[Wikimedia-l] "Clerk" role description?

[Risker]

On 1 May 2012 18:13, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
> > The arbcom "clerking" role evolved from the tedious paperwork of
> > arbitration getting annoying. Best not put a bureaucracy in place
> > until it's absolutely needed. We have enough of a tendency to
> > instruction creep without planning it in advance ...
> >
>
> Thomas Dalton wote:
> >
> > I don't think we are at the beginning of that discussion. The WMF
> > board's resolution  instructing Sue to sort out the creation of the
> > FDC (which followed on from lengthy discussions on meta, and had a
> > great deal of consensus) is pretty clear about what the FDC will be
> > doing. There are plenty of details to be finalised, but the basic idea
> > of what the FDC is there to do is already decided.
>
> The most significant block of work that was done ad-hoc last year
> which would presumably be done by the FDC this year, was requesting
> and reviewing annual plan and budget deatils from chapters that needed
> infrastructure grants.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Plans_2011-2012
>
> That was reportedly a difficult process, in which some parties felt
> paperwork was tedious and annoying or underspecified and inconsistent.
>  It would be good to preempt that this year.
>
>
I don't see how having a clerking staff would make this process any less
challenging; the chapters and partner groups would *still* have to come up
with the budget, justify it, explain what it was going to be used for, and
all the clerking in the world isn't going to change that.

Risker