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

Mon Aug 4 15:22:04 UTC 2008

I took part on this session on the WikiMania in Alexandria. As far as I can remember, there were still a lot of very fundamental things that was unclear. Some of these fundamental questions were far from in a state of consensus. I remember that the discussion broke up because we ran out of time.

The following are some of these fundamental questions that I don't think the session had got a consensus answer:

1) What is the purpose of such a council? What should it do? What can it improve? What is its duty? As far as I remember there were various ideals and oppinions on what it means "to represent the community".
2) How should such a council be created? One idea was that this is a council with every project elect one representative on it. But there were also other ideas.

I think that before these questions are really answered and agreed a further move is difficult. And I am not sure if even all people who took part of the session read this mailing list ...

Ting

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 12:17:03 +0200
> Von: "effe iets anders" <effeietsanders at gmail.com>
> An: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Betreff: [Foundation-l] Volunteer Council - some thoughts after a discussion	on Wikimania

> 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
> 
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