Forum:Organizational structure

Preliminary discussion

Several people have been asking questions about Orain's organizational structure, such as: Are stewards elected? Who the hell decides things? How can I become a steward? This is a framework we can discuss to eventually have a clear organizational structure.

I would divide the main tasks between two entities:

Project Leader(s): Traditionally this would be a single person, but it could go up to two co-leaders as well, I think. The Leader would coordinate day-to-day tasks such as wiki recruitment, public relations, marketing, etc. They wouldn't be calling many shots, but rather distributing the work to our volunteer base. They would also identify problems where they exist and submit proposals to the Council (see below) for consideration. They could also directly appoint some relatively minor positions (e.g. IRC channel operators). They or one of their delegates would also oversee technical matters such as site developments and system administration.
Community Council: It could also be Board of Directors, Board of Trustees, General Committee, etc., but Community Council is my preferred title for now. It would be composed of at least 3-4 members, with the number increasing as the site grows. They would approve the budget, review the Project Leader's work, handle complaints, settle major disputes between members, etc.

Certain other roles, such as Stewards, also require a great deal of trust, but, similarly to how the English Wikipedia ArbCom selects CheckUsers and oversighters directly, I think the Community Council should also select them based on the community's advice. The same would go for local CUs/OSs, eventually.

This is just a draft. I'd love to hear your opinion. Kudu (talk) 20:38, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

No. ಠ_ಠ to be honest I think they should only be chosen by the founders of Orain because this can lead to anyone acting like a trusted person deeply but then stabs people in the back and abuses their powers. --Tyreek (talk) 01:37, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The example was given above, of English Wikipedia's ArbCom. I don't have much experience with Wikipedia myself, but is there evidence of such nefarious behavior as Tyreek is warning about, on ArbCom? If so, is it widespread abuse? If not widespread, how was it mitigated? Could we apply the same solutions here at Orain? Sorry, as per normal I pose more questions than I offer answers to. AugurNZ ✐⌕ 16:06, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

All I gotta say is bad idea because Wikipedia has a biased administration who no matter how many reports on them, they never get demoted as well as they even use sockpuppets and bots to cause edit wars.--Tyreek (talk) 21:59, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea, but I'm not quite sure the community is ready to elect people just yet. While it's still so small, having the wrong people in positions of authority could cause catastrophic damage to the organization as a whole. I think what I'd like to see happen is that the current members of the steward/staff team become the community council because you guys know what you're doing (and obviously are doing it right), and then as the wikifarm grows and becomes more established, bring more people onboard. I think co-project leaders is a good idea because it prevents one person from having total control (even though that's not even what that role is supposed to be, I know). It also allows them to divvy up tasks and better manage the organization based on the skills they have. Anyways, just my two cents. -- Joe G. (Talk) 22:56, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Tyreek and Joe. If you read carefully above, you'll see that I purposely didn't address the question of elections for the two main positions. The reason for this is that, like Joe suggested, I'm planning to appoint the current stewards to the Community Council until the community is mature enough for its votes to accurately reflect the community's needs (law of large numbers). Kudu (talk) 23:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I see no real issue with the proposal to be honest. John (talk) 23:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed an issue: we're now four stewards, who would occupy four seats on the Community Council. However, the Council should usually have an odd number of members, otherwise there would be ties. I guess that, for now, we could get the (Co-)Leaders to settle ties. Anyway, it should be a consensus-based process and there shouldn't usually be 2-2 splits. Kudu (talk) 23:58, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: I didn't count Addshore because although he's a very helpful staffer and developer, his steward status is mostly honorary at the moment since he doesn't do any steward actions. I'm discussing with Addshore whether he wants to sit on the Council since it will require daily availability. Kudu (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Another option is to have the leader (if we so chose to appoint only one) not get a vote? Then you have three voting members and a leader without a vote. That's how the board I currently sit on in the offline world works. The chair only gets to vote in certain situations like a tie (if a member is absent leaving us with an even number of people). Not sure how great of an idea that is, but it is an option. -- Joe G. (Talk) 00:06, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

That sounds like a possibility in the future, but for now there's no way we can do that and have a one-person or two-person Council. Kudu (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea, in principle. One of the things that I would suggest, and it was something that was discussed during the creation of Orain, is for there to be an Ombudsman. They wouldn't be on the council per se, however, it's something that I think is worth discussing. I can elaborate further if anyone is interested in the idea. One of the main things that I feel is important is for us to ensure that things don't become overly complicated and to avoid too much of a hierarchy. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 01:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that, since the Community Council will be taking care of both policy and dispute resolution, there should also be an Ombudsman who would be able to read the private Community Council and steward mailing lists, without actually sitting on the Council or being a steward. Kudu (talk) 03:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Draft

Here is a draft I composed to officially outline the organizational structure. I made some slight modifications based on suggestions from members.

Project Leaders

The Project Leaders are Dusti and Kudu. The Leaders coordinate day-to-day tasks such as wiki recruitment, public relations, marketing, etc. They also identify problems where they exist and submit proposals to the Council (see below) for consideration. They can also directly appoint people some relatively minor positions where deep trust isn't required (e.g. IRC channel operators). They or one of their delegates also oversee technical matters such as site developments and system administration.

Community Council

The members of the Community Council are addshore, Dusti, Joe G, John and Kudu. The Council should be representative of the community, and more members may be appointed as the community grows based on the community's advice. They must approve the budget, review the Project Leaders' work, handle complaints, settle major disputes between members, etc. The members of the Community Council are appointed by the Project Leaders. Decisions of the Community Council may be overriden by the Project Leaders in some circumstances, e.g. if the Leaders think the Council has made a great mistake that will not be good for the project, or in order to adopt a consensus-based decision instead of a 3-2 decision.

Stewards

All members of the Community Council are stewards. Other users may also be appointed by the Council based on advice from the community and the Leaders. Stewards are responsible for creating wikis, assigning user rights, and dealing with functions that require access to non-public information, such as CheckUser and oversight. They must also signal important issues or disputes to the Community Council for their consideration.

Ombudsman

The Ombudsman is appointed by the Leaders and the Council on the community's advice. They are subscribed to all private mailing lists, such as the ones for Council members and stewards. They oversee the Council, the Leaders and the stewards' work, making sure that users' privacy is respected, that users are treated fairly, that no information is kept private when it should be public (transparency), etc.

Kudu (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Support as proposer. Kudu (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

~~Support~~ John (talk) 18:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

After the reviewing it again, I am going to Oppose for now. The council including the project leaders in my opinion causes a conflict or as some would put it, in situations, allow gaming of the whole system to a certain persons wants. A few responsibilities of the council will be 'reviewing the Project Leaders' work' and 'settling major disputes between members'. To me, this is fine however when the project leaders = partial council, it is an issue in my opinion. Project leaders should in no way be response for reviewing their own work and pointing out their own flaws, a third party uninvolved group (hence the council) should be doing it to ensure all concerns are addressed. Also major disputes should only be sent to the council if project leaders have exhausted all their avenues. Therefore having them deal with the issue again is unneeded and may add stress onto a particular person. Also 'decisions of the Community Council may be overridden by the Project Leaders' brings a conflict of interest to say if a particular decision is 3-2, all the council say no (3) but the two leaders say yes (2) it is effectively opening it up to the decision passing because the leaders decide to user their 'override' power. Ultimately, the council should be a third party with no project leaders involved in the actual council itself. John (talk) 21:07, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with John, and I believe that Eikes made a similar observation below. I leave my vote as supporting the overall draft for now, but I do think this issue needs to be resolved. AugurNZ ✐⌕ 21:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Support Pro monarchy. eikes (talk) 18:56, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Support ~~Neutral~~ Out of the Community Council, I gather that addshore, Dusti, John and Kudu were the original co-founders of Orain, and according to this comment on IRC, Joe G "could have been a co-founder if he hadn't been away". Are there going to be any regular members (as in, non-founders) of the community appointed to the Community Council? Otherwise I have a bit of a problem with the term "Community Council", sorry. It could be interpreted as "a council of community members", or as it currently appears to be "a council that oversees the community". This latter definition could be misleading for those who take the former as their understanding of what a "Community Council" is all about. Why not just call a spade a spade, and go with a "Founders Council" or something. Either that or appoint regular members of the community to the "Community Council", even just for a set term. I'm not angling for a place on the council myself, I wouldn't volunteer if such a position were offered. I note that Kudu said above that the number of council members would grow as the site grows. Perhaps something along those lines could be added? AugurNZ ✐⌕ 20:32, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi AugurNZ and Eikes, thanks very much for the feedback. An oligarchy is definitely not what we were going for. You're correct in that Dusti and I co-founded the site, and that John and addshore quickly hopped on board to help out and were also essential to the farm's creation. However, our goal is for the Community Council to be both "a council of community members" and "a council to oversee the community", and definitely not a Founders' Council. Everyone, in our view, is a "regular" member and can fill any position. I think the original proposal reflected that, and I now amended the draft proposal to reflect that as well (in italics). Please let me know about whether you think the amendments are clear enough to explain what we were going for. Kudu (talk) 20:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the reword, and have changed my vote accordingly to Support. Thanks. AugurNZ ✐⌕ 20:50, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment One more thing. In my opinion, the project leaders mustn't be members of the community council at the same time. Especially the sentence "Decisions of the Community Council may be overriden by the Project Leaders in some circumstances" makes that clear. A control system can't work if the controlling instance is a member of the controlled instance at the same time. eikes (talk) 20:59, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Support Because project leaders in community council makes the council not very representative of the community. and also, Comment Community council members should be elected every month. -Benjozork (talk)

I assume you mean oppose technically or are you supporting the comment by eikes? Also I agree with the election but 12 times a years seems overkill. One a year or twice on the lowerscale seems manageable. John (talk) 21:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I support the comment of eikes. Elections every 6 months should be fine, but a member should be able to stay in the council 6 months, and wait another 6 months to subscribe for elections. -Benjozork (talk) 21:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Oppose I think the power structure should actually be flipped. If the goal of the community council is to represent the community as a whole, it should be the body that gets the most power (i.e. a voting, representative body) over the project leaders (a single or two individuals that doesn't necessarily represent the whole community in all cases). The community council should appoint the leaders and the council should be elected at most-frequently once per year by the community. I would prefer it be elected every two years. I think there should be a procedure for recall of a council member if they are harming the community or something, but I don't see a need for six month elections, that's absurd in my opinion based on our size and current needs. Back to my power point, the leaders could easily abuse that power of overturning a council decision wherever they wanted; them doing so (and I'm not saying they would, I would trust Kudu and Dusti with my first born child) would make the community council useless and powerless. The council should be able to overturn their decisions over a majority (or two-thirds, even) vote. I've been in situations before with a similar system in theory, but it ended up being a complete bureaucracy with one individual making all of the decisions leaving the rest of us powerless. I appreciate your consideration of my above points, -- Joe G. (Talk) 22:39, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the project leaders could be here just for technical stuff and managing the site, and community council will manage community (with approval by project leaders. -Benjozork (talk) (test of my new template)

Like the template! :) Anyways, I don't think we need to change the actual roles of what they do, just who has more power over the other. It's sort of a checks-balances system. We allow project leaders to appoint people or do something, it gets voted on by council. If the council doesn't like an action of the project leaders, it vetoes it because it's the body more-representative of the community. Make sense? -- Joe G. (Talk) 23:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Yea, i love your idea, the council would be an entity between the community and the project leaders, but i don't think they had to decide of technical stuff like global extensions and new project leaders/stewards/developpers (could submit a community member for steward request, but the project leaders have the final vote.) -Benjozork (talk)

As far as I can tell, there have been two suggested amendments:

Removing the right of project leaders to override Community Council decisions. I am sympathetic to this one, because I think it will be a good thing to have in a year from now. The reason I added this in was because there are some things that will be at the core of Orain's values and vision which we haven't put on paper yet, but which Dusti and I have thought of and would like to have done a specific way. For example, the Congress can override the President's decisions, but it's still subject to the Constitution, the equivalent of which we haven't yet set out. Joe made a great point in IRC though: the current Council can be trusted to follow the vision of Dusti and I for the foreseeable future, and it's better for the Leader not to have that right if/when it will be some else.
Removing the Project Leaders from the Community Council. I disagree with this. I think this may stem from a misleading explanation of the Council's duty to review the Leader's work. To be clearer, the Council will not just review the Leader's work, it will review the developers' work, the stewards' work, etc. Like I said, the Project Leader will not be calling many shots and will not be directly responsible for much, therefore there shouldn't be a big conflict of interest. It makes sense for the Leaders to work with the Council to define the roadmap of the project.

Kudu (talk) 23:41, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, in essence of "...the project leader will not be calling many shots...", you are establishing that the community council should be the "upper" entity if you will? That's what I'm looking for since it's more representative of the community as a whole rather than one or two people. -- Joe G. (Talk) 23:46, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

You can think of them as mostly parallel. The Council is an "upper" entity only when it reviews serious issues with the way things were handled. Kudu (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposal #2

Due to the obvious issue with counting people's votes on a proposal which has been amended afterwards, here is a new proposal.

Project Leaders

The Project Leaders are Dusti and Kudu. The Leaders coordinate day-to-day tasks such as wiki recruitment, public relations, marketing, system administration, software development, etc. They can also directly appoint people to some relatively minor positions where deep trust isn't required (e.g. IRC channel operators).

Community Council

The members of the Community Council are addshore, Dusti, Joe G, John and Kudu. The Council should be representative of the community, and more members may be appointed as the community grows based on the community's advice. They oversee spending and finances, review day-to-day operations, handle complaints, settle major disputes between members, etc. The Community Council should consult the community whenever it's necessary. When there is dissent amongst themselves, they should make an effort to reach consensus or compromise.

Question Do we need to be 18+ for the council? -Benjozork (talk) 14:25, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Stewards

All members of the Community Council are stewards. Other users may also be appointed by the Council based on advice from the community and the Leaders. Stewards are responsible for creating wikis, assigning user rights, and dealing with functions that require access to non-public information, such as CheckUser and oversight. They must also signal important issues or disputes to the Community Council for their consideration.

Ombudsman

The Ombudsman is appointed by the Council on the community's advice. The first Ombudsman will be AugurNZ. They are subscribed to all private mailing lists, such as the ones for Council members and stewards. They oversee the Council's, the Leaders' and the stewards' work, making sure that users' privacy is respected, that users are treated fairly, that no information is kept private when it should be public (transparency), etc.

Please comment on the amended proposal and the Ombudsman nomination as well. Kudu (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Support Kudu (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

What?! self-support?! -Benjozork (talk) 00:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

It's not self-support, since all I did was write the text. The ideas come from several community members. Kudu (talk) 00:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Support I like this! -- Joe G. (Talk) 00:06, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment I resubmit my election idea for the community council every 1 or 2 years, with a membership time limit. -Benjozork (talk) 00:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Ben, this should definitely be done in the future. However, right now, there aren't enough members to run a decent election, and it makes more sense to wait until there is before defining the eligibility criteria, the terms, etc. Kudu (talk) 00:14, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay :) -Benjozork (talk) 00:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Support. -Benjozork (talk) 01:05, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Support John (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Support Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 01:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The above proposal is adopted. It is recommended that it be reviewed in a year from now at most. Kudu (talk) 01:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)