Official position history: Difference between revisions

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The list could be approved by the Board.
The list could be approved by the Board.


* Financial officer - someone to keep track of donations or other funding, and keep track of how money is spent (coordinate with treasurer who would be a trustee that is responsible for big picture and financial policy, not the details)
* '''Financial officer:''' someone to keep track of donations or other funding, and keep track of how money is spent (coordinate with treasurer who would be a trustee that is responsible for big picture and financial policy, not the details)
* [[Public relations]] representative - organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
* [[Public relations]] representative - organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
* Legal council - inevitably, issues of law are going to arise - an actual lawyer would seem beneficial
* Legal council - inevitably, issues of law are going to arise - an actual lawyer would seem beneficial
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I would like to add:
I would like to add:
* '''User Ombudsman:''' A trusted individual (would s/he have to be voted in?) who will oversee all actions and activities of the Board of Trustees, particularly all financial transactions, to ensure that they comply with the rules and regulation of the Wikimedia Foundation and that the Board of Trustees and its representatives are accountable to the Users. [[User:Danny|Danny]] 11:33, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
* '''User Ombudsman:''' A trusted individual (would s/he have to be voted in?) who will oversee all actions and activities of the Board of Trustees, particularly all financial transactions, to ensure that they comply with the rules and regulation of the Wikimedia Foundation and that the Board of Trustees and its representatives are accountable to the Users. [[User:Danny|Danny]] 11:33, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

==Nominations==
I would like to nominate Mav as CFO (Chief Financial Officer). His work to date has been exemplary, and he has already won the trust of a large part of the community. [[User:Danny|Danny]] 11:40, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)


== Giving official titles to participants==
== Giving official titles to participants==

Revision as of 11:40, 19 June 2004

This proposal by User:Anthere followed a mail sent to foundation-l, please see here

See also Board of Trustees.


Explanation for this proposal

This is a thought from two personal experience feedback, as well as Mav and Erik experiences.

I several times contacted external people or organisations, either for press release, or other PR activity, or for trying to negociate content release.
Usually, I used my real name, though not always. Twice at least, I think there was no consideration given to my proposition, because I was just a community member and in no way had an official position. I suppose other editors trying to reach the outside met similar situation.

When one contact an important media group, or a charitable organisation to ask for donations, or a legal entity, one is expected to show some "credentials". In particular as soon as money is involved :-)

I think this type of activity, with "external" contact will become more and more frequent and required. And though this will be a lot the work of the Fundation itself, I somehow doubt 3 members can manage it all.
Some regular participants will necessarily become more and more invested in Foundation activities, without being Board members.

I would be happy that we begin thinking of how we could "give" these "official titles" to participants, so that they can fully help according to their abilities and wilingness.

Definition of "official titles"

What about setting up a list of "official titles", with associated description of what this encompasses. Some examples, please comment or add others.

We should set this list all together. There is already some stuff written about this on meta, but it was more planned for a board. Since the board will be very small, we should expand this to wikimedia (full) or foundation (those who paid the fee) participants.

The list could be approved by the Board.

  • Financial officer: someone to keep track of donations or other funding, and keep track of how money is spent (coordinate with treasurer who would be a trustee that is responsible for big picture and financial policy, not the details)
  • Public relations representative - organise press releases, give interviews, etc. Trying to find funding probably comes in here.
  • Legal council - inevitably, issues of law are going to arise - an actual lawyer would seem beneficial
  • Content partnership coordinator (the current person holding that title, could fill in the description better than I here)
  • Developer representative

I would like to add:

  • User Ombudsman: A trusted individual (would s/he have to be voted in?) who will oversee all actions and activities of the Board of Trustees, particularly all financial transactions, to ensure that they comply with the rules and regulation of the Wikimedia Foundation and that the Board of Trustees and its representatives are accountable to the Users. Danny 11:33, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nominations

I would like to nominate Mav as CFO (Chief Financial Officer). His work to date has been exemplary, and he has already won the trust of a large part of the community. Danny 11:40, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Giving official titles to participants

Several if necessary.

We obviously need only one financial officer for now; But definitly several public relation officials. Given Wikipedia concept, I don't think we need a head for PR, the community is the head, but we definitly do need at least a dozen people as PR officials.

I view this as fairly loose. People interested list themselves there. The community then approve or does not approve to give this "official" title. Finally, the board may veto.

Making it transparent to external contact

Last, on Wikimedia Foundation web site, we could maintain a list of these official representative. Something very official looking, so that an "official representative" can point a potential partner this page to "prove" he is trusted by his peers for negociation.


What do you think ?

Anthere

Yes, this is something that we really need: for general PR, for legal or semi-legal aspect (like asking for content autorisation, asking to wikipedia mirrors to comply with the GFDL (backlinks and c°) and probably for many other reasons. -- Looxix 16:17, 8 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedians understand that the community runs by consensus and debate. The outside world, though, would naturally have problems accepting ordinary community members speaking for the community. Oficial titles could certainly help, especially when contacting companies who might not want to deal with a "lowly" user. Isomorphic 02:21, 21 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
There is another benefit of the "official" title. Some people can spend extra effort when they can write some nice title on their resume. That means that titles are not necessarily for contacting external bodies. Internal positions could be made official as well. Say, for example, interlingual coordinator or site management policy advisor. People do these things without holding a title. That is fine. But if there is a way to give these things some title, that would be good. Wikipedia can help their career, and they have more reason to be active on wikipedia. I believe that these titles are more easily given out, primarily driven by community decisions in each projects. Tomos 00:17, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)