On Fri, May 25, 2018 at 9:16 PM, James Salsman <jsals...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Paid professionals work alongside volunteers in fire departments and > hospitals throughout the world. Are there any essential > characteristics which exclude such cooperation in Wikipedia? > There is a difference, and that is the degree of professionalization. The role of admin is not a profession because there are no stablished bodies that have defined who is a professional admin and who is not. And still it would be difficult to professionalize since the distinction between volunteer/paid professional could make some people feel excluded (as in, "why is this person getting money for something I do for free?"). > > the will to cooperate in our mission should have precedence over the > will to make a profit out of it > > Does that exclude the financially disadvantaged? The wikimedia projects assume that you have time to spare without any compensation and that everybody can do the same. That is not true. In my view the wikimedia projects are already excluding the financially disadvantaged, because the people who are part of this project do not have the direct experience necessary to understand that their reality is not the same as the reality out there, and as a result they might find difficult to take the perspective of a person who needs the financial means in order to be able to contribute. However, if the doors of generosity were open towards volunteers and flocks of people were attracted because of it, there wouldn't be enough resources for everyone, then how could I tell who deserves it most? I would follow a progressive approach by offering first little, and then more depending on how much the community appreciates the skills and involvement of this person in the mission. There are many ways to keep track of said appreciation, but writing encyclopedic articles about each community-supported volunteer (not on Wikipedia) could be very effective, also to create community bonds and to understand better the person behind the nickname. If anything, we would remove the financial barrier that is keeping some (many?) people from contributing in the first place. The thing is that a project like this should start small in order to learn from the experience what works socially/practically, and how it integrates conceptually into our worldview. I believe that it should be totally in the hands of the volunteer community, because appraisal of every day tasks can only be done if you are involved in the project and understand the challenges, the tasks, the pitfalls, and what it means to do a good job. For instance I normally review property proposals for creation in Wikidata, it requires a set of skills and dedication that only the handful of people who understand the challenge could evaluate. And there is more, how do you evaluate the time spent building community and creating a good atmosphere unless you are part of it? I appreciate your questions because they are very interesting to examine. Regarding the reputation tracking system I assume that it would only work for the restricted use-case of direct article editing (cf. exopedianism), but not for the whole range of tasks that volunteers perform. In any case, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Regards, Micru _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
