Proposal talk:WMF Customer Service

This proposal is based on the premise that the WMF is somehow in charge of Wikipedia and the other projects. I would really like to change peoples perception away from that.

The copyright in the projects belongs to the contributors. That copyright is by far the most valuable asset of each project and WMF does not own it. WMF merely provides a hosting service for it. The board, not the foundation, are the representatives of the contributors.

If this sounds like I am saying the foundation and it's employees are not important then I'm sorry. That is not what I mean. They are not leaders of the project but they are providing valuable services to the project. One of the services they can certainly do is public relations; acting as our spokesperson, publicising our achievements. Just so long as they remember they are when they are speaking for for the projects (most of the time) and when they are speaking for the WMF (hardly ever - who wants to hear about a hosting service). If the story is that the WMF projects are now the number 5 site on the internet then the story is mostly about the wonderful content attracting readers (= the projects) and much less about the arrangement of servers (= the hosting service).

This is of course an unusual arrangement and many outsiders will want to treat the Chief Executive of the WMF as the boss of the projects. We depend on her to put them right.81.187.181.168 23:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

This position should specifically not attempt to replace existing community based customer service: it should, instead, empower and support the community in their efforts.

I don't think there's a single person at the Foundation office who believes they're in charge of the projects. :) ~Philippe 23:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

On reading the proposal I find that it isn't very clear to me quite what this role would involve.

In the intro it says "correspondence with external and internal customers", what is an internal customer? I guess the external customers are our readers? So are the internal customers the editors? Or does it mean the WMF (and chapters maybe)? Would you clarify the language using terms I would recognise, please?

There then follows a paragraph on the OTRS system, which I'm entirely unfamiliar with (well, aside from having a very sketchy idea of what it does).

Then "The same is true for customer service issues in other areas of the Foundation", could you give a couple of examples of these issues?

"This position should work closely with the Wikimedia Foundation's (extant) Volunteer Coordinator and other service oriented positions within the Foundation (including Head of Outreach, Head of Communications, etc)." What would be some examples of how this role would interact with those two? Because the following paragraph...:

"This position should also work closely with existing staff to identify the reasons that contributors depart and determine what (if anything) can be done to modify existing processes and attempt to slow down the rate of member departure and turn the current plateau'd pattern into a net gain per month." is explicit, so can you be more explicit about what was meant in the preceding paragraph?

I still find myself, at the end, unsure what is meant by 'customer service' aside from where it is made explicit above... could you provide some bullet points of what customer service is at Wikimedia?

Sorry to have so many questions! --Bodnotbod 12:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)