Filed under: chain-gang,international,metrics,popular demand,wikipedia
The movement roles of individuals, informal groups, and our many wiki projects need to be discussed by a different group of participants, reflecting the diversity of community and editorial efforts that make our projects work. This discussion will receive more attention from the current MR working group once its recommendations are published this summer, but can be pursued independently from the current formal-entity discussions.
This set of issues is very broad, perhaps the broadest set of issues raised during strategic planning. Topics on organizational structure, dynamics, and communication all have analogies in more traditional movements and organizations. However the constellation of independent wikiprojects, ad-hoc groups, and active individuals is closer to the structure of a town than that of a non-profit; and we have had less in the way of concrete advice on how to organize and plan such work.
By the same token, these issues are central to the original success of the Projects, and to pressing questions such as how to increase participation, openness of projects to new types of contribution, and communication across projects. What groups have the role of helping wikiprojects communicate about their work, or organize and maintain their efforts? Responding to floods of new users? Responding to spam, vandalism, and abuse of project policies? Maintaining accuracy and quality? Who are responsible for protecting contributors who are harassed or placed at legal or personal risk? Who manages messaging on the main pages and banners of the projects? And who prioritizes updates and improvements requested by each project?
Anyone interested in starting this next phase of movement roles analysis is encouraged to do so on Meta – and to join the current working group even if the ‘formal entity’ topics are not of interest.