Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/Interview

Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher: The Signpost speaks with the incoming WMF interim executive director.

Interview

Exclusive: interview with interim ED Katherine Maher

By Tony1

Katherine Maher, then chief communications officer of the Foundation, at Wikimania 2014 in London.

Katherine Maher says WMF at "interesting moment of change"

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After the Wikimedia Foundation’s roller-coaster ride of the past few months, the appointment of chief communications officer Katherine Maher to lead the organisation as interim executive director has been greeted with relief by Wikimedians and WMF staff.

Maher brings to her new role a significant track record of international experience in technology-oriented management, community engagement, and governance. Getting people to trust each other and work together appears to be a hallmark of her style.

Her experience began with programmatic work and the modelling of market and governance stability in the Middle East. She went on to manage HSBC’s international development program from the UK, moving to financial and market analysis in the company’s Düsseldorf and Toronto offices.

Since then, Maher's career has mostly been in the NGO sector—first for a specific project in establishing an open-source citizen reporting site for Lebanon; then in the management, project design, and advocacy of ICT-supported endeavours for UNICEF; the non-partisan US National Democratic Institute; and the World Bank. In the 16 months before she was chief communications officer at the WMF, she was the advocacy director for Access Now, leading their global advocacy on human rights and technology policy.

The Signpost interviewed Maher last week by Skype audio on a range of issues—from the impending recruitment of key WMF managers to more existential challenges that face the Wikimedia movement.

Tony1 speaks with Katherine Maher, 25 min 32 sec

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[UPDATED] WMF in limbo as decision on Tretikov nears 24 February 2016 The WMF's age of discontent 6 January 2016 "We need to be true to who we are"—Foundation's new executive director speaks to the Signpost 25 June 2014 Foundation announces long-awaited new executive director 7 May 2014 Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German-language Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews 25 March 2013 The Gardner interview 2 January 2012 Signpost interview: New Executive Director Sue Gardner 3 December 2007

A transcript of the interview by Graham Pearce is available.

During the interview, a number of terms and abbreviations are used:

• The chief technology officer (CTO) is a critical executive-level role focused on the WMF's engineering side. The job description for this key position, as yet unfilled, is here.
• Product is short for the research and development of new software and functionality, as distinct from the WMF's engineering team. Wes Moran is the vice president of product.
• Human resources (HR) is the management of an organisation's workforce. In the WMF, this is known as "talent and culture".
• The Strategic priorities document for the short- to medium-term planning of the WMF is currently maturing at Meta.
• MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki application. It was originally developed by the Foundation and is the basis of many of its websites, including the Wikipedias. MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language and uses a backend database.
• Wikidata is a collaboratively edited document-oriented database knowledge base, focused around items. Operated by the WMF, it is intended to provide a common source of data that can be used by Wikimedia projects and by anyone else, under a public-domain licence. It was launched in October 2012 under the supervision of Wikimedia Germany.
• A platform in the simplest terms is the stage on which computer programs can run. Examples are embedded systems that can access hardware directly without an operating system, a web-based browser like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, the Google platform, and the WMF's Wikidata project. By contrast, Wikipedia is a destination—a repository of information.

Editor's note: post-production audio advice by Bill Dengler and Graham Pearce.

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• Why is the interviewer so obsessed with replacing Mediawiki? He is asking a question and giving an answer at the same time, then forcing the interviewee to agree (which obviously is the wrong person to ask). You should ask difficult questions, but you should not take part on the conversation. --jynus (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

• I want you to talk to Wake County Schools alumni! --violetnese 13:08, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

• Wow. Judging from that interview, I'd suggest the WMF Board has already found its executive director. :) - kosboot (talk) 18:14, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm equally impressed by her answers to a tough interview. and think she would be a good permanent ED. Nevertheless, it's too early to put Maher up as the next consensus ED - that would be a disservice to the community, the board, and especially to her. One of her chief tasks - perhaps the chief task - is to enable the ED search to find the best ED candidate. There will be many good candidates, and having the community put her forward as the obvious candidate would put her in a false (COI) position. Please let her do her first job - as interim ED - then we can judge whether she is the best ED candidate. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:52, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

And she can decide if she even wants the job. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I am also equally impressed.with her. EllenCT (talk) 03:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

• Since then [i.e. HSBC], Maher's career has been in the NGO sector ... World Bank. So, she's a banker. -DePiep (talk) 21:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

I am glad she has insider experience from a large abusive bank. I am sure that makes her more cognizant of the abuses. EllenCT (talk) 03:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

• • Thanks DePiep: it's an inter-governmental org. I've added "mostly" to fix this in the lead. Tony (talk) 08:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Very weird response, Tony1. The key word is: 'banker'. -DePiep (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
      • What is "very weird" about adding "mostly" so that the categorisation is correct, given that one of the specified roles was not with an NGO? Tony (talk) 00:04, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
        • @Tony1:: My post pointed out that these are two banks. Their classification is not redefining that, while your reply suggests it is. -DePiep (talk) 18:24, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
      • @DePiep: You're leaving out a pretty significant chunk of her career with that ellipsis. Bit of a stretch to call her a banker, unless citizen reporting, UNICEF, and NDI are also banks. (usual caveat of this is a volunteer, not a work, edit; I have personal thoughts and feelings that I like to share from time to time) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

• uh and i thought mediawiki is older than the wikimedia foundation, by magnus manske&co, and they say in this interview the foundation originally developped ...? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • @ThurnerRupert: According to MediaWiki#History, what became MediaWiki was started in 2002, but the first MediaWiki was so named as a play on words from Wikimedia Foundation. So while it's probably not technically correct to say it was originally developed, it's pretty close as a convenient shorthand. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

• It is a bit disappointing how almost every answer is "Great question! There are multiple viewpoints and we will consider all of them", which isn't really an answer. Seems that interim director does not want to express any opinions of her own, or has none. --SSneg (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Mobile view much too wide

The mobile view is quite bad, I guess it is not only the Katherine s foto too big. Sign... ThurnerRupert (talk) 13:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

This is a known issue. :-) Someday it'll get fixed. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

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