wiki reorg - Documentation Team

Stroller stroller at stellar.eclipse.co.uk
Fri Jul 25 04:31:26 CEST 2008


On 24 Jul 2008, at 23:46, Josh Monson wrote:
> ...
> I completely agree with your "take this team in a direction" comments.
> ...
> Of whom would lead this or be in charge of it, in terms of  
> coordinating
> the efforts of the volunteers. The response I received from OM was  
> that
> Brenda has been leading this already and will continue to do so. I  
> see a
> lot of back'n'forth on the list about who is doing what, but I do not
> see responses from Brenda or another person in listing out tasks,
> assigning work, goal orientation, etc...

I don't see a collaborative project as needing a leader.

Honestly, if someone "assigns me work" it ain't gonna get done unless  
I'm interested in it - I've got about a zillion other things to do,  
including paying work.

Many projects - including, I believe Wikipedia itself - operate very  
successfully by volunteers getting on with the tasks that interest  
them. I'll say more about this in another message in a minute. Yeah,  
some tasks are going to be boring & uninteresting - Openmoko has paid  
staff and might be persuaded that its in their own interest to  
contribute, however.

> William Lai wrote "In fact she has been actively 'leading' since  
> day 1,
> before any of these discussions started."

As I see it Brenda's role is mostly administrative. Since Openmoko  
has asked the community for a wiki team, I see no reason why we  
shouldn't say to Brenda "hi, we need these pages moved into this  
category" and "we need this template created". Brenda has already  
undertaken tasks suggested by this list (removing "User Guides"  
category in favour of existing "Guides" category [1]).

Brenda:
Sorry if you don't like the suggestion that you'll have to do a lot  
of menial work. But if you want a leadership role instead, you're  
have to assume it. The "Eastern Vs Western" modes of communication  
were mentioned on the -community list, but Openmoko has sanctioned a  
community effort to clean up, reorganise & contribute to the wiki,  
which is what this list is about. If you approve of an idea or think  
it inappropriate then you need to speak up. Just reply to the list  
quoting only the relevant parts of the message and say "Great idea!"  
or "This might be a problem (because...)".
You have in the last few days responded to a suggestion by saying  
"I'll do this". It hasn't been a problem at all so far, but please  
note the difference between a suggestion and a decision! You would be  
supporting our community role if instead you said "I think this is a  
good idea, too. I'll do this unless there are any objections". If you  
then wait 48 hours before undertaking the task it gives other  
community volunteers the chance to point out any problems before the  
task is committed.

Stroller.




[1] http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/documentation/2008-July/ 
000031.html






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