Hi Maggie, Thank you for getting back to me. I would have been understanding if the response came next week, so thanks for the quickness.
I have some additional thoughts to which I hope that you can reply next week. 1. It sounds like WMF intends to centralize the training and leadership development work that in recent years has largely been done by affiliates and grantees, meaning that affiliates should probably expect budget cuts, and individual grants that have been used for outreach work would also probably be reduced as WMF moves to take over this type of work. Is that the plan, and if so, why? It seems to me that the wikiverse is well served by having wide diversity in training initiatives that are customized to individual languages and projects. I do not know what would be gained by centralizing these functions. I could understand WMF supporting research about effective practices, and supporting peer-to-peer communications among community members and affiliates regarding effective practices, but moving toward centralizing training and leadership development seems like it would do more harm than good. 2. In addition to the practical considerations that I mention above, for political and wikilegal reasons I am concerned about the idea of WMF centralizing community development work under itself. I am generally opposed to the idea that WMF should directly train community members, particularly on leadership subjects. I am aware that WMF provides financial support for training that affiliates and grantees do, and given the scarcity of non-WMF funding sources for this type of work I see little choice but to accept WMF financial support for this work. However, given the differences in culture, values, priorities, motivations, and ways of working between the WMF and the community, and WMF's previous demonstrations of its willingness to grab power from the community, I believe that WMF increasing the centralization of community development work under itself is inappropriate and unwise. Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) -------- Original message --------From: Maggie Dennis <mden...@wikimedia.org> Date: 7/13/18 2:04 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Concerns about WMF's "Manager of Community Development" job posting Hi, Pine. Sorry for my brevity. It's rather late on Friday, and I'd like to give you a response. This position is output 1.2 of the CE "Strategy" program discussed on Meta in Community Engagement's plan here <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Annual_Plan_2018-2019#Program_Name:_Strategy>. This role consolidates some of the work that is currently distributed in Community Resources and some that is currently being done in Learning & Evaluation and also plays a part in the Movement Organizers program. The full scope of what this team is and what they do will be determined in conjunction with phase 2 of strategy and subsequent Foundation plans. The role is designated as "Manager" as they will have staff for whom they are responsible, just as other manager positions in the Foundation do. Best regards, Maggie On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 4:31 PM Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello WMF folks, > > I have some concerns about this job posting: > https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/1239209 > > In some ways I appreciate that WMF wants to invest more money and time in > identifying and developing potential volunteer leaders. However, I also > have some concerns. > > * This role appears to have multiple redundancies with efforts that are > already being done, or are planned to be done, in areas of WMF such as > GLAM, Community Resources, and Audiences, plus activities that are > undertaken by affiliates and grantees, so I wonder whether this position is > adding unnecessary overhead expense and/or attempting to take over work > that is already being done by community members. Can you clarify what value > this position is adding, and whether WMF intends to take over scopes of > work that are currently generally done by affiliates and grantees? > > * Was this position described in the 2018-2019 WMF Annual Plan? I was not > able to find this position, or a scope of work that seemed to fit this > position, in the Community Engagement Annual Plan. I was able to find a > statement that talked about researching the needs of community organizers > (which I think is a good idea!), but this position seems to have multiple > objectives that are outside of that scope of work. Where is this specific > position, or its specific scope of work, articulated in the Annual Plan for > Community Engagement? > > * I have a more general concern. The idea of WMF placing itself in the > position of managing community development is problematic. I generally > would not want community organizers to learn directly from WMF how the > Wikimedia community works and/or give new aspiring community leaders the > idea that they should look to WMF for guidance. WMF's purpose is to serve > the community, not to manage it, and generally WMF's idea of managing the > community seems to go something like this: "We will decide what choices you > get to make" (such as with Superprotect) and "We will decide what to fund > and how the trademarks are used" (given WMF's centralization of funding and > its legal monopoly on Wikimedia trademarks). If this position will be > funded then I think that "Community Development Support Specialist" would > be a much better title, and could be aligned with a scope of work that is > more supportive of community goals and respectful of community autonomy. > > Thank you for listening to my concerns. I look forward to reading your > response. > > Pine( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > _______________________________________________ > 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> -- Maggie Dennis Interim Chief of Community Engagement Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. _______________________________________________ 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> _______________________________________________ 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>
