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

Mon Aug 4 06:43:58 UTC 2008

Hoi,
That would be premature and given the broad base of support that it is
looking for, it is a bad idea for this as well. Some people complain and say
that Foundation-l does not cover enough relevant facts.. the best way of
countering this argument is by having subjects like the Volunteer Council
remain on this list.
Thanks,
         GerardM

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 12:59 AM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Would it be possible to set up a separate mailing list dedicated to the
> Volunteer Council?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com>
> To: effeietsanders at gmail.com; Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 3, 2008 8:32:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - some thoughts after a
> discussion on Wikimania
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> > effe iets anders wrote:
> >> 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.
> >>
>
> Since you say below that you would like feed-back, I will give
> as I am able.
>
> Though you indicate that there is a plausible (how clear,
> reasonable people may likely allowably disagree) possibility that
> the discussion reflects even a wider community feeling, I do
> hope that you will not limit your approach to the community
> to this E-Mail to the foundation list (particularly if the effort
> is to be one of grass-roots, it is good to make the approach
> where the grass-roots are - and they are not on this mailing
> list).
>
> Even if voting will not be necessary for seeding a movement
> that intends to grow and build; and justify itself through its
> fruits and concrete effects... Even then, I hope you will not
> be tardy in involving any people who view the direction of
> the movement worthy of exploring.
>
> >> 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.
> >>
>
> Personally I think that is the sane way to work, though with
> the caveat that the experience of the Board of Trustees needs
> to be learned from. Before deciding how the relationships
> between working groups and committees are structured with
> relation to the Council as a Whole, it should be well worthwhile
> to study which approaches worked between the Board of Trustees
> and its various appendant Committees, and which were not the
> best successes there, and which their structures were, and the
> relation between the chosen way to structure and act in concord,
> and the success thereof.
>
>
> >> 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 :)
> >>
>
> Here of course is the biggest hurdle you have to face. How
> do you justify the status as a grass-roots movement and not
> as a "cabal". This is something you will have to think long
> and hard about. You won't have any easy answers. The
> easy answers will be totally wrong, I guarantee you.
>
> >> 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
> >>
>
> I hope you won't see anything in my views as a criticism, for
> none is intended. Every word was just given in terms of
> aiding you in your reflections.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>
>
>
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