[Foundation-l] Working on movement roles

[Steven Walling]

Personally I think it's preferable to alter/simplify existing roles than
further complicate an already complex organizational model by adding new
roles into the mix.

For example: it is inordinately difficult to form a chapter. I would ask wow
can make this easier, instead of inventing some new role to live alongside
it.

It takes *a lot* of time and energy to think up and put into place even one
new volunteer role in a highly distributed organization like ours. I would
say it takes less energy and is more rewarding to improve what we have.

Just me two cents,

Steven Walling

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:

> In addition to the committee reorganizations I mentioned, which are sort
> of "internal" to the board (that is, the purpose is to improve the
> board's own functioning), something we are starting to work on is to
> think systematically about different roles within Wikimedia as a
> movement. These roles may be those of individuals as volunteers, or in
> groups such as chapters; it may include roles that exist, or those we
> determine are needed. Defining these better, so that they can be filled
> more effectively, and so that people can be more effective in their
> work, could help us build a stronger working community.
>
> Part of this is an outgrowth of the strategic planning project, where we
> have a task force on movement roles, and I encourage people to do
> further work on the strategy wiki in this area. I would suggest the
> board believes this is also a larger ongoing question, one we will be
> wrestling with even after the strategy plan is in some sense completed
> later this year. We intend to keep this moving beyond that. Arne in
> particular has taken a strong interest in this issue, and he and
> Jan-Bart have been preparing some thoughts to share with the chapters
> leading up to next week's chapters and board meeting. Coming out of
> that, I hope we will start to develop a better sense of fundamentally
> who we are and what kinds of relationships we should create to better
> develop the Wikimedia projects.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
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