Mailing List Archive

On 5/29/06, Gavin Chait <gchait@gmx.net> wrote:
> The most immediate concern for the Wiki Foundation is less the idea of an
> office with furniture and windows, or even the difficulties of
> collaboration, mostly it is continuity.
>
> At the moment the founders are involved. They have an idea of what they
> want and how to achieve that. There are now thousands of regular
> contributors who are influencing that direction. There are millions of
> occasional contributors who muddy the edges. How do you ensure continuity?
>
> One of the first development organisations I worked in 15 years ago was a
> student-run endeavour at the University of Cape Town. Every year hundreds
> of students volunteer and contribute to different projects. Each project is
> run by older students. Continuity is difficult where students graduate and
> leave each year. Sometimes entire projects vanish when the students who
> know how to run them fail to come back.
>
> The solution was to employ a small band of professionals whose task is to
> make sure that projects are properly budgeted and accounted for, keep track
> of how the different projects interact, and ensure that the overall emphasis
> of the organisation remains focused. The professionals ensure consistency
> while the volunteers contribute fresh ideas, fresh thinking, new directions
> and lots of enthusiasm.
>
> It has worked well for more than 50 years for this organisation.
>
> Offices are far less important than continuity. And the more you rely on
> volunteers, the more important it is to have a solid base of professionals -
> where-ever they may be.


I agree 100%. Thank you for making that so clear.

Delphine

--
~notafish
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Gavin Chait wrote:
> The most immediate concern for the Wiki Foundation is less the idea of an
> office with furniture and windows, or even the difficulties of
> collaboration, mostly it is continuity.
>
> At the moment the founders are involved. They have an idea of what they
> want and how to achieve that. There are now thousands of regular
> contributors who are influencing that direction. There are millions of
> occasional contributors who muddy the edges. How do you ensure continuity?
>
> One of the first development organisations I worked in 15 years ago was a
> student-run endeavour at the University of Cape Town. Every year hundreds
> of students volunteer and contribute to different projects. Each project is
> run by older students. Continuity is difficult where students graduate and
> leave each year. Sometimes entire projects vanish when the students who
> know how to run them fail to come back.
>
> The solution was to employ a small band of professionals whose task is to
> make sure that projects are properly budgeted and accounted for, keep track
> of how the different projects interact, and ensure that the overall emphasis
> of the organisation remains focused. The professionals ensure consistency
> while the volunteers contribute fresh ideas, fresh thinking, new directions
> and lots of enthusiasm.
>
> It has worked well for more than 50 years for this organisation.
>
> Offices are far less important than continuity. And the more you rely on
> volunteers, the more important it is to have a solid base of professionals -
> where-ever they may be.

you speak a lot of sense.


Ant

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By the way, a citation published on a french site recently (an interview
from Jimbo).

Jimbo says

"... nous souhaitons générer une version
« stable » des articles, vérifiée et approuvée par des experts sur le
sujet, tout en maintenant la possibilité de le modifier. Il est hors de
question de demander aux bénévoles de faire le plus gros du travail, et
de demander à un expert de peaufiner le rest."

Translation

"We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and
approved by experts on the topic, whilst keeping the option of
modification of the article. It is excluded to ask volunteers to do most
of the bulk work, and to ask to an expert to just take care of the
polishing".

What was meant here ?

Ant

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Anthere wrote:
> Gavin Chait wrote:
>
>>The most immediate concern for the Wiki Foundation is less the idea of an
>>office with furniture and windows, or even the difficulties of
>>collaboration, mostly it is continuity.
>>
>>At the moment the founders are involved. They have an idea of what they
>>want and how to achieve that. There are now thousands of regular
>>contributors who are influencing that direction. There are millions of
>>occasional contributors who muddy the edges. How do you ensure continuity?
>>
>>One of the first development organisations I worked in 15 years ago was a
>>student-run endeavour at the University of Cape Town. Every year hundreds
>>of students volunteer and contribute to different projects. Each project is
>>run by older students. Continuity is difficult where students graduate and
>>leave each year. Sometimes entire projects vanish when the students who
>>know how to run them fail to come back.
>>
>>The solution was to employ a small band of professionals whose task is to
>>make sure that projects are properly budgeted and accounted for, keep track
>>of how the different projects interact, and ensure that the overall emphasis
>>of the organisation remains focused. The professionals ensure consistency
>>while the volunteers contribute fresh ideas, fresh thinking, new directions
>>and lots of enthusiasm.

A few thoughts however. It is not correct to say "the founders are
involved". One is still involved and the other long left the project and
regularly comment on it, but as an outsider.

I think it would be incorrect to oppose the founder as the stable one in
comparison to all the contributors (the ones vanishing). Many of us
(more than a handful) have been there for several years. Some even have
been there since the beginning of the project. I consider them just as
stable as Jimbo.

It is very likely that these old-timer currently ensure consistency,
whilst the band of professionals (who may be old timers or may be
absolute newbies) do not necessarily do so. To be frank, a good part of
the "fresh thinking" of the past few months came from a newbie, working
for us as a professional... whilst us old-timers ensured the stability ;-)

In our organisation, the volunteers themselves offer stability. Much
more than professionals are likely to do.

Which raise another big issue for me. We are currently considering
expanding the board. In a way that I can understand, it is likely that
at least part of the future board will not be constituted from community
people such as Angela or I, but rather of big shots, who may be great
people, with potential great input and probably very precious to the
Foundation. But who have two main defaults as far as I am concerned. All
the names considered are from a continent over there...accross the
ocean... not Africa if you see what I mean ? So, a loss in diversity.
And all of them will actually bring fresh ideas... but also instability.

So yeah, offices are far less important than continuity. Just have to
see how we can best ensure continuity :-)

ant


>>It has worked well for more than 50 years for this organisation.
>>
>>Offices are far less important than continuity. And the more you rely on
>>volunteers, the more important it is to have a solid base of professionals -
>>where-ever they may be.
>
>
> you speak a lot of sense.
>
>
> Ant

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On Tue, 30 May 2006, Anthere wrote:

> Jimbo says
>
> "... nous souhaitons générer une version
> « stable » des articles, vérifiée et approuvée par des experts sur le
> sujet, tout en maintenant la possibilité de le modifier. Il est hors de
> question de demander aux bénévoles de faire le plus gros du travail, et
> de demander à un expert de peaufiner le rest."
>
> Translation
>
> "We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and
> approved by experts on the topic, whilst keeping the option of
> modification of the article. It is excluded to ask volunteers to do most
> of the bulk work, and to ask to an expert to just take care of the
> polishing".
>
> What was meant here ?

I don't know, but experts are volunteers too, something most of the world
constantly forgets. We need a list of contributors who are experts -- divided
into those who contribute in their field of expertise, and those who avoid that
like the plague.

Sj

Gavin Chait wrote:

>The most immediate concern for the Wiki Foundation is less the idea of an
>office with furniture and windows, or even the difficulties of
>collaboration, mostly it is continuity.
>
>At the moment the founders are involved. They have an idea of what they
>want and how to achieve that. There are now thousands of regular
>contributors who are influencing that direction. There are millions of
>occasional contributors who muddy the edges. How do you ensure continuity?
>
This is a question with profound implications. Accomodating these
segments of our society without losing focus is no trivial problem.

>One of the first development organisations I worked in 15 years ago was a
>student-run endeavour at the University of Cape Town. Every year hundreds
>of students volunteer and contribute to different projects. Each project is
>run by older students. Continuity is difficult where students graduate and
>leave each year. Sometimes entire projects vanish when the students who
>know how to run them fail to come back.
>
Students enrolled in a programme of finite duration are more likely to
make provision for their successors. If a project vanishes when they
leave maybe it has outlived its value. Our senior people are here for
an indefinite period, and may find it more difficult to envision their
project mortality.

>The solution was to employ a small band of professionals whose task is to
>make sure that projects are properly budgeted and accounted for, keep track
>of how the different projects interact, and ensure that the overall emphasis
>of the organisation remains focused. The professionals ensure consistency
>while the volunteers contribute fresh ideas, fresh thinking, new directions
>and lots of enthusiasm.
>
>It has worked well for more than 50 years for this organisation.
>
>Offices are far less important than continuity. And the more you rely on
>volunteers, the more important it is to have a solid base of professionals -
>where-ever they may be.
>
Your conclusion is well taken. But before this can happen there needs
to be a fundamental understanding about the role of the professional and
the role of the volunteer. Larry Sanger was good for Wikipedia at the
time that he was here, but someone like him would be totally unsuitable
to the present circumstances. Decisions often _must_ be made without
waiting around debating like the Paris Commune. The questions that then
arise are What do we want our professional to do? What do we want him
not to do?

Ec

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Continuity is less about individuals than it is about systems and the
organisation of information.

This means that the system must be defined. Definition does not imply
limitation. It is important to know how new projects are organised, run and
scrutinised without declaring what they should be. How far one goes with
the hierarchy is also important. Are different language versions or large
sub-projects of a common project different projects? Many "embarrassing"
moments have come out of English content wikis. How many potential pitfalls
are waiting in other languages? How feasible is it to have language experts
for each of the wikis? Recognising limitations inherent in the system is
also important - these should be declared.

The professional project manager can still be a volunteer. There are large
numbers of astonishingly talented people willing to work for free for causes
they believe in. The difference between a volunteer and a "professional" is
not about paid / unpaid it is about the time dedicated to a project and
their accountability. Some projects are large enough to require full-time
commitment. Project managers must accept this and be responsible. Not all
the things that need doing are glamorous.

Project management may not be about content generation alone. It is also
about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and answerable to the
organisation at large. If something goes wrong, they must sort it out
immediately and understand and report back on how it happened. They are
also there to find their own successor.

There must be a project log, and project manual that details exactly how
things are done (thus ensuring a consistent approach). Clearly the manual
can evolve but it must be the DNA for the project.

A simple project blog or mailing list isn't good enough since the quantity
of information produced (and the various diversions it follows) makes rapid
decision making impossible. In reality, each project needs its own
moderated (and access limited) wiki where the basics are paired down: how
things are done, daily / weekly / monthly ... tasks, etc. At the moment
projects may be run by the person who started them or someone one or two
iterations away. What happens in 50 years?

The organisation itself requires a similar approach with a slightly larger
set of responsibilities: PR, legal, accounting, admin and an overall
director. These are the trappings of any formal development organisation.
Having them doesn't limit the activity of the volunteers, it is simply a
responsible way of handling information generated by the organisation.

The director also needs feedback and that will come from your board.

Each of the tasks can be defined and each of the roles can be filled. A
mechanism for recruiting and training new people to fill each task is much
more straightforward when you know exactly what that task is.

I would imagine that a simple flow could be as follows: volunteer works on
a project, gets more involved, gets groomed to become the project leader,
stays in that for a year and grooms his / her replacement, gets invited to
join the core team, gets groomed to become director, serves for a set
period, becomes a board member. Some of these tasks are full-time, some are
not. The person accepting major tasks does so recognising what the
commitment is and what it will cost them (if the tasks are unpaid).

This is continuity. It doesn't limit the content, projects or creativity of
the organisation. It channels the most capable people through a system that
maintains the integrity of their knowledge while still allowing the
organisation to evolve and meet future needs.

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Anthere wrote:
> By the way, a citation published on a french site recently (an interview
> from Jimbo).
>
> Jimbo says
>
> "... nous souhaitons générer une version
> « stable » des articles, vérifiée et approuvée par des experts sur le
> sujet, tout en maintenant la possibilité de le modifier. Il est hors de
> question de demander aux bénévoles de faire le plus gros du travail, et
> de demander à un expert de peaufiner le rest."
>
> Translation
>
> "We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and
> approved by experts on the topic, whilst keeping the option of
> modification of the article. It is excluded to ask volunteers to do most
> of the bulk work, and to ask to an expert to just take care of the
> polishing".

"We wish to create a stable version of all articles, checked and
approved by the community, using a process which meets or exceeds the
quality level of traditional encyclopedias. Such a process should
involve people with expertise, of course, but it would not be acceptable
for us to take the attitude that "ah, thank you to the volunteers, but
now we have experts to come in and finish the job". Rather, we seek to
extend our community process in new ways over time, always remaining
open to new ideas for higher quality."

--Jimbo

>> Gavin : "Project management may not be about content generation alone.
>> It is also about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and
>> answerable to the organisation at large."

> Here I don't know if you are right or wrong in your understanding of
> Gavin's sentence. My take is that his "disputes settling" applies to
> the disputes *the organisation* could be thrown into, not to an edit
> war in Wikipedia.

Here I can clarify. What a project does is irrelevant in terms of the
system as long as it meets the general objectives of the organisation. The
project manager alone is responsible for what happens there. If a dispute
looks as if it will involve the organisation then it is the duty of the
project manager to bring that to the organisation's attention. If it is
merely an edit war or copyright or local dispute then it is part of their
daily problem and not the Foundation's.

If you think of it in terms of regular charitable foundations: they
research and select projects to fund, projects are championed by outsiders
or are initiated by the foundation, they offer advice and know-how (where
possible), they monitor the activities of their funded projects, and they
dive in if things go wrong (if they choose to). If a project gets caught
doing something illegal (or even just awkward) they can intervene, isolate,
amputate, ... or risk looking foolish.

In Wiki Foundation's case, you have overlap. You are directly involved in
terms of infrastructure, methodology and physical involvement.

Delphine writes: "I believe that *not using* is harder than *not having*"

Creating a firewall between the foundation and its supported projects
implies *not using* and that will be very hard. Legally, what happens if
you host and have the capacity to intervene?

This means you need to structure the Foundation in such a way that you can't
intervene without the approval of a project leader (for instance, you create
/ nominate a head of Wikipedia who has absolute power). Reporting and
accountability become even more important in such a distributed hierarchy.

And that comes back to what I suggested at the beginning. A loose
collection of independent organisations / projects (and forgive me for using
terminology that may not be appropriate) that are accountable to a central
Foundation.

Before you start hiring office space it is essential to know what will be
done there. And before a lot of the ideas presented in this mailing list
get lost, perhaps it is a good idea to create a closed wiki to build the
organisation structure, tasks, methodology, conflict resolution, job
descriptions ... and a constitution.

The Economist states boldly on every contents page: first published in 1843
to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses
forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."

We could do worse than start from there. Once you have everything, then you'll
know where your office should be, how big it needs to be, and what will be
done there.

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Gavin Chait wrote:
>>>Gavin : "Project management may not be about content generation alone.
>>>It is also about budgets, settling disputes and being responsible and
>>>answerable to the organisation at large."
>
>
>>Here I don't know if you are right or wrong in your understanding of
>>Gavin's sentence. My take is that his "disputes settling" applies to
>>the disputes *the organisation* could be thrown into, not to an edit
>>war in Wikipedia.
>
>
> Here I can clarify. What a project does is irrelevant in terms of the
> system as long as it meets the general objectives of the organisation. The
> project manager alone is responsible for what happens there. If a dispute
> looks as if it will involve the organisation then it is the duty of the
> project manager to bring that to the organisation's attention. If it is
> merely an edit war or copyright or local dispute then it is part of their
> daily problem and not the Foundation's.
>
> If you think of it in terms of regular charitable foundations: they
> research and select projects to fund, projects are championed by outsiders
> or are initiated by the foundation, they offer advice and know-how (where
> possible), they monitor the activities of their funded projects, and they
> dive in if things go wrong (if they choose to). If a project gets caught
> doing something illegal (or even just awkward) they can intervene, isolate,
> amputate, ... or risk looking foolish.
>
> In Wiki Foundation's case, you have overlap. You are directly involved in
> terms of infrastructure, methodology and physical involvement.
>
> Delphine writes: "I believe that *not using* is harder than *not having*"
>
> Creating a firewall between the foundation and its supported projects
> implies *not using* and that will be very hard. Legally, what happens if
> you host and have the capacity to intervene?

If you host and are liable, you need to be able to *use*. You may not be
liable and have no ability to correct what you are liable for. If you
can not intervene, you should not liable. Period.

(understand me well. By "intervening", I do not mean "desysoping" an
admin, because he is blocking editors out of process; By "intervening",
I mean "removing" permanently content which may get us straight to
court. The first is threatening a local organisation, the second might
cause the closure of the whole project. If the Foundation may be sued
for hosting an illegal project, then it is the Foundation entire right
to stop hosting this project. If another organisation wants to take the
risk of hosting illegal content removed from our sites, then it is up to
these organisations.


> This means you need to structure the Foundation in such a way that you can't
> intervene without the approval of a project leader (for instance, you create
> / nominate a head of Wikipedia who has absolute power). Reporting and
> accountability become even more important in such a distributed hierarchy.

At some point in history, Wikipedia (at least the english version) had
such a project leader : Larry Sanger, who was Jimbo's employee. It
lasted for the full first year of Wikipedia. It certainly was necessary
at the beginning, but it would have been a disaster to proceed with a head.
Generally, I believe the projects will not accept *anyone* as head of a
project, with absolute power. The projects organise themselves
independently of the Foundation, only respecting the general goal of
the project and a couple of core rules (licence, wikilove and neutrality
essentially). The rest of the organisation (the internal organisation)
is pretty much left to each project and may be sometimes pretty
different based on the culture and size of each project. I think this
is precisely what explains in great part the success of Wikipedia. The
rules are very few and basically easy for most reasonable person to
understand and accept.
Add hierarchy and complex organisational rules, and you will make most
editors feel like in prison. Most editors stay here because it is fun,
they are not bugged by a boss and they feel they can themselves impact
the rules and the direction of the project.

I feel that over time, what you suggest is however being created. There
is no "official head" of a project, but for many project, a group of
trusted editors constitute a sort of a head.


> And that comes back to what I suggested at the beginning. A loose
> collection of independent organisations / projects (and forgive me for using
> terminology that may not be appropriate) that are accountable to a central
> Foundation.
>
> Before you start hiring office space it is essential to know what will be
> done there. And before a lot of the ideas presented in this mailing list
> get lost, perhaps it is a good idea to create a closed wiki to build the
> organisation structure, tasks, methodology, conflict resolution, job
> descriptions ... and a constitution.

Ahum. Just for reference, we do have closed wikis.
I know of at least three.
The internal wiki is restricted to board members and some board members
of local chapters
The spc wiki is restricted to members of the special project committees
The board wiki is restricted to WMF board members plus Brad.

> The Economist states boldly on every contents page: first published in 1843
> to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses
> forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress."
>
> We could do worse than start from there. Once you have everything, then you'll
> know where your office should be, how big it needs to be, and what will be
> done there.

Given the current size of the office, it could be hosted in my village ;-)

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Accountability is created by the tension that exists between groups that
watch each other. Having a set of committees reporting to a single board is
simply a pyramid.

A director (CEO, whatever you wish to call the position) and their team is
one locus of control. A board is another. The board's task is to offer
guidance, select individuals to perform specific tasks, remove
non-performers from office and so on. But the actual running of the
organisation is left to the director and team.

Reconstituting Anthere's list of committees into a set of line functions
overseen by a director would look as follows:

* Finance and internal audit - task is to ensure bookkeeping, and audit, as
well as assist auditors appointed by board; insurance can be pasted in here
as well.
* Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects?
* Communications and Public Relations - press releases, events, promotions,
as well as watching media for outside coverage, etc.
* Information technology and technical development - server maintenance and
development
* Special projects - should this simply be part of an enlarged Chapters
role?
* Legal - specialist required in international law, trademarks, etc.
* Fundraising - works closely with communications and PR
* HR and admin - if you are going to have an office, you need to ensure it
gets cleaned, stocked with coffee / tea, salaries paid on time, contracts
drawn up ... that sort of thing
* Director / CEO - the boss, and reports directly to the board

These are all simply technical roles - there is no assumption that they
would be a single person, or a group, simply tasks that may need to be
performed. The board gets standardised feedback and has the right to
intervene to fire the director or any of the other role-players. The board
does not run the operation, it simply has oversight and ultimate control.
The director knows that they report to the board.

Board's normally do not require a massive time commitment and so they can be
stocked with celebrities who are able to open doors (and consequently make
the fundraising task a lot easier).

Typically, any organisation has the following core requirements:
* financial control
* marketing
* strategic planning
* operational support (includes: IT, legal, HR and so on)

You could, depending on the work-load, bundle many of these tasks together:
* finance, internal audit, admin, hr
* IT, technical development
* chapters, special projects
* communications, PR, fundraising
* legal
* director

So then you need six people in your head office. Your board could be as
large as you like (remembering that the bigger your board, the harder it is
to get everyone to get together at the same time, or agree on anything).
The overall strategy - it goes without saying - can be the responsibility of
the board. Implementation belongs to the director.

Anthere again:
"Generally, I believe the projects will not accept *anyone* as head of a
project, with absolute power. The projects organise themselves
independently of the Foundation, only respecting the general goal of
the project and a couple of core rules (licence, wikilove and neutrality
essentially)."

I don't suggest anything like absolute power (editorial control, that sort
of thing) but it is useful to have a person in charge who keeps track of
what is going on. They act as champion for the project. If you really want
to create a Chinese wall between the Foundation and its projects then you
have to have someone at any particular project that the Foundation can talk
to. Someone has to guarantee the core rules will be applied.

It's no good simply cutting a perfectly good project loose when it crosses
the line. Someone, tasked with championing the project, should have the job
of keeping the project inside those lines ... as gently as possible. Only
when they completely loose the ability to control those guidelines should a
project be cut.

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On 5/31/06, Gavin Chait <gchait@gmx.net> wrote:
> * Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects?

Oversight and coordination of [[m:Wikimedia chapters]], which have no
direct connection to projects. See [[m:Chapters committee]],
[[m:Wikimedia chapters]].

[[m:Wikimedia committees]] were created to allow the Board to delegate
responsibility for certain necessary, day-to-day Wikimedia operations,
providing for more effective management while still retaining final
authority. They don't yet have any legal status, so this delegation
is currently de facto only, but as a practical matter they operate as
originally conceived.

How committees organize and conduct themselves is generally left up to
them, and varies considerably. Chapters, for instance, comprises five
members and two advisers, with the committee officers (chairman and
vice chairman) holding mostly "administrative" roles rather than
governing ones, in a primus inter pares sense. Other committees may
have a more hierarchical approach, with the chairman steering the
direction of the committee and taking on more of a leadership role.

What's important is that the system, which is still very new and
working itself out, is an improvement over relying on the overtaxed
Board to micromanage WMF operations.

Austin
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Gavin Chait wrote:
> Accountability is created by the tension that exists between groups that
> watch each other. Having a set of committees reporting to a single board is
> simply a pyramid.
>
> A director (CEO, whatever you wish to call the position) and their team is
> one locus of control. A board is another. The board's task is to offer
> guidance, select individuals to perform specific tasks, remove
> non-performers from office and so on. But the actual running of the
> organisation is left to the director and team.
>
> Reconstituting Anthere's list of committees into a set of line functions
> overseen by a director would look as follows:
>
> * Finance and internal audit - task is to ensure bookkeeping, and audit, as
> well as assist auditors appointed by board; insurance can be pasted in here
> as well.
> * Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects?
> * Communications and Public Relations - press releases, events, promotions,
> as well as watching media for outside coverage, etc.
> * Information technology and technical development - server maintenance and
> development
> * Special projects - should this simply be part of an enlarged Chapters
> role?
> * Legal - specialist required in international law, trademarks, etc.
> * Fundraising - works closely with communications and PR
> * HR and admin - if you are going to have an office, you need to ensure it
> gets cleaned, stocked with coffee / tea, salaries paid on time, contracts
> drawn up ... that sort of thing

Just to clarify the discussion.
special project committee scope :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee
chapter committee scope :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Scope_and_area_of_delegation



> These are all simply technical roles - there is no assumption that they
> would be a single person, or a group, simply tasks that may need to be
> performed. The board gets standardised feedback and has the right to
> intervene to fire the director or any of the other role-players. The board
> does not run the operation, it simply has oversight and ultimate control.
> The director knows that they report to the board.

Ideally yes. Not yet the case.

> Board's normally do not require a massive time commitment and so they can be
> stocked with celebrities who are able to open doors (and consequently make
> the fundraising task a lot easier).

There is a balance to achieve here. If you stock the board with big
shots, you lose the continuity. And if you put too many community people
and big shots, you lose in efficiency.

I was under the presumption 9 could be a nice choice for us. With
roughly 2 big shots.

You raise the issue of efficiency, in particular to make it possible
that all members be able to meet together. Just for the reference, our
last board meeting was in january.

> Typically, any organisation has the following core requirements:
> * financial control
> * marketing
> * strategic planning
> * operational support (includes: IT, legal, HR and so on)
>
> You could, depending on the work-load, bundle many of these tasks together:
> * finance, internal audit, admin, hr
> * IT, technical development
> * chapters, special projects
> * communications, PR, fundraising
> * legal
> * director
>
> So then you need six people in your head office. Your board could be as
> large as you like (remembering that the bigger your board, the harder it is
> to get everyone to get together at the same time, or agree on anything).
> The overall strategy - it goes without saying - can be the responsibility of
> the board. Implementation belongs to the director.
>
> Anthere again:
> "Generally, I believe the projects will not accept *anyone* as head of a
> project, with absolute power. The projects organise themselves
> independently of the Foundation, only respecting the general goal of
> the project and a couple of core rules (licence, wikilove and neutrality
> essentially)."
>
> I don't suggest anything like absolute power (editorial control, that sort
> of thing) but it is useful to have a person in charge who keeps track of
> what is going on. They act as champion for the project. If you really want
> to create a Chinese wall between the Foundation and its projects then you
> have to have someone at any particular project that the Foundation can talk
> to. Someone has to guarantee the core rules will be applied.

Hmmmm, we actually had some champions in the past. I think we can
qualify Erik as such for wikinews. I do not think the idea of a unique
champion is fit, because this champion would have to be very little
controversial to be acceptable by either side. I rather believe in a
small group of trusted editors. This is already what is happening on the
english wikipedia.

> It's no good simply cutting a perfectly good project loose when it crosses
> the line. Someone, tasked with championing the project, should have the job
> of keeping the project inside those lines ... as gently as possible. Only
> when they completely loose the ability to control those guidelines should a
> project be cut.

Nod. This is what was done before closing the french wikiquote.

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