[Wikimedia-l] "Clerk" role description?

[Michael Snow]

On 5/1/2012 12:37 PM, Risker wrote:
> On 1 May 2012 15:00, Sue Gardner<sgardner at wikimedia.org>  wrote:
>> Hey folks,
>>
>> I had a 90-second conversation the other day with SJ about whether it
>> would make sense for us to use volunteer "clerks" as support for the
>> FDC (Funds Dissemination Committee), and I'm wondering if anyone can
>> point me towards any documentation of the role -- a description of how
>> it's typically used, either inside Wikimedia or outside. I have the
>> gist, but am curious to learn more, if anyone's got links they could
>> point me towards.
> I'd suggest that before giving any thought to whether or not the FDC
> process would benefit from clerking, it would be better to determine what
> that process actually is, and whether or not the members of the FDC think
> that clerking would be useful.  In other words, this decision is at least a
> few months down the pike.
I don't know, is it actually that hard to make a determination that 
creating this kind of support role is useful? We may not have worked out 
all the details of the process, but it seems clear that the process will 
have a certain "weight" appropriate to the importance people are placing 
on this issue. That could make it quite natural to need clerks, even if 
we don't know yet exactly what the clerks will do. If people like SJ and 
Sue are anticipating a possible need, that's a decent indicator that we 
might as well have the conversation and not simply postpone it.

If some kind of clerk position is created, I expect it can evolve fairly 
naturally as the funds dissemination process itself gets more developed. 
It's not that different from arbitration clerks, who have picked up 
various tasks over time as it was deemed practical and helpful for them 
to do so.

--Michael Snow