[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[David Goodman]

No, I do not think the situation was solved two years ago. Some of the
topics discussed here over the last year have indicated some of the
continuing problems.

The attitude that the volunteers are here only to write articles, and
should leave the general concerns of the site  to the professionals,
is a good part of the problem. Many organizations do work that way,
and they can be successful in their own terms.  Wikipedia is an
attempt to do something different.




On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 6:44 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9 March 2011 23:02, David Goodman <dggenwp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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 don't think that's true, at least not for the past couple of years.
> The WMF often takes a long time over recruitment and has been known to
> re-list jobs if there were no good applicants.
>
>> 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.
>
> If you can get by without a position filled for 10 years then clearly
> it isn't a necessary position (or the position has been filled and you
> just haven't updated that person's job title). You can't have someone
> else fill in for a position indefinitely since then they won't be
> doing their own job.
>
>> 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.
>
> The WMF has definitely done that with some of the recent hires to the
> community team.
>
>> 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:
>
> Working for Wikipedia is a big non-financial aspect that attracts a
> wide range of candidates.
>
>> 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.
>
> Things one would not normally expect a volunteer to do, such as
> writing encyclopaedia articles, say?
>
> So, in summary, your suggestions are good but they are already being
> done and the problem you observe was fixed years ago.
>
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-- 
David Goodman

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