a good idea?

+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).