Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Transition Team/2013/Position description

How do you "effectively lead a high traffic website"

The last paragraph has this phrase in it.... I don't think you can lead a website.

The drafter must mean 'lead the foundation staff, a diverse contributor population, and donors'.

FWIW, Ariconte (talk) 20:58, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Specifics?

Hi Jan-Bart and others, This description seems to be missing any concrete requirements...at all? - Education - degrees? experience? management exposure? any term or length in a particular field. Maybe that part comes later? - I'm not clear on this. I understand how the current one can help widen the pool and it's not something to be hung up on, but there should be some concrete things there, no? Maybe it's a cultural thing and there was some direction from the firms advising on this, but it looked very abstract and general. Thanks. Theo10011 (talk) 02:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey Theo, At this level I really don't really see that kind of requirements a lot. We did think about "managing an organisation of X people/ Y budget" but we thought it was too constraining... and not an "firm condiition"

+1 the future executive director should have long term experiences abroad, i. e. outside of North America, and should be able to communicate in a fluent style in at least two languages. And the person should prove, that s/he has knowledge about Wikipedia and the sister projects, f. e. about the image filter story and correct licensing. To have written scientific papers would be an absolute plus for her/his standing. Catfisheye (talk) 08:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

So we want to hire someone with long-term experience living outside North America who is multilingual, has written scientific papers, has broad management experience (presumably) and is intimately involved in the Wikimedia movement. This would seem to be very limiting. Ironholds (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually do we want somebody who can do this job properly, ikke også? I would not consider that limiting, but adequate.

You added broad management experience, I would be contented with any management experience that dealed with knowledge. Catfisheye (talk) 21:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I strongly agree on the importance of the next executive director having a good experience outside USA. During the last all staff meeting, it was pointed out one of the characteristics of WMF is that it is too Americo-centric. I even remember when I was interviewed by Sue, I asked her how WMF, that was trying to go beyond its borders through the former catalyst programs, how they tried to understand very different communities. Sue was not aware the community intervention that resulted in a better process for the Brazilian case. I don't know if people responsible to report to her didn't do it well or if the executive director is with so many things to do so that she cannot handle all WMF projects (here is also an important point), but I think that it is a key skill for the next person, if WMF really wants to become a global organization. We all now WMF is a small and young American organization learning to grow, but we have keep in mind its global community for the next steps of the movement.

Regardning knowing about Wikimedia projects, I think a clever person can learn quickly about the wiki projects and maybe a task similar to what we have been doing in Brazil can be good to see if the next person can deal with our not that easy commmunity (we still need more data on how effective is this kind of process).

I also would like to know what do you think about the requirement for this person to understand well about IT issues so that he or she won't be too dependent on more a IT person advices. --Tom (talk) 19:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Hey thanks for the comments, we will add an explicit call for non-american applicants in the final version. We will also express a preference for people who speak more than "just" English :) Jan-Bart (talk) 18:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I do think that any kind of "intercultural skills" hint is missing from this first call. Unless of course it has been broadcasted all over the world in many many languages ;-). Just saying. notafish }<';> 12:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I am trying to put this on the Brazilian media, as I did for those who will substitute me on the education program in Brazil. Having the job position on big media was quite good, since we had about 100 applicants, differently of the time I applied. Although I cannot see anybody here in Brazil with the skills to the executive director position, but that is just because of my limited network. I am aware, because of the reasons I said before, on WMF limitations to go beyond American grounds. --Tom (talk) 14:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Mission

Very funny that it wasn't linked. Also very interesting: «helping other Wikimedia movement organizations in their work towards the mission by providing them with financial and organizational resources». --Nemo 17:08, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

forget the volunteer?

am i wrong that volunteers write wikipedia, and it would not exist without them? the position description does not include the volunteers, and the core values of the foundation as well does not do it? aehm ... --ThurnerRupert (talk) 07:58, 2 February 2014 (UTC)