Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Advice from former coordinators

From Kirill Lokshin

A few words of advice to future project coordinators:

1. The purpose of the project is to serve its members, not vice versa. Procedure and infrastructure should never become ends unto themselves. Processes that fail to produce results should be eliminated; even the largest project can be overwhelmed by a sufficient amount of needless paperwork.
2. Most members will not participate in day-to-day internal affairs; they're here only to work on articles. Processes should be designed with the understanding that they will typically be run with only a fraction of the project's membership—but they should be useful to the occasional visitor as well.
3. Participation in discussions tends to be self-selecting; sometimes, the only editors who will pay attention to a debate on some abstruse point will be those that have a stake in changing—or retaining—the status quo. That someone disagrees with current practice doesn't necessarily mean that it must be changed.
4. Patience is key. Most large debates will require multiple rounds of discussion before the project can agree on a workable solution. There is rarely, if ever, a need for urgent action; if consensus seems unclear, or if a dispute remains active, it is best to delay acting, or to merely note the disagreement. Attempts to force a particular approach on an unwilling group of editors tend to be spectacular failures; and the cost, in terms of lost members, of pursuing them is prohibitive even when they succeed.
5. The status quo is generally a stable position, if nothing else; maintaining it for a while longer is unlikely to be as controversial as changing it.
6. Act carefully; while almost any action can be reversed if needed, it never hurts to ask for objections before doing something.
7. Group cohesion and camaraderie is vital. Members should be encouraged to consider themselves part of a greater whole; splinter groups should be discouraged, and absorbed into the project if necessary.
8. The influence of the coordinators is enormous; their actual power is virtually nonexistent. Authority works best when it is left as an unstated understanding; explicit appeals to your position are likely to be counterproductive, at best.
9. Your actions—including those taken outside the project—will reflect on the project as a whole. Avoid dragging the project into your own personal conflicts, and try to maintain a collegial relationship with editors and groups outside the project. Be wary of politicizing the position; it's quite likely that many members do not agree with you on such matters, and will take exception if you presume to speak for them.
10. Your ultimate goal is to support the development of good articles. For the most part, this will take place regardless of what you do; your role is primarily to help article writers where possible, and to avoid hindering them otherwise.

From TomStar81

Congrats on your election as a coordinator for the Military History WikiProject! As we were all new coordinators at one point or another, I will offer those of you who are new to this concept some advice and tips on what to expect with your new position and what to do with your new responsibilities.

1. Get to know your fellow coordinators. If you have not done so already, take this opportunity to read the user pages for the coordinators that you will be working with for the next six months. This simple action will allow you to learn a little about the people you will be in with, and will shed light on your fellow coordinators' strengths and weaknesses. This is particularly important in regard to articles, reviews and maintenance: if you know that one of your fellow coordinators has an interest in a certain area you can defer to him or her for advice on how to handle certain issues (like NPOV complaints).
2. Know which coordinators are administrators. Users do not need to be administrators to be coordinators, but this cuts both ways insofar as non-administrators lack the ability to delete content, and more importantly, protect or semi protect articles. Knowing which of the current coordinators has access to administrators buttons will come in handy should the need arise for you to pass a problem page up the chain to a user with higher privileges.
3. Watchlist project talk pages. If you have not done so already, now would be a good time to add all of the task force talk pages to your watchlist, along with the main project talk page and the coordinator talk page. Since coordinators communicate to each other on their own talk page it makes good sense to add that to your watch list to stay on top of new developments and proposals for the project. The main project page should be watchlisted because most contributors to the project will post questions, comments, and proposals on it and as a coordinator you should endeavor to be there to answer or address any concerns. Most of the traffic you get on the task force talk pages will likely be to announce the opening of new peer reviews and A-class reviews, but every now and again someone will bypass the parent project talk page and post on a task force page on the assumption that a task force, focused as it is on a specific element of military history, will be the best way to get a quick answer. These posts sometimes go unnoticed because task forces have fewer members, so it is a good idea to watchlist those talk pages to make sure that you can answer the question if you happen to be the first to see it.
4. Watchlist the awards page. Watchlisting the awards page ensures that you will be aware of any new nominations for either the Chevrons with Oak Leaves award or the A-class medals, as those awards are given out by the coordinators in the name of the project as a whole, but in order for the coordinators to hand out those awards they must establish a consensus within the project to do so. This is one of the few areas within our project where coordinator participation is explicitly written into the process, and if you don't contribute to the discussion then the awards can not be issued. This is one of those things you will have agreed to do, so try to the best of your ability to be there for the discussion.
5. Buy Tylenol. As a coordinator you have agreed to take on an additional role in the running of your project, which usually entails handling the reviews and passing out notifications for things, but every now and again you are going to have deal with NPOV complaints, Manual of Style conflicts, differences in opinions on how things should be worded/phrased, and things along those lines. Severe things should be deferred either to Requests for Comment or in extreme cases Arbcom, otherwise it is going to fall to you and your fellow coordinators to work with the contributers to find a solution to the problem. Above and beyond this, you will likely spend much of your time reading articles that come up for reassessment, peer review, A-class review, FAC, FARC, AFD, and so forth. Eyestrain will give you quite the headache. Trust me, I know this from experience.
6. Do not expect rewards. As large as our project is, many people expect that our members would routinely receive awards, but in reality our project’s members have a reputation for being notoriously stingy about handing out our in-house award (or any other award for that matter) to those who help the project. Aside from the congratulatory messages and their accompanying images you are likely to receive for the first week or so after the coordinator election concludes, you very likely will not receive anything else for the remaining six months of your term. This is not to say that you will not be thanked, but the thanks you are likely to get will be the one liner "thank you for the help with/on (specifics here)". Also bear in mind that, as a coordinator, you are automatically ineligible to receive the Chevrons with Oak Leaves award until such a time as you cease to be a coordinator.
7. Do not be afraid to suggest new things. Float proposals you have, even the ones you think are silly, to the other coordinators. Who knows, the one idea you think is crazy may be the one idea everyone else thinks is genius. The worst thing that can happen to a suggested idea is to have the community decide against it, and even then you will have a sense of closure for having taken the chance and suggested your idea.
8. Do not be afraid to come clean. You are a coordinator, not a god. You will likely make a mistake or two, and if called for it the best thing to do is learn from it. Do not attempt to use your position as a coordinator to justify your mistake, and do not be ashamed to admit to others that you are not sure of what you are supposed to do in or under certain circumstances. On the whole your fellow contributors and coordinators will be happy to explain things to you, or if necessary, walk you through the process so you can get a feel for it.
9. You are not a superhero. Do not assume that simply because you are now a coordinator you have the power to clear out backlogs, update templates, and file review related paper work at superhuman speeds. If you set out with the express purpose of leaving your fellow coordinators in the dust and handling the day-to-day project operations all by yourself you will find yourself lost in a virtual paper maze faster than you can blink your eyes, and even if you could clear out backlogs and file all the needed paper work today this project's members are spread out across the globe; by the time you ate, slept, and logged back in to Wikipedia the backlogs you cleared earlier out will have filled up again. If the position of coordinator begins to feel like a fulltime job, complete with ankle restraints and cubicle sickness, then you need to back off and find something else to do to on or offline for a while, otherwise you'll end up burning out.
10. Coordinators be thou for the contributors. You were elected to the position of coordinator by virtue of an approval vote obtained from your fellow contributors, but your fellow contributors will quickly become a jury of your peers if you overstep your authority on a matter. You must endeavor to exercise moderation in all things you do as a coordinator. The mark of a great user is that he or she can leave a position of power yet still retain the respect and admiration of the project as whole or near whole. If you can leave coordinatorship behind you but still be looked up to, then you have grasped the essence of what it means to serve in the position of a coordinator, and it will unlock doors for you within the project and across Wikipedia.

From Cam

At some point or another, all of us were new coordinators, even those of us who've been around for a very long time. As such, I offer this advice to those of you who are newly appointed, or wish to become coordinators someday:

1. Know The Team. No matter your differences and disagreements, you're going to have to work alongside your fellow coordinators for the next six months. Getting to know them at least semi-well before the tranche starts will enable you to know each of their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, know which coords possess The Mop. The limits to the abilities of some coordinators end at the power of Administrators. Those who possess the additional tools can be called on to perform coordinator-related tasks that require Admin capabilities.
2. Watchlist the Main Project Talk Page, the Review Page, the Awards Page, and the Talk Pages of your respective task forces. If you know who's posting what on the applicable pages, it will allow you to remain knowledgeable about what is happening at MilHist and the sub-departments therein.
3. You have been voted into a position of elevated responsibility and trust—BEHAVE ACCORDINGLY. Conduct unbecoming of a coordinator reflects badly on the project as a whole. You must learn to be capable of keeping a cool head throughout what often end up turning into heated debates. If the voices called upon to provide rational cool-headedness respond with irrationality and boneheadedness, you only serve to enflame debate and ensure that nothing gets done for even longer.
4. Brush up on your written argumentative skills. As a coordinator, you exert a colossal amount of influence (though, as Kirill notes above, your actual formal power is limited) in any debate that occurs with regards to disputes, policy and guideline changes, and interactions with other editors and projects. Your written comments on these topics should be eloquent and well constructed.
5. Patience is a virtue you must possess. If you do not, acquire it quickly. Most major policy discussions (C-Class, ACR format, Assessment Guidelines, to name but a few) require multiple rounds of discussion. They aren't going to fix themselves overnight; be ready for long and intense rounds of discussion and arguing that could take anywhere from weeks to months.
6. Stock up on headache medication. Because MilHist is such a large and diverse project, it often means that the coordinators have to deal with a great deal of NPOV complaints, disputes, incidents and the like which, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, will inevitably cause a great deal of stress. In some cases, this stress can spiral out into Real Life and affect other aspects of off-wiki activity. You will have to learn to deal with it, and have preventative measures at the ready. I recommend Starbucks Passionfruit Tea and frozen raspberries.
7. Don't be afraid to suggest new ideas. If we didn't, we still wouldn't have an automated assessment list. At the same time however, do not do everything without first consulting your fellow coordinators to see if there are objections to the ideas. It is best to deal with design flaws in the development stage, rather than realize them when the ship sinks.
8. Admit to your mistakes. A headstrong, arrogant, and overly pride-driven coordinator is not something this project can afford to have. Humility will serve you well in the position of coordinator.
9. Focus on coordinator tasks. Your job is to run the project and ensure its process work smoothly. It is not your job to personally copyedit every single article for perfect dash and prose compliance that goes through the ACR system. Though I recommend getting involved in reviewing articles, do not overindulge in the processes to the point where it gets in the way of maintaining the project systems.
10. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. It is generally more difficult to change something immediately than it is to gradually tweak something over a long period of time.

From Wandalstouring

1. Try to find out the needs of other project members or of the project in general. You may not have solutions for all of them, but if you initiate discussions about them we always have achieved something.