[Foundation-l] Wikimedia "Storyteller" job opening

[Michael Snow]

On 3/1/2011 2:41 PM, Pronoein wrote:
> Le 01/03/2011 18:31, Michael Snow a écrit :
>> On 3/1/2011 12:57 PM, Pronoein wrote:
>>> If there is such a minority of ethical concerns, it could be one of the
>>> reasons that volunteers are leaving the boat.
>> Based on the one survey of former contributors that has been conducted
>> (see
>> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Former_Contributors_Survey_Results),
>> this doesn't figure highly enough to demonstrate the kind of significant
>> minority you suggest. Rather, the concerns of those surveyed are
>> overwhelmingly about how rulebound, overly complex, and unfriendly their
>> work in the community seemed to be. Perhaps somebody would care to go
>> back through the full survey responses and see if they can identify
>> comments that fit the "I was being exploited" line you're pushing here.
>> I would prefer to hope that as the foundation's community department
>> works to develop the fundraising and messaging, it will also create and
>> improve upon initiatives that lead to a better community environment, as
>> that seems to be the dominant problem.
> Thank you for your answer Michael. However:
> «Note that this survey was aimed at less experienced editors. »
>
> I remember for example that many administrators quit during the sexual
> content controversy because of the decision of Jimbo. Those people were
> driven by a vision of a certain type of governance and felt betrayed or
> disappointed.
I acknowledge the limitations of the survey, and as always would be 
thrilled if we had more and better data. But since you were connecting 
your thesis to a broad systemic trend, I considered it more useful to 
look at evidence of systemic trends, not anecdotal reactions to a single 
incident. In terms of volunteer motivation, I'd have to think being 
"driven by a vision of a certain type of governance" has to rank pretty 
low, considering that our mission has nothing to do with promoting any 
particular vision in that field. A survey of former administrators or 
something like that might be informative, certainly, if somebody is 
available to drive that. My guess is that compared with other former 
volunteers, their responses would have more similarity than difference.

--Michael Snow