Edit 2014/Leadership & Wikipedia: Submissions:2019/“Wikipedians are born, not made” – applying the learnings from a 10-year-old research paper after all

Title of the submission

Themes (Proposal Themes - Community

Type of submission (Presentation Types - Presentation, 15 min

Author of the submission

Slowking

E-mail address

Slowking4@gmail.com

Username

Slowking

US state or country of origin

VA

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

Wikimedia DC

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Leadership in Wikimedia: human resource management for wikipedians

Leadership is required to improve the quality of wikipedia. The Principles of quality control apply to software projects such as wikipedia. Quality Circles need to be organized to address problems in a proactive way, without drama. Statistical Quality Control measures are needed to be developed and used, rather than fixing problems.

We need a new standard of professionalism. Like the librarians and archivists, we need to treat the public with respect, especially when they are wrong. When we treat people with disrespect, then we hurt the project.

Prevailing attitudes

• patroling recent changes will fix the problem
• send a message to vandals that their work will be deleted
• tag, order, and bait the editors; and enforce rules, nuance is too difficult
• the less editing, the less patrolling necessary.
• delete it, it's not my job to fix it.
• prove to me it has a source or delete it
• mass deletion is within admin discretion, if they can't keep up with my work rate, too bad
• oh my finger is in the dike, why won't somebody help me?
• all the notable articles have been written, let's delete the non-notable ones
• raise the drawbridge, then patrolling will be easier, quality improve
• we need to create drama to force editors to work on my agenda

questions

• What are we doing here?
• Who are we writing for?
• What is the experience of the reader; editor?

philosophy

• More civility enforcement; less tit for tat
• More coaching; less scapegoating
• More system fixing; less error fixing
• More teams; less lone wolves
• More concierges; fewer gatekeepers

actions

• Process improvement
  • analysis - cause and effect diagram
• Quality circles
  • form task forces to solve process problems
  • plan > do > check > act
• Institute training
  • training new editors ambassadors' tutorials; teahouse; mentors
  • training admins on human resource management

Length of presentation/talk (see Presentation Types for lengths of different presentation types)

15 Minutes

Will you attend WikiConference USA if your submission is not accepted?

yes

Slides or further information (optional)

Special request as to time of presentations

please no conflict with wiki loves Capitol hill

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