283:." But Jaime Anstee, senior manager of L&E, describes the peer academy as a "shared space to coordinate and support leadership development across the movement." It would consist of more than a series of regular events: "other training initiatives, toolkits, and guides, as well as other resource support" would also be part of the academy, said Anstee. She emphasized the benefits her team has seen from its efforts to date: Wikimedians have come to more consistently plan for and document their programmatic activities, she reports. Anstee and her team see these practices as part of an approach that could lead to "better practices for listening across our communities", which may, in time, reduce controversy.
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to something worth doing but obviously difficult, practice what you preach, and set an example for others to follow." She also found value in self-deprecating humor: "have fun, make fun of yourself and let others do so. We call each other 'victims' or 'patients'." Atanassova has participated in several of WMFâs
Learning Days, and credited them with helping to build awareness of the challenge among Wikimedians, in a variety of language communities.
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broader strategic plan; but the
Wikimedia strategic plan developed in 2010 expired in 2015, and plans to develop another have not yet produced a result. Do we have a strong shared understanding of where we want to go? In the absence of a plan, that is unclear. When ideas of leadership extend into areas beyond uncontroversial success, the absence of a shared strategic vision may come to the fore.
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366:.) Haiyi Zhu's 2011 study found that the group identification, goal setting and implicit social modeling inherent in that program had a positive impact on volunteer retention and productivity. Stevens cited his personal experience on Knowledge as the inspiration for the program: he had found it difficult to generate interest in the fledgling WikiProject to move the
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and in other communications, in declining to take a leadership role in developing
Wikipedian in residence programs. This clarity, according to Wyatt, permitted affiliate organizations and individuals to move into leadership roles, confident they would not need to compete with a better-funded, more official organization.
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to work at a global scaleâthis is as true for building human skills as it is for fundraising or for working with schools or museums." He notes that although affiliate organizations' role in training and leadership development is acknowledged in the community consultation, affiliates "are not identified as partners."
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leadâas a crucial ingredient in the WiR modelâs success: "By specifically absenting themselves from the field on the topic of GLAM it allowed a space for the
Chapters to exist uncontested, and to justify their existence." Unlike other areas, the WMF was explicit and consistent, in its strategic plan
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Stevens raised a point echoed by several people: some
Wikipedians might look on events like Learning Days as a reward. Without an accountability structure, he wonders whether in-person training will produce tangible results, or whether they will instead become sought-after social events inaccessible
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But Wyatt also emphasized a concernâsomething he feels applies to a variety of WMF effortsâthat the WMFâs role "ought to be to facilitate and assist others to do great stuff, not to try to do it directly themselves". So the peer academy "cannot be a centralised program or process if it is to be able
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Atanassova stressed that #100wikidays, a commitment to write an article every day for 100 sequential days, started off as a personal challengeânot as something she intended to impose on others. But she feels that she stumbled on an important leadership recipe: "step out of your comfort zone, commit
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I think most people take leadership for granted and view it mostly as something you find rather than develop", says Kim. "I deeply believe that one of the most impactful roles that the
Wikimedia Foundation and other chapters (or anyone really who cares) could play in the movement would be both to
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Focused change can be more challenging for projects (like those built on wikis) that are decentralized and explicitly non-hierarchical projects. Chloe
Waretini spent six months in 2015 focusing on the evolving needs of Enspiral, a non-hierarchical network of consultants looking to increase their
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Our discussions revealed that the topic of leadership cultivation opens a number of questions, some of which are central to what
Wikimedia and the Wikimedia Foundation aim to become. The kind of "shared vision for leadership development" imagined by the L&E team might, ideally, be tied to a
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article through the featured article process. With COTW, he hoped not only to get help improving the articles that interested him, but to encourage fellow volunteers to step up with their own projects and ideas. Like
Atanassova, he cites goofy humor as an important ingredient in getting people
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Wyatt, who currently serves on the WMF's Funds
Dissemination Committee, took a broad view of the peer academy concept, placing it in the context of the WMF's long-term strategic efforts and of a general challenge it faces. He praised the "peer academy" and its ambition to connect people around
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that leaders in the Knowledge community evolve gradually into their roles, first deepening their understanding of the community, and then forming important connections to other influential individuals. Past leadership development efforts in education and GLAM outreach have taken on the kind of
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When these topics come up, individualsâwhether volunteers or staff of various organizationsâcan be a key component in advancing solutions. They might do so by quietly nudging discussions forward and observing patterns; by generating and executing new ideas; by creating scripts, bots, and other
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that, in online peer production communities, leadership often comes through group identification, goal setting and implicit social modeling; she argues that the methods employed in traditional organizations can be ineffective, or even counterproductive, in online communities.
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Leadership positions come with no authority attached. No one in the network has a right to tell anyone else what to do, so making any organisational developments requires a lot of social manoeuvringâââbuilding credibility and collective motivation behind your initiatives.
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has emerged to compare and refine what does and doesnât work to bring about change. But when an organization like the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) seeks to stimulate its volunteer communitiesâ efforts to bring about meaningful change, as it does in its present
272:(which runs through October 16). The announcement and the consultation page might suggest that the effort is limited to volunteers who launch new projects, or that in-person training sessions will be the core of WMFâs efforts; but in an interview with the
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learning and networking considered in the study. Now, a new effort of the Wikimedia Foundationâs Learning & Evaluation (L&E) team takes aim at that dynamic, exploring ways to bring leaders and potential leaders together. The team has launched
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The L&E teamâs initial announcement cited two successful instances of leadership: Liam Wyattâs pioneering Wikipedian in residence (WiR) role at the British Museum, and Vassia Atanassovaâs more recent #100wikidays challenge. The
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183:. Things might be humming along, but if danger is on the horizon, coordinated effort might be needed. For a traditional organization, a number of well-known practices can be employed to bring about change. The field of
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Waretini's position allowed her to see that the organic rate of change in the network was faster than members less centrally involved might perceive, and that many changes were never documented. She observed:
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Perhaps a peer academy can provide a forum for developing such mechanisms; or perhaps its formation will be impeded by their absence. And trying to build the peer academy may be the only way to find out.
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technical tools; or by building relationships with valuable potential partners in Wikimedia's broad vision. We might call such efforts "leadership", noting Waretini's caveat about the lack of authority.
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Thus far, the discussion on Meta Wiki points to many details, but does not appear to address the broader questions around designing a system to cultivate and support leadership activities in depth. One
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Thanks for the great overview of the challenges Pete: this is a really good description of why and how this conversation is an important one to have.
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to most Wikipedians. Stevens sees tangible benefitsâpayment, or rewards like gift cardsâas a more accountability-driven way to motivate Wikipedians.
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Cultivating leadership: Wikimedia Foundation seeks input: A new "peer academy" is proposed to find and support leadership in volunteer communities
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If this sounds familiar, you might just be a Wikimedian. For years, broad issues have called out for our collective attention: Will we
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Making sense of it all enough to direct our efforts intelligently takes up a lot of cognitive real estate.
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of our editor base skewed? How can the subjects of articles best lodge complaints or make suggestions?
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Wyatt also noted the WMF's own approach to leadership -- perhaps ironically, a commitment to
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When asked about the challenges surrounding the WMF's software launches,
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nurture, model, and shine a spotlight on great community leadership.
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Enspiral Catalyst: A 6-month crash course in 21st Century leadership
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has been extended, and will now run through October 23, 2016.
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has been extended, and will now run through October 23, 2016.
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also reached out to M. O. Stevens (known to Wikipedians as
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All big projects face this question from time to time:
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The complex phenomenon of leadership in the wiki world
555:If your comment has not appeared here, you can try
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371:involved. Over the years, the COTW has achieved
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18:Knowledge:Knowledge Signpost
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