[Foundation-l] models for adminship/wiki leadership

[Brianna Laugher]

On 10/04/07, Sebastian Moleski <sebmol at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/10/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I would just like some people to share some experiences and ideas they
> > have from   other wikis, since the only two I know well are English
> > Wikipedia and Commons.
>
>
> If you're looking for unique or unusual ways of selecting admins,
> Wikiversity may be an interesting project for you. After some discussion, we
> decided on a few intersting points. First, admins would be called custodians
> to better resemble the behind-the-scenes yet very important role they have.
> Candidates for custodianship have to go through a four week mentorship
> period during which they have all the "powers" regular custodians have. In
> order to do that, they need to secure a mentor, generally defined as a
> custodian with at least 6 months experience as a custodian (or admin on
> another project).
>
> After the four weeks, the mentor writes an evaluation for the candidate. If
> the evaluation is negative, admin rights are removed from the candidate
> unless he can secure a new mentor. If the evaluation is positive, there's a
> five day period for comments from the community after which a bureaucrat
> makes the final decision. There is no vote in this process.

Interesting. thanks for the info. this is what I'm talking about -
different models.

although, now, the more I think about it, the more I think that in the
beginning, probably almost *any* model will work, whereas once a wiki
reaches a certain size, perhaps almost *no* model will work. :)
in the early days, there is no attraction to work on a wiki besides
genuine interest. so it's hard to go wrong w/r/t choosing admins.
whereas once you reach a certain critical mass, you've lost that core
community 'know-everybody' feeling, and people are attracted to the
wiki for reasons other than genuine core commitment.

it will definitely be interesting how Wikiversity's model works when
WV reaches these stages.

cheers
Brianna