[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[David Goodman]

Until recently, the foundation has been increasing its staff by hiring
the best person immediately available, rather than a person good
enough to do the necessary job.  I''ve seen this sort of situation
numerous times in my library career, and dealing with it in this  way
is  not good practice. Good practice is to do one of several things:
1. keep the job unfilled , and search again and again until there is a
suitable applicant -- except for a critical replacement, this is
nearly always possible, & if it is a critical position, there should
have been a in-house person qualified to back up the position as long
as necessary. I've known major libraries leaving   key senior
positions unfilled for 10 years, until a suitable candidate was found.
2. redefine the job so that there are available applicants who can
fill them. this may require rearranging other positions, including
asking people at higher levels to take on responsibilities they would
rather delegate.
3. Increase the financial and non-financial aspects of the position,
in order to attract a wider range of candidates. This is especially
necessary to get applications from highly qualified candidates who
would need to relocate. Some organizations may be too poor to do this,
or be dealing with controlling outside bodies that limit their
flexibility, in which case they can do the 4th option, an option which
often has benefits even for the richest:
4. rely more on the volunteers, even for things one would not normally
expect a volunteer to do.  Wikipedia has some unusually well-qualified
volunteers available, as compared with most any other organization.

If anyone asks me if I have particular people in mind, this is
obviously not for the list, but I have had a few confidential
discussion as appropriate on the matter. I believe most of the people
at the foundation & on the board who know the situation would agree
with me, even though I do not expect them to say so. There was one
change that indicated that the situation was recognized, and I think
things are   improving.


On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Jason donovan <jdoe99d at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 6:59 AM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 09/03/2011, at 10:15, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>>
>> > All of this makes for one of the stronger arguments for a more
>> decentralized
>> > office structure at this point, in my opinion. (Lightly echoing what Liam
>> > said.)
>> >
>> > MZMcBride
>>
>> That's actually not what I said, or at least not what I meant to say.
>> I am very supportive of the WMF being headquartered in San Fran and also of
>> having offsite employees when applicable (being one myself for this year).
>> But by "decentralising" I was referring to a focus more on building up the
>> professional capacity of the Chapters and did not mean to refer to expanding
>> the number of WMF offices (nationally or internationally). The strategic
>> projects to create 'catalyst' teams/offices in India, Middle East and Brazil
>> are very cool/worthy/useful projects and I support them fully. Ultimately
>> though I would like to see these being developed with an aim to the
>> infrastructure being "handed over" to the local chapter once it too is up to
>> an appropriately professional standard. This is not the same as saying that
>> the WMF should decentralise.
>>
>> I think the question that makes this debate the clearest is when you ask:
>> "should there be a Wikimedia USA chapter". If you think "Yes" then that
>> implies there will be a USA office (in NYC?) that is for domestic issues and
>> the WMF office in San Fran for the movement generally - rather like the way
>> there is a Red Cross Switzerland and also the International Committee of the
>> Red Cross/Crescent in Geneva. If you think "No" then that implies that
>> Chapters need only be in places/roles that the WMF choses not to focus on.
>> Unsurprisingly - I think "Yes".
>>
>> -Liam
>>
>> Wittylama.com/blog
>> Peace, love & metadata
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>
>
> I am new to this but from my impression of things- I believe the core issue
> here is that the Foundation appears to be growing fast, almost too fast.
> It's losing its identity, on one hand its trying to compete with the top ten
> "big boys" by choosing San Francisco as its base of operations and behaving
> like the other 9 - expanding into emerging markets for example. It's also
> still trying to appear like a small non-profit with a limited staff and
> shoestrings budget that was evident in the early phases taking on the other
> big companies. The appearance seems to switch between those two identities,
> there is probably nothing wrong with that, but their seems to be some lack
> of vision at the helm.
>
> My impression from the finance reports linked to earlier by someone is that
> the foundation is raising more money than it actually needs, bloat would be
> the most likely outcome. If its not apparent now, then it probably will be
> later. My advice would be better financial planning.
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>



-- 
David Goodman

DGG at the enWP
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG