Workgroup:WikiEducator Administrators

The WikiEducator community has achieved enviable growth within a short span of time with the seamless efforts put in by the whole community starting from Dr. Wayne. Now in order to make the growth sustainable and the whole business process of the community flawless and stable, we have to prepare detailed policies and guidelines for performing user rights and managing the community along with complaint handling mechanisms.

Development of a full-fledged community governance system for WikiEducator with a complete set of policies and guidelines will take very long time. The purpose of this Workgroup is to develop policies and guidelines for the Administrators (Sysops and Bureaucrats) for enabling them to facilitate the business process of the WikiEducator community based on the existing general policies and continue to maintain the system subject to future polices and guidelines.

Let us commence our job by developing a charter for this group as outlined below.

Specified outputs

 * 1) To develop and approve a charter to guide the activities of this workgroup: 4 Aug 2009.
 * 2) To develop the WikiEducator Adminstrator page which defines the roles, responsibilities and duties/activities of WikiEducator Administrators including Sysop Administrators, Bureaucrats, and Bots: 7 Sep 2009.
 * 3) To develop a policy proposal for selecting, appointing and removing WikiEducator Administrators: 7 Sep 2009.
 * 4) To develop policy proposals for page deletions, blocking users and protecting pages: 7 Sep 2009.
 * 5) To develop guidelines to help WikiEducator Administrator's in executing their duties, including page deletions, blocking users, protecting pages. 7 Sep 2009
 * 6) To prepare a short report of this Workgroup's activities, including links to proposed Administrator guidelines and policy pages: 7 Sep 2009.

Leadership style
This group has adopted a collective leadership style wherein lead roles are being taken up my members voluntarily based on aptitude/in-depth knowledge/ expertise.

Required workgroup skills and experience
To achieve its objectives, this Workgroup requires the following skills and experience of its participants, taken as a group. This does not necessarily mean that members must have these skills to participate in the workgroup, but rather they have the will and desire to develop these skills through their participation in this workgroup.


 * At least two members of the WikiEducator Community Council (WCC): to help with development of the proposal in consultation with the general policies of WikiEducator, presenting the proposal in the WCC and taking follow up based on WCC decision.
 * A thorough understanding of the functioning of administrators in open wiki communities.
 * Leadership experience in open wiki communities with reference to developing guidelines, polices etc.
 * Proficiency in using MediaWiki software.

Participants
''Describe who can participate in the workgroup. ''


 * Signing up to this workgroup, in the member section below, using ~ is a requirement and it will serve as a signature.
 * This is a wiki and all are free to contribute. But the group shall not wait for the suggestions/conclusions from the contributors who are not listed members.

''Note: This charter applies to all members participating in this workgroup (whether or not they appear in the member section). ''

Member responsibilities
Members of the WikiEducator Administrator workgroup agree to:


 * Regularly visit the work group pages, both main pages and talk pages.
 * Contribute to discussions and draft reviews of the workgroup outputs.
 * Aim to achieve consensus on relevant items.

Members and signatures
Members may please sign below using ~
 * 1) Anil Prasad 09:56, 13 July 2009 (UTC) (Convenor)
 * 2) Gladys Gahona 12:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Victor P. K. Mensah 15:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Patricia Schlicht 17:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) Alison Snieckus 17:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 6) Wayne Mackintosh 23:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 7) Declan McCabe 01:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 8) Gita Mathur 01:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 9) Sarita Kumar 02:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 10) Sanjaya Mishra  04:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 11) Pankaj 06:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 12) Nellie Deutsch 11:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Additional workgroup roles
Additional workgroup roles are not anticipated as this being a very specific and short-term assignment.

Resources to achieve workgroup objectives
Human and intellectual capital of the WikiEducator community and other relevant open information available online will be the resources for this Workgroup to achieve its objectives.

Boundaries
Describe the scope of commitment required of workgroup participants:


 * This Workgroup will attain its objectives in 50 days.
 * The entire project period as given above will be a single asynchronous meeting with two sessions and hence the members are free to check in for discussions at their convenience and in accordance with the general consensus on time-frames.
 * The scope of this endeavor, at present, is limited to develop a proposal for placing in the WCC meeting as stated in the introduction section of the charter. However the group is free to accept follow up assignments, if any, related to its original proposal that would be entrusted by the WCC.

Meetings

 * As this being a very short-term assignment that has to be completed in 50 days, the entire project period will be treated as a single asynchronous meeting from 0001 UTC on Monday 20 July 2009 to 2400 UTC on 7 Monday September 2009 with two sessions as given below.


 * Since the entire project period is a single asynchronous meeting, signing up to this workgroup will also mean signing up to its meeting.


 * The meeting place of this Workgroup are these WikiEducator Administrators Workgroup project pages. MediaWiki and Google group technologies will be used for group meetings.


 * If a member cannot be present at the meeting and has not finished an assignment due, the group collectively will carry out such assignments.


 * First session of the Asynchronous Meeting of the Workgroup constituted to propose policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators will be held from  0001 UTC on Monday 20 July 2009 to 2400 UTC on 30 July 2009.


 * Agenda: Discuss and approve a charter for the Workgroup.
 *  Venue: Project Home Page


 * Second session of the Asynchronous Meeting of the Workgroup constituted to propose policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators will be held from  0001 UTC on Wednesday 5 August 2009 to 2400 UTC on 7 Monday September 2009.


 * Agenda: Discuss and approve policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators based on the charter for the Workgroup
 * Venue : http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Administrators

Editing
When editing content pages for this group, we ask participants to


 * enter a substantive summary in the summary box for each revision,
 * create a new thread on the discussion page to introduce a topic or issue for discussion,
 * add suggestions, notes, or reminders to the main content page in a color other than black or using the template; include a signature.

Communication
The Members will communicate chiefly through the discussion sections on WikiEducator Administrators project pages, with occasional email and Google group notifications.

Securing equal commitment

 * The members of this Workgroup share an equal commitment to achieving objectives.
 * In order to facilitate equal commitment, the discussion will be in asynchronous mode, so that members can join at their convenience, and the development of the proposal will be in collaborative mode.

Conflict management
This Workgroup pledges to settle all conflicts through consensus.

Informational Resources
The Workgroup will refer the following online resources for developing the policy and guidelines for WikiEducator Administrators.


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policy_and_guidelines
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ADMIN
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels
 * http://www.uesp.net/wiki/UESPWiki:Administrators
 * http://www.wowwiki.com/WoWWiki:Administrators

Evaluating workgroup success

 * As this being a very specific short-term assignment, the success of the workgroup will be evaluated based on the successful completion of the proposal as stated in the introduction section of this charter.
 * The experiences of this workgroup will also contribute to the Workgroup project that is developing general guidelines and templates for future Workgroups.

Charter approval process

 * An invitation will be posted on the the WikiEducator google groups list letting folk know that the draft charter is completed and will consider all feedback and comments on the charter posted on this wiki page before 3 August 2009.
 * The participants shall indicate their approvals by signing under the vote for the charter section below by 4 August 2009. In this scenario - a majority vote by workgroup members would indicate the Workgroups's approval.

Vote for the Charter

 * 1) Sarita Kumar 11:25, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Anil Prasad 06:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 3)  Sanjaya Mishra --Missan 09:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Gita Mathur 11:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 5) Patricia Schlicht 12:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 6) Alison Snieckus 12:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 7) In an email from Declan McCabe, 23 Jul 2009: "I will miss the opportunity to vote on the charter.  As I see it here  I approve and vote in favor of it.  I also would vote for a modified version that did not drastically alter the spirit of things."
 * 8) Wayne Mackintosh 19:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 9) Nellie Deutsch 03:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * 10) Victor P. K. Mensah 18:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Agenda: Discuss and approve charter for the Workgroup
First session of the Asynchronous Meeting of the Workgroup constituted to propose policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators will be held from 0001 UTC on Monday 20 July 2009 to 2400 UTC on 30 July 2009.

Agenda: Discuss and approve a charter for the Workgroup.

Venue: Project Home Page

Introduction
Dear friends,

Coffee time discussions were over now and the formal session has commenced. I would like to propose that, since this being a very short-term assignment that has to be completed in 50 days, the entire project period will be treated as a single asynchronous meeting from 0001 UTC on Monday 20 July 2009 to 2400 UTC on 7 Monday September 2009 with two sessions as given below.

Since the entire project period is a single asynchronous meeting, signing up to this workgroup will also mean signing up to its meeting.


 * First session of the Asynchronous Meeting of the Workgroup constituted to propose policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators will be held from 0001 UTC on Monday 20 July 2009 to 2400 UTC on 30 July 2009.
 * Agenda: Discuss and approve a charter for the Workgroup.
 * Venue: Project Home Page


 * Second session of the Asynchronous Meeting of the Workgroup constituted to propose policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators will be held from 0001 UTC on Monday 3 August 2009 to 2400 UTC on 7 Monday September 2009.
 * Agenda: Discuss and approve policies and guidelines for the WikiEducator Administrators based on the charter for the Workgroup
 * Venue : http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Administrators

Of course, the above schedule is also a part of the charter that we are going to discuss and approve through consensus.

The coffee time discussions, in which we have adopted a free-to-edit policy, were very much fruitful. Though our intension behind the coffee time was to collaboratively build an outline of the charter for formal discussions in the meeting, the result of the coffee time is apparently more than that.

Now, in this session, we would like to carry out our business through signed suggestions below this note, which will be the exact online meeting place for this session.

Though the group would like to discuss each part of the charter, one by one, in the descending order starting from the introductory paragraph, members are free to add signed suggestions on any part of the charter based on their interest.

Warm regards Anil Prasad 05:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrapping up
The group has substantially improved the charter developed during the Coffee time. The major additions include more specific activity listing, output listing etc for the next session of the meeting and a voting procedure for approving the charter.

The voting procedure will include the following steps:


 * An invitation will be posted on the the wiki educator list letting folk know that the draft charter is completed and will consider all feedback and comments on the charter posted on this wiki page before 3 August 2009.
 * The participants shall indicate their approvals by signing under the  vote for the charter section by 4 August 2009. In this scenario - a majority vote by workgroup members would indicate the Workgroups's approval.

It has also been suggested that the Workgroup will identify admin roles and assign functions to roles, develop draft guidelines, policies etc at http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Administrators page. Therefore, once the charter is approved, the venue for the main session of this meeting will be http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Administrators

Please add your thoughts

Anil Prasad 07:22, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Good plan. I think the specification of outputs in the purpose section of the charter will help us be clear about what we are doing. Now, I think the Project Plan needs to include the steps for creating all of the outputs. To that end, I added the creation of a summary report as #3, at the bottom. I have two additional thoughts:
 * In thinking about the sections of the plan, I'm wondering if the output for each activity should be just a link to a page/section of a page.
 * I wonder if the plan should have an activity to go with each of the outputs listed, with sub activities under each as needed: revise #2 in the plan to focus on roles/responsibilities, add #3 to be selection process, #4 to be policies for admin work, #5 to be guidelines for administrators, and revise summary report to be #6.


 * Just wanted to check other people's thinking on this. Regards, --Alison Snieckus 19:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Alison, Excellent suggestions, I completely agree with you. Regards, Anil Prasad 05:01, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Further specifying outputs
In thinking about what the specific outputs of this group will be, I'm wondering if we can be more specific at this point. Are we thinking to create pages similar to the ones in WP (policy and guidelines, admin, user access levels)? Or should we adopt a different organizational scheme. If we can come to some consensus on this and be very specific in the charter (i.e., list them as outputs in the project plan), it might help focus the discussions later. Just a thought. --Alison Snieckus 13:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Defining roles
Hi folks, I have previously commented that we need to define admin roles before we can formulate guidelines or for that matter a charter. That comment is now gone from the page as is the response to that comment. I'll reiterate; I think a table of admin roles would be helpful; each role could then be followed by criteria for action. I am sure that deleting a discussion was an accidental oversight, nevertheless I find it frustrating and am concerned that perhaps we are without some clear goals that will lead to obvious outcomes. It seems that the current document is full of process and protocols for discussion, but lacks direction. So, may I pose a constructive question: what are we attempting to achieve? I understood it to be a policy for administrative action; perhaps criteria for deletion, user blocking, things of that nature. Best dmccabe 14:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe this point is a good one. The comments are on the Coffee Time discussions page but perhaps we can action some of them and highlight them here before we proceed? What are the various admin roles, what are the basic requirments of an adminsitrator? etc. are questions that may keep appearing in this space. Perhaps, we can either do with a small background paper/note to highlight these. Better still, a small table should suffice. Anil, can you help?--Victor P. K. Mensah 14:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with this, a table of admin roles would help us with the definitions and action plans per role. --Patricia 17:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Declan, Victor and Patricia,


 * The points raised by Declan are very much valid, Dr. Wayne has also suggested the same in the Coffee time discussions as archived below. Really we are planning to discuss Declan's points in detail in the next session of this meeting. And now in this session, as Nellie has told, we are going to finalise a charter for our group activities. The charter will clearly say what are we going to do and how it will be done. Once charter for our group is ready, we will enter into the second session of this meeting. In the second session we will list out the activities of admins, define them, and prepare policies and guidelines for carrying out admin rights etc. In fact, we will start the second session, which is our real business, with Declan's points.


 * Anil Prasad 17:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thinking about Declan's suggestion to specify the admin roles, it seems to me that the project plan should include identifying and defining the specific Admin roles. Sub-activity 2.2 lists the functions, and 2.3 creates the guideline for each function. We also need to organize the functions into roles. I'm not caught up with all of the discussions yet, but my choice would be to brainstorm all of the functions and then organize into roles, rather than the other way around (identify roles and then define functions in each). So, suggesting new subactivity between current 2.2 and 2.3 "Identify Admin roles and assign functions to roles." --Alison Snieckus 13:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Here are a few possible roles and responsibilities. --Nellie Deutsch 14:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Roles Added to the Charter
I would like to see the roles and their functions added to the workgroup charter. --Nellie Deutsch 13:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. The work group charter should include admin roles and their functions. --Sarita Kumar 14:14, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * First, to clarify do you mean admin roles and functions? I see this as a chicken and egg situation. My opinion would be to brainstorm all of the admin functions first and then determine the admin roles to best take care of the functions. To me, this seems like an output of the group, not something that we can know before we get started. However, I do think we should be specifying the outputs more clearly, i.e., the specific pages that we plan to create. Are we planning to create one WikiEducator: Admin page? multiple pages? Will we be creating a policy and guidelines page? But maybe this also is putting the cart before the horse. Just my thoughts. --Alison Snieckus 15:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Alison and other friends,
 * I think Alison is correct, in the charter we are not supposed to define any thing except the guidelines/procedure required for the group to function, instead it would say that the Group will define such and such things in the actual proposal and it will form an activity-output listing. Charter is a listing of activities and procedures as an internal management mechanism for a group to carry out a major task. If we start to list out each and every thing and define them in the charter it will go out of the scope of a charter. Therefore let us finish the charter at the earliest and attempt listing and definitions by starting appropriate sub pages from the Report page as Dr. Wayne has suggested on the Report page. for your thoughts..., Anil Prasad 17:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi all, It seems to me that the Report subpage for this group is not the right place to begin work. I suggest creating the report last -- it's the summary of our work and links to various outputs that we will submit to council. Rather, I think this group should be making (as outputs from the group) pages in the WikiEducator namespace (similar to WP's listed in the resources above, or the wiki Nellie links to below). Do we want one main page to discuss administrator roles (notice that UESPWiki's administrator page describes the sysop role, and also a number of other roles, bureaucrat, cartographer...) or are we talking about only one role, the sysop (also called administrator) as is the case for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators. Maybe we should start with a WikiEducator:Administrators page to start listing out the functions that need "administration", noting that we can create role specific pages, if we end up with more than one role, later on. Regards, --Alison Snieckus 18:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Alison, the content is supposed to be moved to the right name spaces only after the WCC approves our report. The report, in the present context, is actually our proposal. If the page name is confusing let us change it as proposal. Our assignment is very short one and we are all in short of time also (because of our regular works). Therefore we may not be in a position to spend additional time to write report/proposal separately. If our work is constructively arranged in the report/proposal page/and sub pages, at the end of the project schedule we will be having the proposal/report in hand without any additional pain.


 * Hi all, to make things easier and to avoid the chicken and egg scenario of a draft guideline versus an approved guideline, etc -- I propose that we work on the actual wiki page -- it's the wiki way. Once the policies are approved the page can be protected from editing if required - this way we will also have an easily accessible history of the development of these pages (particularly since we already have a history of admin support). I've also had a bash at trying to specify the outcomes of this workgroup under a new subheading: "Specified outcomes" above, with links to relevant pages as appropriate. Hope this will help the flow of activity. I see the report page as our report on the activities of the workgroup which we can link to the relevant pages in the wiki. I admire Anil's commitment to detail and process --- the ingredients for a quality output :-) --Wayne Mackintosh 05:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Now about the method of expressing consensus, our proposal is going to face a structured and full-fledged voting process in the WCC. Therefore shall we reduce formalities at this early stage and concentrate more on the creative part of our job?
 * Anil Prasad 05:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Given our tight deadlines, I'd recommend posting an invitation to the wiki educator list letting folk know that the draft charter is completed and will consider all feedback and comments on the charter posted on the wiki before 3 August 2009. I would then suggest that the participants indicate their approvals by signing the approval section by 4 August 2009. In this scenario - a majority vote by workgroup participants would be sufficient to progress our work. As you point out -- if we've made serious mistakes regarding process, I'm sure that Council will defer back to the workgroup. So I agree -- lets focus on the creative bits --Wayne Mackintosh 05:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

What's next?
Greetings,

Just checking in to the first meeting. I have used a similar team charter with my doctoral cohorts at the UOP so I know the charter works well. I share Maccabe's concerns. I am not sure what I am expected to do beyond this.

Warm wishes,

--Nellie Deutsch 14:27, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Nellie, greetings!
 * Would you like to add more thoughts on why we require a charter before the commencement of our real business of listing and defining admin roles, and preparing policies and guidelines.
 * Anil Prasad 17:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Anil, here is the purpose for having a team charter as developed by the workgroup on workgroups: A charter is a statement of the scope, objectives and participants in a project or working group. It documents a preliminary delineation of roles and responsibilities, the group's objectives, a process for collaboration, a project plan, and a method for on-going evaluation. The charter serves as a reference of authority for the future of the working group[1]. Most groups or teams working collaboratively to achieve a particular goal will benefit from the creation and maintenance of a charter. WikiEducator Community-wide Workgroups must create and maintain a charter for review and approval by the WikiEducator Community Council.

Hi everyone -- apologies for checking in late -- the time zone and my current commitments not aligning well with the meeting. Having read the draft charter -- I think this is pretty close to wrapping up and moving forward? I'm not sure that the additional roles of work group members are relevant for the tasks at hand. I'd suggest that we start moving forward in:
 * drafting the responsibilities for these different admin roles,
 * drafting guidelines to support folk assisting with these admin roles
 * suggesting procedures for selecting and assigning these responsibilities in our community.

Progress is looking good and BIG thanks to Anil's leadership in keeping us to task and the great progress with the charter draft so far --Wayne Mackintosh 22:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Dr. Wayne and other friends,


 * You are right; all our members (including me) are more interested to proceed with the real process than discussing about the procedure for the process. Therefore, if the above charter (that is the general working principles of this group) is agreeable, let us move on to the second session of the discussion by listing out the functions of the administrators, define them, and list guidelines/criteria for each function and then necessary core policies as our members have suggested.


 * In the second session we may continue discussions at http://wikieducator.org/Workgroup:WikiEducator_Administrators/report page whereon we can develop the draft proposal also.
 * Anil Prasad 03:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd like to suggest that the Workgroup members sign the charter to indicate approval. My suggestion is to do the approvals in the member section, by revising the member list into a table where the first column is the joining signature and the second column is a charter approval signature. See this example. I suggest the following general consensus process (we can test this out for feedback to the WE Workgroups workgroup):
 * if a member agrees with the charter, he/she enters their signature in the approval column (in their row)
 * if a member disagrees with the charter he/she starts a new thread or adds a comment describing their contention,
 * members discuss/revise as needed,
 * previous signatures are removed and new approval requested
 * repeat until all members have approved.


 * This approval process will give us a chance to hear from everyone in the group. And, it seems to me that we could get started on the Admin policy and guidelines while we finish up this last step in the charter (given it seems like most are agreed). --Alison Snieckus 13:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Alison, In respect of the procedure for approving the charter, I think signing means voting. For that we have to fix a time schedule, and for many reason all of us may not be able to sign in for casting votes in time.  Instead, if through the discussions so far, and the discussions yet to come, the group is able to conceive that thought wavelength is harmonized in the group to a greater extent, it will be an ideal way of consensus approval. Anil Prasad 17:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Anil, I do agree that the discussions here suggest that we are largely in agreement. And it seems we can certainly move ahead, while we figure out how to finalize the charter. I've never used consensus decision-making in an online venue, only in person. In my mind consensus includes voting, the key is it's not majority rule. It's an iterative approach wherein dissenters' concerns are addressed and the matter at hand revised until all can 'live with' the outcome, see diagram in wikipedia article. The "test for consensus" box is a vote of sorts, from the article "The facilitator of the decision-making body calls for consensus on the proposal. Each member of the group usually must actively state their agreement with the proposal, often by using a hand gesture or raising a colored card, to avoid the group interpreting silence or inaction as agreement."


 * I'm not clear how to effectively implement this process online, and would like to try it out before suggesting its use in the WE Workgroup guidelines. I do have an ulterior motive. ;-) Regards, --Alison Snieckus 18:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Excellent suggestions, Allison. I would like to invite all the members of the workgroup to help define the roles of the administrators. Here are a few possible roles and responsibilities. --Nellie Deutsch 14:12, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Informative link, Nellie. I think now we can start working on defining the roles of the administrators. --Sarita Kumar 14:29, 22 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Great information. I'm going to add it to our "informative resources" section in the charter. There are probably others that we could peruse, though I'm not sure where to look. Thanks, --Alison Snieckus 18:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Coffee time discussions (Completed)

 * /Coffee time discussions/