[Foundation-l] Re: Business cards

[Christopher Mahan]

--- notafish <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> OK, sorry for digging out old conversations, I've been dead for the
> past 5 days, and just resurrected for a few hours. So here goes.
> 
> > > This said, I stand up to my opinion that mentions of stewards
> or
> > > arbitrators of the english AC has basically nothing to do here.
> These
> > > positions do not exist in the real world. They mean nothing to
> those
> > > outside wikipedia. They are unrelated to the Foundation itself.
> And
> > > they are only part of the status existing on the projects.
> > 
> > Well, there are apparently plans to form Arbitration Committees
> on other
> > language versions of Wikipedia, so it's not en:-centric (or not
> intended to
> > be). Thus Arbitrator status, and certainly, of course, Stewards,
> are
> > Wikimedia-project-wide, and the people who will receive these
> cards will
> > understand that they confer extra 'status' of some kind, as you
> say. Neither
> > job are particularly easy to do, and a small amount of thanks
> like this is
> > perhaps not a bad thing.
> 
> Having a card, imho, has nothing to do with getting any thanks for
> a
> job well done within wikipedia or any other project, but more about
> having (or not having) a right to speak about certain matters with
> a
> more or less official position. Arbitrators, Stewards are all, as
> Anthere pointed out, positions within the projects, but not
> positions
> that mean that you have a right to talk about the Moogle Deal of
> the
> Fahoo proposition or a right to sell Wikipedia and all other
> projects
> to the next Moohoo buyer who comes along. Of course, I am going a
> bit
> far, here, but this is what a "card" could entitle to do.
> 
> So no, they should not be given out as thanks, but as an exact
> description of who does what in the Wikimedia Foundation and
> projects,
> and who can say "we" when talking about the Foundation, or
> Wikimedia
> Deutschland, or Wikimedia France. People in general, journalists in
> particular, are very wary of who their source is, but will be
> fooled
> by a little square of paper. A "business card" gives a credibility
> that some of us certainly do not have, and some of us certainly do
> not
> deserve. So let us be careful when handing out those "cards".

Samples of titles:

Wikipedia Administrator
Wikimedia Software Developer
Wikimedia Senior Systems Engineer
Contributing Editor
Arbitration Committee Panelist 2005
WikiNews Freelance Photographer
and so on.

I see nothing in there that says they can speak 'for' the foundation.
There should be a link to Wikimedia Foundation's formal contacts on
each card, like this: www.wikimedia.com/press and an explanation on
that page of what cards there are, who has them, and so on. This will
allow the press people to understand who the cardbearer is and what
they do.

 

Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/


		
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