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: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
