[Foundation-l] Re: Official Positions

[Elisabeth Bauer]

Tim Starling wrote:
> These official positions are intended for assisting external
> collaboration, and for honour and recognition, is that correct? Rather
> than authority and leadership? Also, people will be allowed to deal with
> external organisations without an official title, on the same terms that
> they do now, won't they? That is to say, although certain official
> positions may carry the power to speak "on behalf of the foundation",
> that won't inhibit other people from doing various external activities
> in aid of the foundation, such as Thomas Koll's WikiReader publication,
> or Erik's collaboration with Kennisnet?

wikimedia is a community project - and as such I see these people's 
roles mostly in coordinating work in one field. It should of course not 
limit anyone from undertaking anything, it should rather give them 
someone to speak to (the past has shown that the three people on the 
board doing the work were often a bit overwhelmed with questions, offers 
for help/cooperations/approval of such things as the wikireaders etc.).

That's at least how I define my role in this: not writing all press 
releases myself, but helping to establish press teams in the projects, 
ensure that they are in contact with each other, that they get the 
necessary tools for their work, that people get help when they want to 
organize a wikipedia presentation at their university etc.

greetings,
elian