final five recommendations

Those are both really good questions. I think the recommendation was aimed at a more general level than that. First, we should do it. Second, there are a lot of smart ways to do it that work well with Wikipedia. That's the extent of what we have in the recommendation right now.

Selecting who should be awarded goes hand in hand with figuring out who should select/grant the award. I suppose there is a very communitarian approach, where we trust a group of editors, but then there are risks of cabals. There is also a more objective approach, where we focus on quantifiable successes, but then we risk ignoring important qualitative factors. An editor who did all the requisite edits, but turns out to be a jerk. Or an editor who fell short of the metrics, but is respected by the whole community.

Randomran, thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm getting a clearer picture of what is and isn't the goal here, from your words and from reviewing the text again.

I think one of the things that contributed to my confusion is the way that Jayne Cravens' recommendations are presented. Her recommendations are not said to be this group's recommendations, but in the absence of some careful introductory text about how this group does regard the recommendations, I believe that is the natural assumption.

Her recommendations are much more specific than the "general level" you suggest; and furthermore, while I do not doubt that they are informed by "…experience regarding communications, community/volunteer involvement, and capacity-building for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations/civil society, government-based community programs, and corporate philanthropy programs," they do not appear to reflect a very sophisticated understanding of how Wikimedia or its various sub-cultures and authoritative bodies operate. As any consultant will agree, general or preliminary recommendations are a very different thing the kind of recommendation that results from an in-depth client needs assessment and analysis.

So, I would suggest that we focus some attention on how her recommendations are introduced, lest we give the impression that merely implementing her specific recommendations is our general, strategic recommendation.

Yeah, I think Jayne Cravens did a fantastic job explaining what other not-for-profit organizations do. But we haven't really taken a strong position about which ones Wikimedia should focus on, and which are the most compatible with the community culture we have now.

For what it's worth, we have had very specific suggestions from the community here:

Category:Proposals for editor awards or rewards

We may want to pick out the best handful, and use them to build up some kind of ideal reward system.

In keeping with the desire for this recommendation to be a general framework/strategy, I think it might be good to put recommendations reflecting general non-profit expertise (like Cravens') and recommendations reflecting deep familiarity with the Wikimedia universe (like those from the community) in a separat, linked document (or an appendix). Then, we could focus in the main document on making a general recommendation for how such specific recommendations should be handled. What do you think of that?

That seems to make sense to me. I'd like to use the "general non-profit expertise" as supporting material -- proof that other people do it and it's a good idea. But it should all be used to support the best few recommendations from the community (which we should refine to make better).

I think the best place to start is to flag a few of the best rewards in that category. Are there any of them that you particularly like?

(Note: a new thread has been started on volunteer recognition, asking for something a bit more specific.)