Trillium, in the "administrative set", I think you'll find that almost all of us produced content prior to our involvement in organizational matters. Those of us who have formal roles wouldn't be trusted with keys to the kingdom if we lacked track records of positive contributions to the encyclopedia. The exceptions are for WMF staff and affiliate staff who weren't hired from within the community; an ongoing issue is the need to acculturate these staff into the ways of the Wiki and to educate them about our (often complex) ways, while leveraging the value that they can bring to Wikimedia organizations in areas like legal advocacy, visual design, press communications, tech ops, etc.
Viewers, content contributors, funders, volunteer tech and organizational leaders, and paid staff are all necessary parts of the Wikimedia ecosystem. These groups and individuals interact in complex and intricate ways, and changes to the ecosystem are always in motion.
Pine