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Approval discussion

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This proposal has been endorsed by the Wikipedia Ambassador Steering Committee, and it is now being put to the community for consideration. Please indicate whether you support the proposal or have suggestions for improving it. We will attempt to create a version that has consensus support.

Since no one else has had much to say one way or another about the questionnaire (I had been waiting for more feedback in the earlier discussion, and then forgot to go back and edit the questionnaire) I've gone ahead and made some changes that address some of your concerns. I left the "new potential editors" question mostly as-is (changed the word "reach"); yes, it's a policy question for the ambassadors program, but it's a policy question for the ambassadors (including new ones) figure out. So that question is intended to get new ambassadors thinking more broadly about the idea of Wikipedia ambassadorship.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What do others think of that question?--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your changes addressed 98% of my issues, and I have switched to "support". That was quick! -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I reworked that last question a bit more; you said the 'better' "implies that somebody has been doing a lousy job before." I wouldn't personalize it like that, but yeah, it was meant to imply that, as a community, we do a lousy job at that overall. We don't have a newbie-friendly culture. That's probably not actually that controversial—people have been saying this for years and trying to find ways to improve it—but it's perhaps unnecessarily negative in this context.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see what you mean. Just a suggestion: I would remove "potential" and "would be". I think they are already implied in the word "new", so that readability might be improved without them? No problem either way. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

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As someone who has looked at some of the appointed ambassadors and wondered "how the hell did this person get here?", some of this strikes me as overly convoluted and in risk of obscuring the key requirements. The "content development" section in particular strikes me as being more appropriate for RfA than ambassadorship. Activity is only important if one-on-one ongoing assistance is necessary or if the parameters of the program change frequently (not my experience so far).

Three criteria I would propose for editors to be suitable ambassadors (based on being involved with the help setup for the past year or so):

  • Experience: Proven track record of helping new and inexperienced editors in a responsible and competent way, through wikipedia-en-help, the help desk, {{helpme}} or other means.
  • Knowledge: Has to know more than the helpees in the topic area at hand. Think of this as "areas of competence" on an academic C.V.; GAN, referencing, image policy are some examples.
  • Clue: No recent history of blocks or reprimands for obtuse or clueless behaviour. Maturity, self-awareness, and restraint are the important virtues here.

Lacking any of these three can impede your ability to help editors effectively. Editors lacking 1 can often be brusque and impatient. As for 2, I found myself to be unable to help a student effectively yesterday because although I was an experienced and clued-in helper, I realised I simply did not know the image policy well enough to be of any use. 3 is an issue because the help system attracts a fair amount of well-intentioned interest from less mature (this is not necessarily synonymous with "younger") editors who often end up doing more harm than good.

Submitted for your consideration. Skomorokh 15:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Skomorokh about content development. It is crucial for online ambassadors to have gone through the FAC process and to understand how to create the highest quality articles on Wikipedia. I have met lots of experienced Wikipedians who never got an article promoted to FA, and they always disagree with some of the important editorial policies of Wikipedia. We don't want to teach students to do things the wrong way. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So you think most of the existing ambassadors are unqualified to serve? Sorry, fails the Chzz test for me. Unless the students are trying to take article through FAC, that level of knowledge is a luxury, not a requirement. Skomorokh 15:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And to add, if WP:WBFAN is to be believed, only one of the seven-member steering committee has taken an article through FAC. Should the others be asked to step down? Skomorokh 15:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, WP:WBFAN cannot be believed. It is updated by a bot that relies on logs that are not created or updated reliably. There are lots of people with FAC experience who are not listed there, and the numbers of FAs per person is an incomplete tally. Not that this matters. We can agree to disagree. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would be wary of having the FAC process be an absolute neccessity. From my experience, it is not very conducive for people to learn from their mistakes. (That being said, my only experience on it has been a sound shut down of my own nomination.) I have since been content with working on GA review and more project oriented tasks, because the GA process felt less hostile. I think I learn a lot more from my GA reviews, both being reviewed and reviewing, than any other process, because many GA reviewers are more willing to hold hands and help people over a long period of time (more than a week). Just a thought though.Sadads (talk) 18:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflicted] In broad strokes, I agree with you. A couple points... I would say that the content development and/or experience with content processes is the main area that I should have weighed much more heavily in selecting the first wave of ambassadors; what the students need most from mentors is not introduction to the basics of policy and markup (that's what Campus Ambassadors are introducing them to) but real, detailed feedback about their work once it gets going... sources, avoiding original research, style and article structure critiques, etc. Explicit experience helping newcomers is good, but for content-focused editors who have a track record of civility, I think extensive prior newcomer-helping experience isn't strictly necessary. But definitely, knowledge and clue, and experience that at least demonstrates the capacity for helping newcomers (if not direct experience doing so) are the key things. The list of "relevant considerations" can be thought of as a set of things that, taken as a whole, are likely to give a good idea about experience, knowledge and clue. The main point of this proposal is the put together a group of solid editors who can make those judgments effectively; me doing so alone led to some misjudgments.
Note also, that we'll be asking some of the less experienced ambassadors to be "ambassadors-in-training" for the next term, and we'll be trying to figure out good ways to bring people who are eager to help to a point where they can be effective mentors. (The new ambassadors who recently signed up on the Mentors page in the "Additional Online Ambassadors" section, who don't have any mentees and aren't taking any yet, are also ambassadors-in-training.)--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing, regarding ambassador training. Part of what I've been thinking about (along with Fetchcomms) is that, since there are a number of different aspects to the ambassador program, the best way to do training would be do have modular training programs for different roles. So there will be a general training and testing process for ambassadors-in-training, but also a process for full ambassadors to learn new areas. Many solid ambassadors have no experience with IRC, for example, but some might like to learn. Image policy is a similar one; lots of great editors just steer clear of images altogether, and others know the basics but would benefit from some a chance to learn more in a structured way. These are just thoughts, at this point, but Fetchcomms and I will be starting an on-wiki discussion about training and sketching out training plans soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:28, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Content writing experience should count if the editor in question has done some, but it should not be the only deciding factor. While it is true that people who have not written content are more likely to have a lower understanding of RS, V, SPS, etc., this is certainly not the rule. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:44, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that some DR experience would be beneficial as well, especially since mediators (both MedCom and MedCab) often have extensive knowledge of content and civility policy. I for example got a crash course in the minutiae of BLP, V, RS, OR, COI, and NPOV when I unwittingly took one of the many iterations of the Prem Rawat debacle as one of my first MedCab cases in May. Ronk01 talk 21:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward with this process

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Thanks, everyone who participated in this discussion! It looks like this has pretty broad support for going forward with the selection process. We can always revisit it later, but for now this will be how we select new Online Ambassadors.

If you would like to be part of the selection team, please say so here or send an email to the steering committee ( ambassadors-en@wikimedia.org ) with "Online Ambassador selection team" or similar in the subject line.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Transparency

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Should the ambassador application process be open and transparent, or carried out off-wiki through private discussions? Gigs (talk) 18:47, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • This process needs to be made open and transparent. Sending secret applications to a hand-selected committee that discusses and approves them off-wiki is antithesis to our core principles of openness and transparency. There is no opportunity for community input on the suitability of an ambassador candidate. A simple noticeboard type page with a template to fill in the questions is all that is needed. Few applications should be controversial. If one turns out to be controversial, then that editor probably shouldn't be representing the community in this way. Gigs (talk) 18:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a little disappointing that we're jumping straight to RfC right now, instead of starting a regular thread somewhere first—unless you've already heard the whole story? I'm guessing that you are only referring to the online ambassador selection process here as you started it on this talk page; there is little chance anyway that the campus ambassador process is held onwiki due to privacy concerns.
  • Much of what is done in other Wikipedia processes is neither open nor transparent. For instance, we do not provide public access to the ArbCom, Functionaries, account creation, and unblock mailing lists. In the example of the account creation tool, users are simply granted permission at the discretion of a tool admin after they apply. There is no need for community input there—as most of the community has no idea how ACC works—nor should it turn into a mini-RfA.
  • Similar principles can apply here, as well. There is no use in turning ambassador applications to RfA. A discussion that could occur may upset a user who has too little experience. People simply don't like being judged and inadvertently humiliated in front of everyone else when their experience is "not enough."
  • As you said, few applications should be controversial. The ambassadors aren't a cabal; there's really no risk of any power-hungry user trying to take power via offwiki channels or anything. So if applications aren't controversial, is there really a lack of trust that applicants are being assessed fairly and impartially?
  • I don't know how familiar you are with the ambassador program, but transparency is a goal (although as I said before, complete transparency would lead to improper disclosure of private information), even though it might sound like I've been arguing in favor of keeping the process private. The ambassador program is only in its second semester, so this is just a trial really, and there are plans to transition into a much wider scope. It would then likely be inefficient to deal with many applications completely offwiki, and an onwiki process would certainly be an alternative. It's just a little frustrating that this discussion is happening mid-semester when there was no prior query on how this might already be a future plan. When the program first began, using email correspondence as the primary means of communication may well have made sense then; a transition could be coming next semester. My view is that, the current private system is running fine and starting an onwiki system is something to be looking at throughout the summer for the fall ambassador recruitment process. A noticeboard now probably won't get much attention until the program really starts to blossom as expected in the coming months. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did start a thread prior to this, on WT:Online Ambassadors, (this project really should consolidate some pages, IMHO). Sage Ross suggested that I take it here and solicit wider community input to change the previous local consensus, so I did. I see no downside to increasing the openness immediately. From your comments, I'm not sure you are aware of the watchlist notice. In any case, the project is already soliciting a much larger, public, community-wide pool of applicants. Making the process open is easy, and as you said, even has pragmatic benefits when it comes to handling a larger number of applications. Gigs (talk) 03:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry—I must have been looking at a cached copy of that page for some reason (probably a result of an iPad "feature"). Yes, I've seen the watchlist notice, but the actual number of applicants I would say is not as much as it could be, especially if even more classes are added this fall. The only concern I see is, the semester has just begun (or is about to begin for some schools) and I just don't think making the process public for the last part of the applicants is necessarily fair to the prior ambassadors, or that prospective applicants might suddenly not want to apply in public. Giving people an option between email and onwiki seems sensible, as Smallman12q notes below, but I don't know if that would produce complaints from users who might regret not choosing the other way. Maybe limit an onwiki process to everything except when an applicant feels there are outstanding reasons to apply privately? But in any case, I still think we should set this up over the summer, as applications are sort of waning at this point. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't oppose this as an alternative. Potential ambassadors should be given the option to submit their application privately to the selection committee, or to post it here. Either way, rejected candidates can always seek a consensus from ambassadors (outside of the committee) to become ambassadors. There is a mailing list, though as Fetchcomms said I'm not sure how much attention a notice board would get.Smallman12q (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was invited to join the project, and I am interested because it fits in with my interests and skill set. However, I'm not comfortable with there being a selection process, especially one in which the community is not involved in making the selection decision, but a self-elected committee. If the process by which people become involved in this project were more open and in line with Wikipedia principles I would be interested, but not with the current set up. What was the process by which these people, Sross, Fetchcomms, Sadads, Geniac, Smallman12q, were decided upon as a "selection committee"; and what is the thinking behind the "Application questionnaire"? I think the idea of a project which connects experienced and willing Wikipedia editors with real world educational projects is excellent - I am, however, dubious of the need for the attached bureaucracy, and the top-down approach to this project. If the community is to be invited to get involved in this project, then the community should take ownership and responsibility, in the same spirit as the community has taken ownership and responsibility for the creation of the encyclopaedia. The main excitement of Wikipedia is that it is community led, and is working. Spin-off enterprises which do not embrace the appropriate Wikipedia philosophy of openness and community spirit should not really be utilising the Wikipedia brand, as it is misleading to casual observers. SilkTork *YES! 12:12, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked above? There was support expressed on the mailing list. The primary reason for having a selection committee was to avoid the drama similar to that which permeates WP:RFA.Smallman12q (talk) 13:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No I hadn't seen that - thanks for pointing it out. Full support from a small number of participants. A third of whom are the selection committee.
I've looked back, and it seems this project is the result of a $1.2M grant to improve ‘public policy’ articles. But it's not clear if the Ambassadors will be mentoring work purely on ‘public policy’ articles, or if the intention is to widen the scope. Nor has it been made explicit where the connection is between this grant and the work that Ambassadors will be expected to do. And there is a lack of clarity regarding who exactly will be running and organising this project.
I thought this was a Wikipedia project, but it appears to be a Foundation project, that they wish experienced Wikipedians to assist with. If this is a Foundation project, then I think it would be appropriate and acceptable for the Foundation to run it how they wish. Though it should be made clear that it is a Foundation project based on a grant with specific aims.
If the Foundation wish the Wikipedia community to fully assist with the project, and get involved as a community, rather than as selected individuals, then a period of open consultation with the community might be useful. SilkTork *YES! 17:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a joint Foundation-community project that will be shifted to completely the community in the coming semesters. The grant and WMF involvement was to kickstart the program and organize course materials, etc. as well as analyze the effectiveness of such a program. It will likely run, in the future, as a regular WikiProject, possibly some WMF assistance if campus ambassador training programs, etc. will still be held. The scope is currently public policy but will likely also be expanded (through other WikiProjects). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The appointment (and then removal) of certain users to be ambassadors concerns me, as it seems up to about three people to decide who gets in. A serious lack of research resulted in an embarrassing error; the advertising style irritates me. There's got to be a better way to do this. Mono (talk) 04:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The current process is a better way of doing this. A group of trusted Wikipedians, all volunteers except me at the moment, looks at applicants. I was making decisions about would-be ambassadors myself at the outset, and made a few weak decisions—as other Wikipedians were quick to point out. Even so, no one has been appointed and then removed as an ambassador. A few less-experienced editors have been asked to be ambassadors-in-training and to not serve directly as mentors for students.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been mostly just watching this discussion, because I'm eager to see what those not (yet?) involved in the ambassador program think about this. As Fetchcomms points out, this started as part of the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative, but the point of the ambassadors program is to use this grant project to lay the groundwork for a more effective long-term way of working with school and university courses. It started out with most of the decisions being made by the first people involved—Wikimedia staff and some of the early ambassadors who took a strong interest in the direction of the project. By the end of the grant (September 2011) the plan is to transition completely to a volunteer-led ambassador program.

I made the early decisions about Online Ambassador applicants unilaterally, but in the current process, the group making decisions on new applicants consists of literally every person who has asked to be part of the group. (That's Geniac, Smallman12q, Fetchcomms, Sadads and myself who've been looking at new applications in the last few weeks, and The_ed17 has just been added as well. I'd be delighted to have more eyes for new applications.) An on-wiki process is simpler (and I'm not opposed to it), but the reason we avoided on-wiki discussion of applicants in the current process—to spare people the embarrassment of having their shortcomings or lack of experience dissected publicly—shouldn't be dismissed altogether.

As to the concerns about bureaucracy, this whole program is an experiment with a more structured approach to working with academic experts. We always need to be wary of the costs of structure, and to make the bureaucracy we do have efficient and sane, but working with students by the hundreds (and hopefully thousands, later on) requires (in my opinion) more structured roles than we've had with earlier ad hoc efforts to connect with academia. We're trying to see whether well-defined ambassadors roles (and a corresponding process of selecting people qualified for them) are useful and efficient for helping large numbers of students contribute to Wikipedia.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that myself and others have made compelling arguments as to why "sparing embarrassment" should be indeed be dismissed altogether as a rationale for lack of transparency. Gigs (talk) 13:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But it is a legitimate concern. A few of the applicants thus far have phrased their applications as if they themselves have been extremely experienced. Quite frankly they had hardly any experience on Wikipedia, however they exuded a very strong enthusiasm for Wikipedia and what it stands for and it may have been disheartening to see themselves soundly womped with no votes on a public forum. The closed forum allows us to construct a response which does not laud their inexperience but instead directs them to activities which will help make them the longterm steady contributors we need as Online Ambassadors. The embarrassment concern is legitimate. When I went for my first FA review, I felt I had done a good job developing an article, yet it too got womped, and since, I have not felt very confident about my own skills to write and research large Wikipedia articles, the only reason I am around at all is because I have hard skin, and really am passionate about our mission. Other users may not have the defenses, so in some ways making it public may be countermanding the whole purpose of this program: to create a friendly environment for both Wikipedians and Academics to cooperate.
On a side note, I don't think we have turned anyone away who has extended experience in the Wikipedia community, instead we have made them Ambassadors in Training to focus on certain activities so that they are ready for supporting students in a broad sense (such as content development).Sadads (talk) 14:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry that the open nature of the wiki has lead to criticism of your work. But secret consensus is not the way we do things. Gigs (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of things lead to criticism of the ambassador program; we're trying to do some things that are quite different from the traditional pure ad-hocracy of Wikipedia. But we're trying very hard to maintain the values of the community, including being as transparent as possible. On-wiki consensus is precisely the origin of the current process, and it's what we're revisiting here. It's well-established that on-wiki consensus can support specific uses of off-wiki discussion; the arbcom discusses some things in private, and OTRS uses a very similar process for vetting would-be OTRS volunteers.
As a possible way forward that might satisfy everyone, what do you think of (per Fetchcomms and Smallman12q) giving people the option of applying on-wiki or off-wiki? --Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I really could care less; I'm concerned about the secretive process and selection criteria. --Mono (talk) 00:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea of giving people the option of applying on-wiki or off-wiki. I would be more participatory in the selection process if that were an option. I don't mind general discussions about wiki off-wiki, but I believe that making yay or nay decisions about people should be on-wiki. Yes, arbcom and OTRS, too. --Geniac (talk) 02:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still hoping for a little more input from other editors about this, but it looks like everyone (so far) would be good with giving Online Ambassador applicants the option of doing on- or off-wiki applications and discussion. I'm going to set up a page for it, and we can start trying it out.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I drafted up this page for if/when we want to try this out. I think we'll try to bring it up at the next ambassador steering committee meeting, so hopefully we can get a few more voices into the discussion.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might be helpful if this were more clearly termed a Foundation project. The Wikipedia community do not appear to have ownership or control over this, yet it might be perceived as though it were part of the community. As a Foundation project there would be no problems with the selection process being discreet. That the Foundation has asked for assistance from certain Wikipedian individuals is entirely acceptable, and I understand that this is intended to be some form of joint venture. Though if it hasn't been handed over to the community to organise and run, it might be an idea to make that clear as well. The clarity would help with matters such as someone trying to take the project to MfD to close it down. It would help to know who had jurisdiction regarding dealing with abuse - ArbCom or the Foundation. Perhaps the Ambassadors could be called Foundation Ambassadors instead of Wikipedia Ambassadors? SilkTork *YES! 17:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the best way to describe the Wikipedia Ambassador Program is: it's a community project—yes, the community has ownership and control of it—that's being supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. It was started through the Public Policy Initiative (which is a WMF project). The direction and structure of the program is ultimately decided by the volunteers, although WMF staff have taken a pretty central role in making plans and creating resources and setting up the initial ways things work. Take the selection process for Online Ambassadors as an example. I drafted a first version of it. Then Wikipedia Ambassador Steering Committee (3 WMF staff and 4 volunteers, and will be elected by the community in its next iteration) discussed it and refined, and then recommended it to the ambassador program. Then, based on on-wiki discussion and revision leading to consensus, the ambassador program adopted it. Now, it's being revisited in this discussion. If the community wants some aspect of the program to go in a different direction, then it can be taken in a different direction. So far, though, I think the community has been pretty supportive of the provisional directions that WMF staff have moved in so far.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a newly selected Campus Ambassador, I am going to weigh-in on this question with a response that may seem harsh in light of the collaborative nature of our community. The community is totally unqualified at this point to weigh-in and select ambassadors. I am an experienced Wikipedian and facilitating and teaching people in corporate America is my day job. Yet until I went through the interview process, the training and began the process with my professor and students, I would have considered myself completely unqualified to evaluate and select the right person for an ambassador position. Sage Ross and the folks at the Wikimedia Foundation learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work in the first semester of this project. I am sure they learned what makes a good ambassador and what doesn’t. The larger community doesn’t have these answers. A Wikipedia Ambassador (online or campus) will be performing a critical outreach role in Academic America. The risk is high. We are not talking about alienating a new user at AfD or the odd Admin who makes a bad block. We are talking about Ambassadors that are representing Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation to entire University systems. Failure, poor or unresponsive performance or any type of alienating behavior is totally unacceptable. I personally have already been asked to speak to Deans and senior staff at the University I am supporting. I am sure other ambassadors will see much wider visibility of their efforts in the coming semesters. While I fully support openness and transparency in the Ambassador program, until such time that the wider community even has a clue about the program and what it takes to succeed, the selection process should remain in the hands of a qualified selection committee. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I question whether there would be sustained interest in reviewing the online ambassador candidates. Compared with RfA, there is so little at stake for the average Wikipedia editor. The people with the most at stake are the college students, who are not in a position to be able to judge who is a bad mentor. If more feedback and quality control is needed, perhaps the students shouid be given a feedback form at the end of the semester to rate their online ambassador. When I interact with people at Meetups, I am sometimes surprised by their personalities, but I usually find that my sense of their online personalities match their in-person personas. So, I have faith that the email interview process is probably a sufficient filter for online ambassadors, but would expect more for campus ambassadors. Second, I question the scalability of a transparent selection process. If we ever get to the point that thousands of college students participate, we will need thousands of on-line ambassadors. A transparent process would not be viable on a large scale. Racepacket (talk) 13:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF will not have responsibility for it directly beyond the current academic year, so we must somehow fit it into the ordinary Wikipedia procedures. There is almost nothing actually important at Wikipedia where the selection of individuals is totally confidential, although the group that decides may be smaller than the entire community and decide in private. Even for OTRS the self-nominations are displayed publicly for comments, though the selection is done by the team administrators. The arguments above amounts to that academic work is so special that ordinary people cannot judge. I think that's not so. I cannot do creative work with images, but i can juge if work is good or bad. I cannot do practical work with constructing bots, but I can tell if someone else is at least minimally competent. Everyone here who has been to college can judge to some degree if a teacher is good or not, and whether someone is capable in useful interactions with faculty. We can rely on the complementary practices of self-selection and mutual criticism, just as we do everywhere else. I don't work in fields I do not understand, as I don't want to subject myself to public ridicule--and almost everyone here feels the same. There's no great secret to teaching a college class how to edit, and the necessary art of selecting suitable topics can be learned by discussion and experience. DGG ( talk ) 07:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with DGG here... I don't think it's an issue of whether an on-wiki process is capable of making good decisions or whether specialized knowledge is necessary to judge potential Online Ambassadors. The main reason to do it off-wiki, similar to with OTRS, is to avoid the sort of public floggings that happen at RfA, which can be very dispiriting to very good editors.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As Sage says, the experience lately with RfA has not been very encouraging. But the needs are different. We need to keep in mind that this is not a position of the same sort of individual authority as OTRS or Admin. The people here have no discretionary powers that ordinary WPedians do not have, and do not deal with confidential sensitive matters like the OTRS volunteers. Yes, they represent the community to new users--but so do we all. Anyone who wishes can assist anybody in learning how to use Wikipedia, and many of us have been dealing with people from colleges for a long time now. This is rather a matter of coordination--of ensuring that the assistance we provide is not haphazard. We need to ensure that we are able to provide a qualified person for each request , and that the courses have specific people they can count on to assist for the entire term. One of the great strengths of participation in Wikipedia in general is that each of us only does whatever work here that we wish to do. But in this case, where we are engaging with formally organized entities, we have a responsibility to assist them on their own basis--if we are to help a faculty member with a class for a term, we must make a commitment, both in amount of attention and quality of work. This is different from everything else here. I often patrol speedy, but so do a hundreds or so other competent admins, and since we try to follow the same rules, and each interaction is transient, we are--to be frank--interchangeable. If I'm not there tomorrow, someone else will be. This is very different from teaching a course at a college--that is a job, not a hobby DGG ( talk ) 06:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a lot of truth in the remark that the average Wikipedian is not interested in this project as it doesn't directly impact on the encyclopaedia content or on Wikipedians themselves. This RFC has attracted very little attention, and while leaving the RFC open, I will remove the listing from CENT. Where I feel there is still room for discussion, is the ownership and responsibility of this project. I feel that as it is a Foundation initiative, and that the Wikipedia community doesn't have an interest in it, that it might be better set up as a distinct project apart from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not the only WikiMedia project that might benefit from having a guided interface with the academic and educational community - Wikisource, Wikispecies, Wikiversity, etc, would also benefit. Are any of the other language Wikis getting involved in the project? SilkTork *YES! 00:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are 100+ volunteers involved so far, and that number is growing. I would say there's actually quite a lot of interest... Wikipedians want to see more involvement from the academic community, and beyond the ones who have taken on ambassador roles, many have expressed support. Of course (as with anything on Wikipedia) most Wikipedians aren't interested, but that's quite different from saying the community doesn't have an interest in it. There is some talk about broadening the scope later on, to work with other projects besides Wikipedia. That would make it more properly a Wikimedia project, but it doesn't preclude the plan to continue the transition to a volunteer-driven project.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but it is a terrible idea to discuss applicants' qualifications publicly. Indeed, I think the application itself is unnecessary in most cases. If an experienced editor has a reasonable history of not biting newbies and wants to help out as an online ambassador, then the committee should jump at the chance. If you look at Wehwalt's talk page, you can see that at least three very experienced and highly respected editors decided not to become online ambassadors because they thought the application process, as applied to people such as them, was off-putting. The way I think it should work is that any member of the committee can simply appoint any and all persons as Online Ambassadors if he/she is familiar with their work and interactive abilities and think they would be an asset to the project. Why be exclusive? We need more ambassadors: there are probably 750 students that need mentoring. BTW, I am not watching this page, so if anyone desperately wants to talk to me about this, please use my talk page. -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Application

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I urge the committee to eliminate this question from the questionnaire: "What do you think are the most important values to impart to newcomers?" It does not add anything that you need to know and is off-putting to applicants. Everyone should be supporting the Five pillars and other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, which embody our values, so you don't need this question. On its face, it seems difficult to answer, and it is not clear what you are getting at. The application is already too long. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We do get some answers to that one that demonstrate wisdom, but the value isn't that high for that question. I went ahead and removed it.
Also, keep in mind that the committee's role is to make proposals for the direction and execution of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, but it's the participants as a whole who are ultimately in charge of how things work. So it's also okay to make changes without going through the process of having the steering committee make a formal proposal. For the details of the application, I think we're mostly on the same page: we want to have an application that is useful in figuring out whether someone will make a good mentor (and figure that out for themselves as they are applying) without unnecessarily turning people off.
I'd say, though, if someone really resents 15 minutes of answering the questionnaire to the point where that makes the difference of whether they want to participate, how patient are they going to be with the other aspects of this program that are works-in-progress? The application, and the whole program, should respect editors' time and effort, but on the other hand being a mentor is not a trivial commitment, and taking the effort to apply and respond thoughtfully to questions is part of the process of investing yourself into the role.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fair points, Sage. Still, Sadads and Ed left no fewer than 5 messages on Wehwalt's talk page, begging him to apply. It seems like, for obviously very experienced editors with much FC, DYKs, etc, the committee could reduce the process to the "friendliness" questions, and just add them to the recruitment message. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Testing out on-wiki / off-wiki options

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Although a few people argued against on-wiki applications altogether for reasons quality assurance rather than avoiding the downsides of an RfA-like process, most people—including all the people on the selection team that is currently evaluating applications—seem to be okay with trying out an option for on-wiki applications. The off-wiki option offers a kind of safety valve, where if an oppressive atmosphere develops people can avoid the open discussion route. And on-wiki applications will be a good reference point for off-wiki application evaluation, since we can take into account the concerns that people raise for other on-wiki applicants.

So I've put up the on-wiki option, and pointed the Online Ambassador page to the new application page: Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors/Apply. Anyone interested in the selection process should check back there once the first person applies by that route. We can see how it goes with a few applications and decide where it makes sense to go from there.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation 17:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. I think it's an important step. I hope to see the off-wiki option go away once it's shown that the on-wiki option doesn't necessarily lead to a hostile environment. The attitude of distrust of the community and academic exceptionalism is a divisive and toxic one, and I think this is a step toward healing that divide. Gigs (talk) 14:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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