[Foundation-l] Plea for candidates: WMF Movement Communications Manager

[Fred Bauder]

> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 10:36,  <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>> In a message dated 4/5/2011 6:08:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>> bnewstead at wikimedia.org writes:
>>> Another quick note on the Movement Communications Manager posting that
>>> we
>>> are hoping to fill at WMF.  We have a number of applicants, but very,
>>> very
>>> few are from the Wikimedia community. We would really love to fill
>>> this
>>> role
>>> with a strong Wikimedian, so if you are interested or know someone who
>>> may
>>> be interested, please apply or reach out to Jay Walsh or myself.
>>>
>>> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Movement_Communications_Manager
>>>
>> The job is written in such a narrow way that it's not very likely
>> you're
>> going to get many candidates from within the community sorry.
>> You want someone with a communications degree, who is a native English
>> speaker, can also communicate in a non-English language, and has
>> experience in
>> CSS, and templates, and Wikimedia projects in general.
>
> I understood that they wanted someone who was ideally *not* a native
> English speaker. That was something that concerned me when I read it,
> because it looked as if the intention was to disadvantage applicants
> who had English as a first language. Or did I misunderstand it?
>
> "Demonstrated ability to work (speak, read, write at a professional
> level) effectively in a language other than English (ideally as a
> native speaker)"

English speakers and Europeans generally, such as you and I, dominate
most Wikimedia conversations. I doubt anyone could function in this
position if they didn't understand English, but our hope is to get the
rest of the world involved.

However it is hard to imagine an ideal second language that is not
European; only Arabic is spoken by a large diverse population with
internet access.

Fred