philippe beaudette - how to motivate legions of volunteers
TRANSCRIPT
How to Motivate Legions of Volunteers
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
How to Motivate Legions of Volunteers
…or, how I got volunteers to do my dirty work so that I could retire to a desert island and drink daiquiris.
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Meet the legion
The Life of Malleus
• 18 years old • 5’ 6” tall • Secure a letter of
recommendation
The Life of Malleus
• 25 year tour • No marriage • No Rome
The Life of Malleus
!• Retirement with:
• Citizenship and • Pension or • Land
Lessons from the year XLVIII
!
Tools
Fully prepared
Professional, with skilled
coworkers
What do we learn from the Romans?
conscription + might _____________________
mercy= community work X
???
PROFIT!
( )
conscription + might _____________________
mercy= community work X ( )X
NOT what the Romans were telling us….
Lessons from the year XLVIII
!
Tools
Fully prepared
Professional, with skilled
coworkers
Gladius
• Primary, short sword • 5 sections, forged together • Ornate blade
"Uncrossed gladius". Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Know how users interact
Know how users interact
Betweenness
Know how users interact
X
Know how users interact
Know how users interact
Know how users interact
Know how users interact
What makes it go?Uses (free) Gephi and a standard LAMP* stack
!
so:
• it’s cheap to put up,
• and our code is free to use.
* Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
http://haithams.github.io/community_visualization/
Lessons from the year XLVIII
!
Tools
Fully prepared
Professional, with skilled
coworkers
Scotum
✓ Leather ✓ Light enough to be carried
in one hand ✓ Metal center works as an
auxiliary punching weapon.
✓ Use retired around 3rd Century AD
Some @$!&&%# tortoise!
You shouldn’t be without
You shouldn’t be without
Know who your community is,
and know about them.
DO NO HARM
At a minimum, you should know…
Name (or unique identifier) !
and !
Contact info
At a minimum, you should know…
The details of your contact with them.
Lessons from the year XLVIII
!
Tools
Fully prepared
Professional, with skilled
coworkers
Different peoplerequire different
and
points
Desire paths
The Great Lawn
Reader
Article writer Vandalism Patroller Image uploader
Administrator Commons Admin
Advanced Permission Governance
Global administrator
Board of Trustees Staff
Reader
Article writer Vandalism Patroller Image uploader
Administrator Commons Admin
Advanced Permission Governance
Global administrator
Board of Trustees Staff
Almost all of these points are both an entry and an exit point.
Humans need progression to thrive.
Career pathing - even for volunteers - is vital.
Why do we care about the Romans?
…while rome burned.
Rome splits
New invading cultures
The next billion users
What will they look like?
Where will they live?
How will they access?
6 Billion!!!
208 Million
So how do you support her?
A truly disruptive force.
And finally: a shameless plug
• Assist in building relationships with Wikimedians • Handle difficult discussions and situations • Explain details and context as appropriate to the situation and needed to promote
effective resolution, mutual understanding and healthy communication • Keep up with and report on key developments in the Wikimedia movement • Collaborate with Wikimedia project contributors and users intensively and publicly • Coordinate with other staff to ensure on-call coverage for emergencies 24/7
http://bit.ly/WMFCAjob
Community Advocate
"Wikimedia logo family complete-2013" by various people; Derived from: File:Wikimedia_logo_family_complete-2012.svg and File:Wikivoyage-Logo-v3-icon.svg. Via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_logo_family_complete-2013.svg#mediaviewer/File:Wikimedia_logo_family_complete-2013.svg
–The best advice I never got
“Automate yourself out
of a job”