Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Transition Team/2016/Community input

Some competencies that may be of interest

Drawn from the UK Civil Service competency framework [1]. In terms of span of control, the ED post would correspond to Director grade, level 6 on the framework. The competencies are in three areas:

• Setting direction

• Seeing the big picture
• Changing and improving
• Making effective decisions

• Engaging people

• Leading and communicating
• Collaborating and partnering
• Building capability for all

• Producing results

• Achieving commercial outcomes
• Delivering value for money
• Managing a quality service
• Delivering at pace

They may be helpful in setting a common language for discussions. Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

LBGT, Academia and GLAM

These are three areas that are relevant but they are not what WMF is about. Other subjects are way more important. Our projects fail the non western cultures on a massive scale. They are lacking in our attention and it is what a new ED might bring to us. It would be controversial to some but this is at least as important. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

I guess we cannot escape the fact that Wikimedia is US-based and thus hostage to the political games going on in the USA. But it is sad to see that the people compiling this survey do not seem to be even aware any more that this is the case. I would like to point out that "diversity" is a code word for a political ideology that may have become ubiquitous in US politics over the last few years, but which is not necessarily understood as an euphemism for "race" in the English language as spoken worldwide. If you are going to let political ideology seep into a project like Wikipedia (which back in 2001 was about free encyclopedic content, not about ideological power games in US society), please try to remain aware at least when you are using ideological jargon and do not assume this jargon will make sense to a global audience (paradoxically, "diverse" in the intended sense does only make sense to a very limited, homogenous commnity of white collar / urban / hipster USians, but not to a "diverse" audience). Similarly, it isn't clear why "LBGT" should come up in a questionnaire about the views of the ED any more than interest in the Middle East peace process, saving the whales, manned missions to Mars, or research into ichthyology (I am saying that Wikipedia used to be universal in topical scope, not aligned with whatever is driving the hysteria-du-jour on the internet at large). Again, it saddens me that the people taking it upon themselves to "run" the project seem to have lost sight of this to such an extent that it was possible to even consider including ideological shibboleths in the survey. --Dbachmann (talk) 08:24, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The selection criteria used in the recent mass mailout

What selection criteria was used in the recent mass mailout requesting input from certain editors [2] while other editors were excluded? A casual examination shows the selection criteria seems unrelated to the standard or extent of an editor's contributions. So what was the selection based on? --Epipelagic (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. We randomly selected a sample of active editors (5+ edits per month) across 10 language projects to invite to take the survey. That said, it is an open survey, so anyone can take it – even those who did not receive a message on their talk page to do so. Please feel free to invite anyone you'd like to take it as well. Thank you. --Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

No question about having edited Wikipedia or other WMF projects?

I'd think that having edited WMF projects or not would be a criteria. I really don't think the Director should be someone who has never made a single Wikipedia edit, for example. --Piotrus (talk) 06:18, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I've seen that point -- the candidate needs to have hands-on experience with a Wikimedia project -- mentioned more than once. And by "hands-on experience", I think it's accurate to say this means more than making some edits or lurking on some of the meta pages: actually produce (i.e, research) & contribute content; interact with other Wiki[m|p]edians; in short, do enough that one has a feel for how the thing actually works (& maybe form an opinion or two about how it could work better). While I don't think it's vital that a potential ED come from the volunteers -- having an outside opinion could lead to some useful insights -- it is vital that any potential ED have a clear idea of what is actually happening on the factory floor before setting an agenda for what will happen under her/his watch. (I honestly doubt any ED so far has a clear idea how Wikipedia works, let alone lesser-profile projects like Commons, Wikisource, or Wiktionary.) -- Llywrch (talk) 15:25, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

It's too late to make a difference, but for what it's worth I very much support the idea that the ED be someone who has contributed content (including satisfactory references) and interacted with other Wikipedians. - Pointillist (talk) 12:07, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

How to submit a survey ?

Is there a submit button on survey ? That one with >> chars ? Doctore_→∞ 11:41, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

That button does submit the survey. Yes, it is kind of unclear. I'll see if we can fix this. Thank you. --Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Dutch Wikipedia

De term "De commissie verantwoordelijk voor de zoektocht naar een nieuwe directeur voor de Wikimedia Foundation" is een taalkundig gedrocht. Alternatieven zouden kunnen zijn: "De voor de aanstelling van een nieuwe directeur van de Wikimedia Foundation verantwoordelijke commissie" of "De sollicitatiecommissie voor een nieuwe directeur van de Wikimedia Foundation" Opzwartbeek (talk) 20:28, 3 Juni 2016 (CET)

Hi @Opzwartbeek:, thanks for the comment and I apologize for replying in English. It's already an awkward term in English, so it's not easy to translate at all, no matter of the language you choose. The second alternative might indeed be the simpler solution, I'm going to check if we can change it. Alice Wiegand (talk) 17:45, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

What are "Emerald", "PIOS One" and "Ted EX"?

Funny question to ask, considering that, I'd guess, the vast majority of the community has never heard of these. Wikilinks to articles about them, please? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:55, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

scnr: PIOS One, Emerald and for TED Ex I only found this. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 19:50, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

TED refers to this. Pundit (talk) 16:10, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

As you have seen, Emerald had a false link to the gem, as it's absolutely not obvious what this in-group-lingo is about. Could you please refrains from such excluding lingo and start writing for the public, not just insiders? Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:03, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

I have not checked the link. You're right that this is a bit too hermetic. I proposed these examples, as I did not want to just list the dominant US academic publishers, but outside of the academic circles PLOS and Emerald are probably largely unknown. Too late to change the survey (as it could affect the results), but a good lesson for the future. Pundit (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, as with all abbreviations and distinct names these should have been linked. Sorry. Alice Wiegand (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Habt Ihr die Seite auch auf deutsch?

Mein Englisch ist leider nicht gut genug, um alles zu erfassen, was auf der Vorderseite steht. --Mogelzahn (talk) 23:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Übersetzung ist leider bislang nicht vorgesehen. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:01, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Ich habe die Seite gerade für die Übersetzung vorbereitet. Kommentare sind unabhängig davon auch in anderen Sprachen als Englisch möglich. Alice Wiegand (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Hab' mich gleich mal dran gemacht, was heißt denn (and EQ)? Ist zu kurz für Leo. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

EQ ist emotional quotient, emotionale Intelligenz. Alice Wiegand (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Noch was: Was ist der Unterschied zwischen technical und engineering?

Bin nicht sicher, ob sich das im Deutschen konkret voneinander trennen lässt. Mein Verständnis ist, dass engineering eher eine Art Prozesskompetenz ausdrückt, während technical die Kenntnis des konkreten Tuns, des Programmierens oder der Systemadministration beschreibt. Bin für Übersetzungs-Vorschläge auch sehr dankbar.

Und noch was: Könntest Du die Überschriften und Absätze der Antworten besser trennen für die Übersetzung? Die müssen ja nicht gleich alle übersetzt werden, aber das Grundgerüst sollte schon stehen. Und freigegeben zum Übersetzen ist das auch noch nicht richtig. Grüße vom Sänger ♫^(Reden) 17:59, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Brauche ich auch etwas Zeit für (sprich: nicht heute und auch nicht morgen). Eine Diskussion oder wie hier eine Sammlung von Aussagen zu übersetzen ist immer schwierig. Alice Wiegand (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Status

Presumably we can now mark this page as {{historical}}? Rogol Domedonfors (talk) 07:14, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Hopefully we will not need to restart this process next year.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)