final five recommendations

I have some thoughts/concerns about "volunteer recognition":

• What is the appropriate entity to grant "formal" recognition? We have a board and staff, but their role is to support the content creation and editorial activities of the volunteer community, not to judge it; that's pretty fundamental to how Wikimedia works. We have chapters, but I would think those have a similar role. We have WikiProjects in various states of organization and activity. The WikiProject I know of has a "collaboration of the week"; it's run by one volunteer, and he gives out a "thumbs-up" to one editor every week, thanking them for "leading the way" on the collaboration. In short, my view is that it's entirely appropriate to have WikiProjects giving out awards, but I'm concerned about the legal entities getting into that realm. So, a question I'd like to explore would be "how can we encourage/support WikiProjects and similar groups to develop and sustain formal volunteer recognition programs?"
• How are volunteers selected? For both the recognizing body and the volunteer body, I think it would be important to have a common understanding of how volunteers are selected. Two reasons": (1) it should be fair, so that a hard-working volunteer feels they have a reasonable chance of earning the recognition; and (2) it should be rigorous, to avoid embarrassment to the granting entity. (Imagine this: An award is given out to an anonymous editor, or an editor who was not thoroughly vetted, who wrote an FA biography of a politician. Later, either privately or publicly, it becomes known that the editor was the chair of that politician's fundraising committee.)

Several of you have been discussing the criteria, and I think that's a good discussion to have, too -- I would want to think about edits to a topic area, as well. For instance, creating high-quality stubs for the CEO's of all Fortune 500 companies, or uploading photos of all former heads of state in Europe, or taking photos of all significant buildings that have Wikipedia articles in a certain city. Also, volunteers who exercise leadership in their community, even though they may not be writing an article themselves; those who reach out to museums or educators, for instance.