[Foundation-l] Where we are headed

Wed May 31 11:25:19 UTC 2006

>> Gavin : "Project management may not be about content generation alone.
>> It is also about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and
>> answerable to the organisation at large."

> Here I don't know if you are right or wrong in your understanding of
> Gavin's sentence. My take is that his "disputes settling" applies to
> the disputes *the organisation* could be thrown into, not to an edit
> war in Wikipedia.

Here I can clarify.  What a project does is irrelevant in terms of the 
system as long as it meets the general objectives of the organisation.  The 
project manager alone is responsible for what happens there.  If a dispute 
looks as if it will involve the organisation then it is the duty of the 
project manager to bring that to the organisation's attention.  If it is 
merely an edit war or copyright or local dispute then it is part of their 
daily problem and not the Foundation's.

If you think of it in terms of regular charitable foundations:  they 
research and select projects to fund, projects are championed by outsiders 
or are initiated by the foundation, they offer advice and know-how (where 
possible), they monitor the activities of their funded projects, and they 
dive in if things go wrong (if they choose to).  If a project gets caught 
doing something illegal (or even just awkward) they can intervene, isolate, 
amputate, ... or risk looking foolish.

In Wiki Foundation's case, you have overlap.  You are directly involved in 
terms of infrastructure, methodology and physical involvement.

Delphine writes:  "I believe that *not using* is harder than *not having*"

Creating a firewall between the foundation and its supported projects 
implies *not using* and that will be very hard.  Legally, what happens if 
you host and have the capacity to intervene?

This means you need to structure the Foundation in such a way that you can't 
intervene without the approval of a project leader (for instance, you create 
/ nominate a head of Wikipedia who has absolute power).  Reporting and 
accountability become even more important in such a distributed hierarchy.

And that comes back to what I suggested at the beginning.  A loose 
collection of independent organisations / projects (and forgive me for using 
terminology that may not be appropriate) that are accountable to a central 
Foundation.

Before you start hiring office space it is essential to know what will be 
done there.  And before a lot of the ideas presented in this mailing list 
get lost, perhaps it is a good idea to create a closed wiki to build the 
organisation structure, tasks, methodology, conflict resolution, job 
descriptions ... and a constitution.

The Economist states boldly on every contents page:  first published in 1843 
to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses 
forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."

We could do worse than start from there.  Once you have everything, then you'll 
know where your office should be, how big it needs to be, and what will be 
done there. 