably both horribly naïve and unreachable goals, and
tremendously unpopular with the rest of you. Ah well.  :-)

Yours sincerely,
- --
James D. Forrester
Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
E-Mail    : james at jdforrester.org
IM (MSN)  : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com
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