[diversity-talk] wikipedia parallels

[Simon Poole]

I actually think there is a -lot- of room for a small OSMF to grow and
to evolve.

I have always assumed that "small" in the end refers to limiting the
scope of what we do to the really necessary central functions with as
much subsidiarity as possible and not creating a large bureaucratic top
heavy organisation. Back to the comparison with the Wikimedia
Foundation, you can run a substantial enterprise with a quite a bit less
than the $50M or whatever amount WMF is planning on requiring annually
in the future, so I don't think being "small" limits us in any practical
way if we really want to do something.

As to the future group, my expectation of it is not so much that it
should find yet another set of audacious goals, but more concrete how
our business model should evolve so that we can actually work towards
achieving the goals. IMHO the spread of opinions on that is far greater
than where we should be at the "end".

I don't think it is particularly useful to point fingers at mistakes
made in the past, I believe it suffices to point out that we now do have
a set of articles that are not totally at odds with what we actually do,
that we now do control our core assets, that we now do have a proper
accounting system in place and have greatly improved governance.  There
is still work to do (mainly budgeting and transparency), but we are
clearly further along the path to making the OSMF a stable and viable
organisation.

As to the the "employing staff" issue, I consider it a bit of a red
herring. On the one hand it is not necessary for us to employ staff
directly, on the other hand we have never had enough stable income to
even remotely contemplate having full time staff (regardless of all
spouting about "we have enough money lets just employ somebody" that we
have heard multiple times). Financing and related issues is however
something I expect the OSMF to attack in the upcoming months. That we
are at the limits of what can be expected of unpaid volunteers in some
cases is something I hope we are all acutely aware of.

Simon

 
Am 10.09.2013 22:03, schrieb Mikel Maron:
> I don't think OSMF has decided to stay small, but rather has stayed
> small due to the inability to make decisions. There's been plenty of
> folks who wanted it do more, and still do. Sometimes there are
> different ideas. There's no way to choose, so often the default
> happens, which is nothing. I do support anyone willing to try to
> instigate things to happen.
>
> As for the SWG, yea it's dead, please kill it. Even getting a "tile
> layer policy" together took dental surgery like effort and pain; I'm
> not sure we can claim credit for refreshing the logo. We never set out
> to tell anyone what to do, that's just the same FUD as any time the
> SWG faced. Rather the question has always been how to structure
> processes so that things the community do want to happen, actually
> happen. Perhaps it was just the word "Strategy" that gave people
> allergic reactions. If the Future group can do better, I think it's
> just a different name and different faces, for the same general idea.
> Good luck!
>
> Paid staff, that day will definitely come. Grant himself has said he'd
> be happy to be paid to do Ops. Andy Allan was paid to finish the
> redaction bot. I've talked about it for years, the Board has talked
> about it for years. There's just no way we can continue to forever
> rely on the kind of volunteer system administration that we are so so
> fortunate to have from the Ops team. And it wouldn't take any change
> to the AoA, there's nothing in the governance about paid employees.
> but would require that OSMF have a proper accounting and HR system.
>
> I've come around to the idea that OSMF should stay small, but should
> do its the things in its limited responsibility and governance view
> really really well. And OSMF should give space for other
> organizations, which are interested in acting strategically, to do
> things within the OSM community. That's the crucial point of having a
> Local Chapters agreement, and its why that's the only thing I'm going
> to possibly volunteer my time on substantially within the OSMF in the
> foreseeable future.
>
> Finally, while Wikipedia will always be one our key guideposts, both
> attractive and repulsive, we should take a clear eyed view at what
> they do. They are hardly top down, and the way the put together their
> last strategic plan was very experimental and outrageously
> consultative. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> -Mikel
>
>
> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com>
>     *To:* alyssa wright <alyssapwright at gmail.com>
>     *Cc:* Kate Chapman <k8chapman at gmail.com>; diversity-talk
>     <diversity-talk at openstreetmap.org>
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, September 10, 2013 3:38 PM
>     *Subject:* Re: [diversity-talk] wikipedia parallels
>
>     The difference between the Wikimedia Foundation and OSM is quite
>     large.
>
>     Wikipedia is a large organization, with millions of dollars and paid
>     employees. It sets the direction it goes in from the top down, via
>     funding.
>
>     OSMF has decided to stay small over the years. It has made that
>     position clear through years of not voting for candidates which have
>     talked about the issue of money or paid employees, until this year.
>     Such candidates include Kate, and myself. Both of who have run for the
>     OSMF, and both of which have lost in the past, on this platform.
>
>     Despite Kate getting into the OSMF (and maybe being able to change
>     this), it would be a major sea change for the OSMF to radically change
>     positions regarding something as fundamental as paid employees, and
>     probably would require a new amendment to the Articles of Association-
>     which as you saw this year, is not easy to get through.
>
>     The problem with the Strategic Working Group, and the now, "Future
>     Working Group" is that they tend to be proscriptive. "We should be",
>     which is actually "You should be"- and no one likes to be told what to
>     do with their spare time.
>
>     Instead, when possible, the energy one might otherwise expend trying
>     to change everyone's opinion about how they should spend their free
>     time would be better spent doing the work that needs doing, and then
>     getting people to agree to it afterwards.
>
>     I didn't always hold this view- I still don't think it's optimal for
>     all things, but after years of tilting at windmills, I've learned to
>     become more practical in expectations of how the OSMF operates.
>
>
>     - Serge
>
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