Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-
The discussion about a budget line item being appropriate in one context and not in the next has been very interesting to me. And especially in this case as it involves the provision of food, which is one of the most deeply held cultural norms in many communities. Frugality is certainly a consideration for the WMF. I can say with my staff hat on that while we do get generous grants from foundations to help support your amazing work, everyone here also thinks about the $5 that was donated by a student and feels a responsibility to that student. However the word and concept of frugality differs significantly across cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization, it seems it would be very important not to insult people. In many cultures I've worked in, if you didn't bring cigarettes, you couldn't get a goat to listen to you. These may seem to be extreme cases, but I'm thinking about WMF and the Wikimedia movement as truly global. So I don't think we should dismiss this concept just because currently we aren't working with any people who require cigarettes before thinking about editing a Wikipedia. I have no idea what the cultural norms for providing food at initial meetings are in Portugal or many other places. I just add my crumb to the discussion as a reminder that if we are wearing limited cultural lenses when we create policy, it will forever limit us to working within communities who are interested and able to live within those restrictions. Jennifer Riggs foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: Send foundation-l mailing list submissions to foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org You can reach the person managing the list at foundation-l-ow...@lists.wikimedia.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of foundation-l digest... Today's Topics: 1. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) 2. Re: Use of moderation (Austin Hair) 3. Re: Do we have a complete set of WMF projects? (Mike.lifeguard) 4. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Pharos) 5. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) 6. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) 7. Re: Do we have a complete set of WMF projects? (David Gerard) 8. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Chad) 9. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) 10. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Gerard Meijssen) 11. Re: Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 (Thomas Dalton) -- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:41:07 +0100 From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0909101041q3d6d869foe02cb48c012cb...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2009/9/10 Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org: Hi Thomas! Sorry to top-post, and to be late replying. I believe that all 26 proposals are up now on the meta page. Let me know if you can't find it, and I can post the link tonight when I'm back on my laptop. The proposals are up, but not the details of which were accepted and which weren't. It would be useful to have that information when considering what to request funding for in future. -- Message: 2 Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:06:20 -0500 From: Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Use of moderation To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: e2a50e360909101106m6cc6a0eao51f41424f86c2...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: Austin Hair wrote: My ideal, personally, is something more like nntp--and while I'm perfectly happy to turn over the list to some other technology, I don't know that this is the magic solution, and I agree with Tim that it risks killing what good we do have with the existing methods. I'm reading and posting to the list using nntp. foundation-l is distributed by gmane.org as the (pseudo) newsgroup news:gemane.org.wikimedia.foundation on the server news.gmane.org along with all the other Wikimedia mailing lists and it is by far the most comfortable
[Foundation-l] Job Opening at WMF - Project Manager
The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a term-limited (one year) full-time Project Manager for its new Bookshelf Project (text below). Feel free to share. Link to WMF jobs: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Project_Manager_Bookshelf Job Title: Project Manager Employment Duration: August 2009 to September 2010. Reports to: Head of Public Outreach About the “Bookshelf Project” In 2009–2010, the Wikimedia Foundation will be developing a slate of basic educational materials –print, online and video– to attract new authors and editors to Wikipedia. The collective set of these resources is internally being called “The Bookshelf.” As a collaborative project, Wikipedia's success is based on the steady contributions of a global volunteer community of active contributors. The more people share their knowledge with others, the better and more diverse Wikipedia's content gets. We believe that raising and broadening participation is one of the keys to improve Wikipedia's overall quality and to eliminate cultural perspective gaps. Currently, there are limited resources to attract new contributors and to teach them how to get involved. Most of them lack consistency and are often out of date. There are therefore still many basic educational resources that need to be developed. These materials will teach people about Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia; provide teachers with lesson plans (to use Wikipedia in the classroom); provide volunteers and local Wikimedia chapters with training resources to do their own outreach; and to enable people to be skillful and responsible creators and producers of encyclopedic content. Job Summary The Project Manager is responsible for successfully executing the Bookshelf project: for ensuring high quality outputs are developed on time and inside the project budget. The Project Manager will need a prior demonstrated experience in managing a complex print and media project, excellent communications skills, and a passion for doing high-quality work. Part of this job will include actively moderating volunteer and external expert discussions to help them be focused and productive. Responsibilities * Create and get sign-off for the project plan, including review-and-refine cycles * Recruit and manage the dedicated project team and identify suitable outside contractors for video production * Plan and execute internal project communication (encompassing the project team, senior management, other departments, external expert groups, outside contractors and community stakeholders) * Keep the project on track: on time and on budget * Ensure all deliverables are of appropriate quality level, and success measures are met or exceeded Required Qualifications * 5+ years of project management experience * Ability to work in a highly collaborative, consensus-oriented, highly-diverse environment * Ability to work effectively within Wikimedia's values and mission. Must be emotionally committed to free knowledge and willing to attune oneself to the larger Wikimedia community's norms and expectations * Passion for doing high-quality work * Ability to work effectively with graphic designers, writers, and outside contractors to ensure deadlines are met * Experience prioritizing and creating accountability towards critical milestones and deadlines * Ability to assess and report project status, and escalating risks to senior management * Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to interpret and translate information to teams and individuals and to report effectively to senior management Preferred Qualifications * Experience in education * Experience with non-profit * Prior demonstrated experience working in print and media production * Experience working with translations and/or international clientele Salary The salary is in the range of $74,000 to $85,000, commensurate with experience. Generous benefits are included. About the Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible non-profit charity dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most visited websites, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikinews and the Wikimedia Commons media repository. The organization has received numerous honors for its work, among them the Webby Award, the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, the Japan Advertisers Association's Web Creation Award and the World Technology Award in Communications Technology. The Wikimedia Foundation was created in 2003 to manage the operation of Wikipedia and its
Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: How do you fully consult the community consensus?
-- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:09:00 +0100 From: Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: How do you fully consult the community consensus? To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: a4359dff0907020809g4cb248h2095752d36c6d...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2009/7/2 Brian brian.min...@colorado.edu: As the projects have grown and as they have become more centrally managed in a top down fashion it has become increasingly difficult for ideas to percolate from the bottom up. I'm curious. In your perspective who is doing the central management that makes it difficult for ideas to percolate up? WMF, Jimmy, Board, select administrators/highly involved community members? In your opinion, is there an infrastructure barrier or a personalities one? jriggs ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Volunteer Appreciation
This being Volunteer Appreciation week in the US, I thought it was a great chance for me to post to this list and post a Wikimedia blog http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/04/20/volunteer-appreciation/. I want to thank everyone for being so welcoming. I am very excited about this organization and this job working to support such an amazing group of volunteers! I've been reading along on some important community issues discussed here and am learning so much. I look forward also to hearing perspectives on the list about issues around diversifying and further globalizing Wikimedia's free educational products and material. I am very volunteer-centric when it comes to my big thinking about direction, activities and products. So, I will be relying on you to help frame the Foundation's volunteer support in a way that will be most beneficial in your efforts to achieve our community's goals. I look forward to meeting you as individuals as I go. Jennifer Riggs - CPO Wikimedia Foundation ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
