a good idea?

I posted my thoughts on this part of the strategic plan here. Others are commenting (I hope) as well.

It would be useful to see provenance: where did any particular part of this come from? From community members, Bridgespan, senior leadership at WMF?

That's kind of a broad question. All of it came from the process, which of course, involved everyone. The main concern was making sure that the Foundation priorities aligned with the movement priorities, which I think they do. Is there a specific section you're wondering about?

I thought I'd comment on your blog post here. I'll probably post something there as well.

Regarding Foundation growth: This recommendation was first made in Sue's letter to the board last February, which was published openly on this wiki. The link was prominent on the Main Page for the past six months, and we also used the SiteNotice to draw attention to it as well. The eventual number that the Foundation decided to target was smack in the middle of that range -- about $50 million in annual revenues. Your post is the first time I've seen anyone raise any eyebrows about it.

I don't see going from a $15 million to a $50 million organization shocking growth. Wikimedia is a top five web site -- the other four are organizationally-driven, and they're all 3-4 orders of magnitude larger, both in revenue and in employees. Tripling in size doesn't change that. Moreover, this growth is consistent with large open source projects, such as the Mozilla Foundation. In fact, that would make us smaller in five years than they are right now.

I think Nihiltres's comments on your blog post are hard and important questions, and I think it's worth having a discussion about that. But I don't see the growth we're talking about exacerbating that. Those issues are real now.

you are absolutely right that there is a budget range buried in the middle of that letter (which yes, I have read before). And indeed, I should have noticed it, extrapolated to the kind of staff growth proposed on this page, and lodged a thoughtful criticism. However, I find your suggestion that this proposal has raised no eyebrows absurd -- are you seriously saying that there is anything this important within Wikimedia that someone wouldn't find fault with? You know the community better than that :) If there is not even a single complaint, I think it simply means it hasn't been discussed at all.

What I meant by provenance was that it would be nice to know where specific recommendations come from: the recommendation to grow the staff to a particular number, the budget recommendations, etc.

And I think it's disingenuous to suggest that tripling the size of the Foundation wouldn't change it. The question is whether those changes are good and appropriate for our community, which is, as you note, quite special.

I'm not suggesting that no one would find fault with it. Obviously, you do, and so I'm glad we're discussing it here. You seem to be suggesting that this goal would have created much more controversy if it were more explicit. I do not agree with that, and frankly, from the feedback on this thread, your blog post, and foundation-l, I'm not seeing that from others.

If anything, the feeling that I get from conversations here and elsewhere is that people want the Wikimedia Foundation to do a lot more than it can, it will, and in my opinion, it should. One of the motivations behind the reframing of this wiki around the Call for action and Proposals was to help people realize what they are capable of without needing Foundation approval or intervention.

I never suggested that tripling the size of the Foundation wouldn't change it. From an organizational standpoint, your questions are very valid. My suggestion was that the growth target would not shift the power equation between the Foundation and the community.

I do think that the relationship between the Foundation and the community is an ongoing challenge, one that needs to be addressed. Jan-Bart and Arne are initiating a movement roles discussion as a way to make progress with these challenges, and I hope they and others leverage this wiki to do so.

Finally, it's very fair for you to ask about the methodology for coming up with those numbers, and I'll ping Bridgespan about sharing this.

well, I for one was surpised to see all this and only noticed it because of a mention in The Signpost. However my concern doesn't lie in the rapid growth - I think we need to grow and take risks or else be left just being "that encyclopedia that was innovative in 2006". However, I do have 2 other concerns:

1. I don't see where the-people-formerly-known-as-the-community sit in this plan. Personally, I am neither an employee of the WMF nor am I a very active contributor of content to the projects (I'm not an article-writer) and as such I don't see what role I have in the movement if there is no scope for participating outside of these.

1. The foundation's professionalisation over the last few years has been great and I'm very happy with it. I do wish however that rather than the WMF investing directly in chapter-like projects, that it would invest in the development of the professionalisation of the chapters themselves so that they can do the outreach on the ground. Currently, we do not have a "rising tide lifts all boats" relationship between the WMF and Chapters and this plan doesn't seem to set out any ways to rectify that. This leaves the chapters in a position of a) not being able to support the WMF professionally and b)a parternalistic system of WMF handouts to chapters when requested.

Regarding investment in developing Chapters: That is absolutely part of the plan. And you're right, for some reason, it's not listed in Strategic Plan/Role of the WMF. I will see if we can get clarification on that.

Regarding your opportunity/role as a non-active contributor and a non-staff member. I have two thoughts. You, in particular, are in many ways the ideal example of a community member who is making a huge difference for the movement simply by doing what you do. (For people who don't know about Liam's British Museum work, see his blog.) I think this kind of work squarely falls under the second of the Strategic Plan/Movement Priorities -- improve content quality.

The fact that you, as an active contributor, look at the plan, and you don't see a role for yourself, troubles me. So I'd like to explore how we could make this better.

One way would be to create a page called Strategic Plan/Movement Roles. This was the original intention. It didn't happen because this page has to be written by members of the movement (which happened with the Strategic Plan/Movement Priorities page, and for whatever reason, we've had difficulty getting people contributing to a movement roles discussion on this wiki. I allude to this a bit in my comment above about Jan-Bart and Arne's initiative.

But that doesn't mean it can't happen. Would you and others (Phoebe, perhaps) be willing to take a crack at such a page?

If the active investment in the professional development of the chapters is indeed part of the plan - I would love to see that explained more as to how the WMF plans to do that. I see that "growing and thriving chapters" is a key indicator in "Goal: Increase Participation" so that's great :-)

As for the issue of allowing (nay - encouraging) people to engage in more ways than the writing of content... perhaps it is inevitable that that will become harder. I do feel that I personally am lucky to have found a niche in the wikiverse at this time in its development. 5 years ago I would not be able to do what I'm doing today because Wikipedia wasn't as famous then. 5 years from now in the future I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now because the organisational infrastructure will be more solid - meaning joe-wikipedian couldn't just go off and talk with a museum without approval from someone "official". It's only right now in 2010 that I am able to do what I'm doing - not before or after. So, I suppose it's inevitable that as we professionalise we will also lose the ability for the outreach-amateurs like me to do things. It's just the way it's going to be. I think it's necessary that we become more professional but we should at least provide ways of allowing people who are not professionals (but nevertheless interested) to develop their skills.

I understand I may be sounding contradictory here - on the one hand I'm arguing for active support of chapter professionalisation and on the other hand I'm lamenting the loss of the ability of volunteers to just go out and do something. Not sure how to reconcile those...

(This dual forum (here + on the blog) is a little confusing :)

Until now, the Wikimedia Foundation has “survived” with limited financial and human resources. We are now in a position where our financial situation is more comfortable, and it’s natural to convert these financial resources into human resources, considering the Foundation has been ridiculously understaffed for years.

Phoebe, you of all people must know the insane amount of work the current Foundation staff has had to bear; it is not uncommon for a WMF employee to work 50 to 60 hours a week, because they have to. That’s not sustainable.

The financial / fundraising goals can be reached — I fully trust my co-workers who made this decision. And even if they can’t, we have back-up plans.

I hear your concerns about the risks associated with such a rapid growth in personnel. But with more people, the staff will be more available and more responsive to the community. With more people, the Foundation will be able to support the community more effectively. Until now the staff has had to focus on more “internal” tasks; I expect a larger staff to be able to devote more time to interacting with the community.

In a word, I think having more staff at the Foundation will enable the Foundation to work more closely with the community; it is an opportunity for better collaboration and integration. And also an opportunity for talented community members to join the staff :) We need more people on staff who share that historical & community knowledge with their co-workers who are relatively new to the Wikimedia universe.

I vote everyone works less. But that's just me.

I see no serious effort at separating the things that can equally well be done by volunteers from those that require the centralization of paid staff. It's looking at things backwards to see that we have money available, so we must spend it. I would instead suggest that we have reached our current status because we have had the absolute minimum of paid staff, and if we depart from it we shall be turning into the sort of organization that discourages volunteerism and diversity. The basic structure of Wikipedia is that anyone can work on whatever they please, but they know that the quality of the site will depend directly on themselves and others like them. This encourages personal responsibility and personal initiative. All of this is lost in a site relying upon professionals for its direction. The existence of paid staff with professional titles inherently exposes us to the danger that they will think that they, not the volunteers, run Wikipedia , and the volunteers are only peripheral. This is not why the volunteers work here. They work because they know that more than with anything else they might be doing , they actually do affect the project directly. Our strength is our chaotic manner of working, and we should not compromise it. Every additional staff member contributes to the ossification of the overall project. If this is irreversible, the best course will be to fork the project: I predict the fork without the staff will do the better.

+1

DGG above expresses many of my feelings about the staffing levels and how it affects volunteer motivation.

At the moment, I'm mostly involved with OpenStreetMap, which prides itself as being "100% volunteer run" and that's a very helpful thing to be able to say when recruiting new volunteers, and appealing to people's altruistic motives.

For Wikimedia, I think that volunteers should be positioned high in the org chart, and staff fill in and supplement in areas that volunteers are weak.

I'm also not thrilled about the departmentalisation, and rather would like to see more cross-fertilization between the various areas and between staff and editing community.

Volunteers are at the top of the org chart - they form the Board of Trustees. And yes, the general organizing principle of the work of WMF is to fill strategic and operational gaps and facilitate volunteer efforts. Whether staffing numbers are (relatively speaking) large or small does not say anything about whether we're being successful at doing so. I see no reason why it isn't possible to build a 200 people organization that's wonderfully capable of supporting volunteer work without displacing it, or a 20 people organization that's utterly incompetent at doing so. Each WMF initiative, including this very strategy process, needs to be carefully assessed in how it's influenced and been embedded into volunteer efforts; in every case, there are lessons to be learned for next time, and we need to work together to figure out the best ways to support Wikimedia's mission.

That's all true regardless of whether WMF grows or remains static, but growth almost certainly guarantees that we'll fail more (because we'll do more). Not a bad thing, as long as we iterate, remain self-aware, and get smarter.

Aude, you said that volunteers should be positioned high in the org chart, and paid staff should fill in and supplement where volunteers are weak. As Eloquence noted, this is the case right now. Do you disagree? If so, could you elaborate?

[Argh... just lost what I wrote, with a external link being caught by the spam filter and what I wrote gone :(]

Fair point about the Board drawing from the community.

One area that I think should be especially community/locally/chapter-driven is GLAM outreach. An example where that was not the case was the NIH Wikipedia Academy last summer. Only at the last minute (five days before) were bot notices sent out to DC area Wikipedians, inviting them to be involved. [1]

Instead, by involving local DC Wikipedians early in the planning process, you would find active volunteers who also have experience with how the government bureaucracy works and also volunteers who have local contacts/networks (e.g. know people at NIH). Although not subject matter experts, they would be valuable in the planning process. I happened to be stalking MetaWiki recent changes and found out about the academy, but otherwise might have been in the dark and not informed until too late. (e.g. I already had travel plans, couldn't get out of work, etc.)

Fortunately, I see things are happening at the local/community level for outreach to the Smithsonian. I would like to see this continue, with decisions/direction at this level, things remain grassroots and bottom-up, and draw upon the Foundation as a resource when-needed. I would be disappointed if a staff member replaced the local/community in this effort, except perhaps if the local/community person was at some point hired or funded (via grant).