[Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - some thoughts after a discussion on Wikimania

Sat Aug 2 10:17:03 UTC 2008

Dear all,

as some of you might have noticed, there was a discussion scheduled
during Wikimania about the volunteer council. The discussion was well
visited, with 40-50 attendees (all seats were taken and some people
standing in the back) I lead this discussion, and would like to give a
little follow up on it.

First of all, I would like to shortly summarize what I think were the
most important conclusions from this discussion. Please note that when
I say agreed, I did not mean this was a formal decision, but a common
agreement between the attending people in that particular part of the
discussion. This has no binding status, but should be seen as a clear
indication of what might be consensus on a wider scale as well.

Everybody agreed that there was actually a need for a volunteer
council. Now that the Board takes more distance, the staff is
professionalizing, there is a gap that is becoming wider and wider,
about community regulation. Ideally, this would be filled by the
community. Besides that, it was noted that the communication between
the staff and board on one side and the community at large on the
other side could be improved a lot.

Besides that, it was also agreed that it would not be workable to let
a small committee (council) do everything we would like it to do. It
is unlikely that a small group of people can maintain contact with a
large number of communities, and solve all the issues which might
require more specialized and dedicated working groups. It was
suggested to come up with several councils for all these tasks, but
after a while it was more or less widely agreed upon that it would
probably be most workable to have one council, which would appoint
working groups or committees (temporary or continuous) to take care of
specific issues.

It was also agreed that since the Board rejected the resolution, the
only option left over now is a grass roots council, that would have to
proof itself and has to grow into it's role.

It was suggested to have a mechanism to have people from all
communities, and have a trapped system leading to the final council.
This could for instance be with a Wikipedia council, or a Spanish
language council etc, which would together choose a Wikimedia
Volunteer Council. This was a heavily discussed subject.

For so far the summary.

My personal view here is that I am glad we agreed all that there is an
actual need. Even taking into consideration that there was a bias in
the audience, I believe that this could be sufficient ground to assume
consensus on this without having all kinds of votings. My other view
here is "keep it simple". Especially in the beginning, we should have
a very very simple model for the council. Otherwise it is impossible
to gain sufficient support for it. I also see now that grass root is
the only option left over. These grass root members should work out
some of the details as they go, and should start within a few months
if possible. (to keep momentum)

Right now, I see little added value for a voting process. I would
appreciate some input on that though.
I believe that for the initial members, we don't need popular
wikipedians, we don't need icons, we need stable and available people,
who are willing to cooperate and compromise, who are willing to
coordinate and communicate, who are willing to share and listen to the
community. What we need is a wide variety of volunteers. Not per se in
gender and nationality, or even language, but more in opinions and
ways of thinking. We need some people who are active in the chapters,
but also who are not so active there, we need a technical volunteer,
we need someone involved with wiki approval policies perhaps, we need
someone who is active in the stewards corner, some people who are
speaking a non-english language and many other criteria. We will most
likely not be able to create a full variety, but my personal belief is
that we should try to work this out as much as possible.

The next step would be, in my humble opinion, analog to the creation
of the enwiki arbcom, which was also initially appointed. Elections
every XX months for a part of the council. This would be up to the
council actually to decide upon probably, but I see unfortunately not
many other ways to keep the community directly involved in this
process. The exact details would have to be worked out later on of
course.

For all this, we would need someone to guide these processes. We need
someone more or less neutral (not a candidate or staff member for
instance) to set up such a group, and help to work to a set of
definitions and goals. After that, it is up to the council to work
things out.

Another option is to appoint the group of people I selected earlier on
for the Provisional Council resolution, and keep things moving of
course :)

I would appreciate some input of course. However, please be aware that
this is a raw draft of what I think here, but that it has been built
upon the many many discussions that have been there.

With kind regards,

Lodewijk