A modest proposal for Wikimedia’s future
On February 25, Lila Tretikov, the embattled executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), finally tendered her resignation. Though an interim successor would not be named until March 10 (see this week's Signpost news coverage), the Wikimedia movement breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Tretikov’s twenty-two month tenure produced the greatest organizational crisis in Wikimedia’s history. Her leadership will be remembered for poor communication, worse management, rapid and unannounced changes in strategy, and a lack of transparency that produced an atmosphere of mistrust and anxiety, one which finally overwhelmed and brought the Tretikov era to an acrimonious end.
Most of all, Lila Tretikov will be remembered for the precipitous decline in staff morale that sent more than two dozen key employees and executives for the exits. The loss of talent, relationships, and institutional memory is devastating, and it is not something the Wikimedia Foundation will recover from soon.
I suggest maybe the Wikimedia Foundation should not recover and rebuild itself, at least not exactly like it was. Acknowledging this modest proposal stands to be controversial (or, more realistically, ignored), I believe in this tragedy lies an opportunity for WMF to reconstitute itself in a way better suited for the challenges facing the Wikimedia Foundation at this point in its history.
This would be a WMF that recognizes its primary mission is educational, one that is willing to reconsider what responsibilities it keeps for itself vs. what works better distributed among its affiliates. I argue in this post that it should split its executive leadership into two roles and spin off certain core functions into standalone organizations. Doing so would allow for better transparency, create more opportunities for “WMF-Community” cooperation, and perhaps offer a chance for volunteers to seek a career path within the movement.
The Wikimedia Foundation does not need to do big things. It needs to create an environment for big things to happen.