Portal:Volunteers

What this list means

The following is not a list of advertisements for positions available. These are not offers for paid employment. this is simply a list of types of tasks that need to be done. These are things we would like to see happen. In some places it is little more than a wish list. In other places the tasks are urgent. Some tasks are more involved than others.

• Some of these tasks you could do right now by logging in or creating a user account and editing the wiki.
• Some of these tasks involve time commitments which you should consider carefully before taking on. Others are more sporadic in nature.
• Some of these tasks require special skills. If you have the requisite skills and commitment, we would very much appreciate your help.
• Some of these tasks require people who have established a record of honesty, integrity and trust, whether by previous work or experience with Wikileaks.
• Regarding any of the tasks below, you can contact us and ask us for further details.

Wikileaks is decentralized, democratic, and participatory. In this sense it is self-organizing -- just do something! Help us out, and contribute your own ideas!

In general, there is no reason why you can't do several of these tasks, time, responsibility, and specialty permitting.

We have arranged this list into several parts:

• Wiki improvement -
• Administration -
• Communications -
• Outreach -
• Legal -
• Fundraising -
• Media relations -
• Advocacy -
• Distinguished individuals -
• Strategy

It's easy to create an account. You should provide details of yourself, including a short biography and what you are interested in working on here at Wikileaks. You can also look through the list of volunteers for others near you with similar interests. Registered users can (anonymously) email each other, using their user page.

If you're interested in anything at all, you can sign up to the volunteers email list. You'll receive updates and information relevant to tasks for volunteers.

Wiki improvement

There are *many* ways this wiki can be improved! At the moment we are still in a very embryonic stage. Any ideas you have for new pages, or new ways to organize information, are welcome. But the following are several important tasks that will require significant effort by a significant number of volunteers:

Editing and analysis

The editors who read leaked documents and write analyses are an integral part of the Wikileaks network. They are the heart of this Wiki, and they are all volunteers. We have created a separate editors portal as a quick and convenient entry point for current and potential editors.

Proofreading

Analyses are written collaboratively by editors, but others are welcome to proofread their work. You can read recent analysis, and clean it up as you do. There may be rough edges to smooth over, spelling and punctuation to fix, and other minor changes to be made. See our Style Guide for policies on spelling, grammar and the like.

Wiki friendliness and aesthetics

Wikileaks aims to be usable by those who are not highly technically literate. Truth tellers who wish to leak documents may not be experts with computers, the internet, or wikis. We need to create a site which is as friendly and intuitive to use as possible. Web designers, software designers, user interface specialists, wiki specialists, graphic designers and others may be able to help in this regard. You can create a user account and create a draft page of your new idea for a page or interface, or contact us with your ideas. See also below to assist with our help system.

We would also like the wiki to be aesthetically pleasing, comfortable to the eye, and psychologically reassuring. We would like a better background graphic, perhaps more graphics. Perhaps our formatting and layout can be improved, either at the wiki editing level, or at lower mediawiki/CSS levels. Artists, web designers, graphic designers, wiki specialists, and anyone with some aesthetic sense is welcome to try out an idea. Create a user account and write a draft page; or send us graphics to use; or let us know about your ideas.

Technical wiki tasks

Wiki editing can be technical and occasionally frustrating. While most work on this wiki will technically be fairly straightforward, there are some tasks more suited to those with specialist or expert knowledge of wiki markup language. A less experienced person can fool around for hours; an expert can do such tasks in a few seconds.

An ongoing technical task is to make complicated pages easier to edit through use of templates, improved use of categories, and an improved user interface. Current technical tasks are listed on our wiki technical to do page. We encourage experts to help out.

Help system

We want truth tellers who have little or no technical expertise to be able to submit documents to Wikileaks easily and securely. This requires a first-rate help system, write down to the "for dummies" level. We would like a system of help pages that is extensive, comprehensive, and easy to use. We would like tutorials for all the major activities performed at this site: uploading documents, onion routing, using chat and forum systems, wiki editing, creating user accounts, creating new documents, and so on. Anybody who has worked in technical support, anyone who has ever written documentation, anyone who has good powers of explanation, anyone who has the ability to write clearly and concisely, can be of help. Simply create a user account and create new or edit existing help pages.

We would like more than just written instructions. Screen captures, illustrations and videos of various procedures will help those with less technical literacy: artists, video makers and graphic designers can help. You can upload or email graphics and videos to us.

We would like chat rooms devoted to help and technical support. We would like forum topics devoted to help and technical support. We would like an instant messaging system where puzzled users can seek instant help from those already online. We would like a list of volunteer help and support staff who can be telephoned or skyped (during preferred hours) for assistance. Regarding forum and chat moderation, see communications below. To join or administrate support staff, contact us.

Translation

Being a website aimed at a global audience, translations of Wikileaks are crucial. We need good and fluent translators to provide translations of important and relevant documents.

In particular, leaked documents and analyses should be available in all languages relevant to the people affected by them. For instance, if a document comes from China and is about policy towards Vietnam, the document and analysis of it should be available in both Chinese and Vietnamese.

Everything relevant to the linguistic group, and preferably everything on the wiki, should be translated into each language. If you want to be a translator, there will always be something for you to do!

It may be worth looking over pages in your languages, if they are new or recently edited. See recent changes or languages. We need translations of high quality. We encourage translators to do whatever they can, and the wiki process allows for continual improvements in translation quality.

To become a translator, create a user account and create or edit translation pages. Before starting however, read our notes for translators. The most urgent things to translate can be found at partial translations and pages needing translation.

Improve our online archives and resources

Wikileaks does not only contain leaked documents and analysis; Wikileaks aims to provide a broad community of support and catalyze a movement in favour of truth telling, transparency and participatory democracy. As part of this community, we maintain large resources of information, including inspirational examples and media coverage regarding truth telling and whistleblowing. We have a large collection of biographies of truth tellers in our truth telling archives: these are also available by country. We maintain a collection of calls for truth telling. We have an extensive list of online resources for whistleblowers. But such collections can never be complete!

You can improve or add to our resources. Research on a truth teller and write a page on them. Improve a stub biography of a truth teller already on our archives. Find more online resources for whistleblowers, or resources specific to your local conditions. Investigate, write advice and create resources for whistleblowers; see also legal issues, outreach and advocacy below. Simply create a user account or log in and create a new page or edit an existing one.

Wiki regionalization

Wikileaks will find different uses and a different place in different parts of the world. As a matter of principle, the Wikileaks network should decentralize and federate to adapt to local conditions, wherever possible. As more local chapters are established, these needs will become clearer, but we must be ready for them.

For a start, advice for whistleblowers and legal issues should be available in a form relevant to each particular local, national or regional context, and translations should be available in all local languages. Some chapters may need a separate section of the wiki, or a closed subsite; whatever is most effective at the local level.

When such projects arise, we will be looking for volunteers to help. Regarding new chapters and subsites, see outreach below, in particular whistleblower support groups and local chapters.

Wiki cleanup

Wikis tend to accumulate pages which are unused, irrelevant, duplicated, or otherwise unnecessary. There area often untidy pages, unformatted pages created by novices, and pages requiring revision and renovation. Wikileaks, we expect, will be no exception. We need volunteers to perform such 'routine maintenance', cleaning up and performing minor edits wherever necessary. Simply create a user account or log in and edit pages to clean them up! Good places to start are new pages, categories, all pages, pages requiring cleanup, and so on.

Administration

The Wikileaks project requires management and coordination among our volunteers. We do not want to become bureaucratic, and we do not need to become bureaucratic; we believe much of the project can be performed in a decentralized, voluntary, democratic, participatory fashion. We do not want to create an administrative elite; we want to be as democratic and transparent as possible. But of course any project involves responsibility, organization and planning, and we need people to help with managing all these details.

Coordination and management

There are many things to be done at Wikileaks, as listed on this page! We need people with organizational or management experience to help us coordinate tasks where necssary. Not all tasks require coordination, but some do. When organization and responsibility is requied, we need project managers, people who can organize volunteers, people who can motivate others to make things happen. We need people of tolerant and democratic temperament, people of honesty and integrity, poeple who are motivated and have the enthusiasm to motivate others.

Most activities other than individual wiki editing requires some coordination, for instance:

• organizing volunteer technical support staff to assist puzzled wiki users (see help system above);
• organizing groups of editors to analyze newly leaked documents - this should be done in some structured fashion (see editorial group organizers below);
• meetings of local chapters, online and offline (see local chapters below);
• email lists, newsletters, moderators, and secretarial tasks (see communications below);
• all advocacy , outreach and networking activity.

Time commitments will vary, depending on the nature of the task.

We encourage anybody who has worked on Wikileaks to engage in some coordination activity, as it will convey a sense of the big picture of this initiative. And we encourage coordinators to do other work as well. We are a democratic phenomenon, we want everybody to coordinate, we do not want coordinators to become an elite.

If you want to help with coordination and management within a dynamic online volunteer community, contact us with your details.

Dispute resolution

It is possible that, as on other wikis, disputes may arise between editors, or over the content of analysis. We expect that most editors and volunteers will be tolerant and open-minded, and able to resolve their differences in constructive fashion. But some mechanism may be necessary for mediating or arbitrating severe disputes.

Anyone who has expertise in dispute resolution, or who has worked with analogous online dispute resolution mechanisms, for instance at wikipedia, can help establish procedures and policies. Contact us to help out.

Communications

The communications infrastructure of Wikileaks is vitally important. Wikileaks is a hub for the leaking of documents and their analysis, explanation and dissemination. We are all about communicating information. It is therefore vital that editors, truth tellers, volunteers, supporters, journalists and the general public have easy and direct channels of communication through Wikileaks: via email, phone, skype, chatrooms, forums, instant messaging, and more.

Forum and chat

Our forum and chat rooms need moderators. We encourage anyone to use them to discuss questions or comments about the project. Moderators will ensure that discussion is intelligent, civilized and tolerant.

The responsibility of a forum moderator implies a small and recurrent time commitment, and can be coordinated with other moderators. Moderators need common sense, tolerance, honesty and a sense of humour; some prior Wikileaks-related experience is preferred. Contact us and tell us about yourself if you are interested.

Editorial group coordination

When a new leak is submitted, we expect that a group of editors will work on analysis collaboratively. It will be helpful if they can meet and chat online, post to each other, and generally communicate openly and easily. We need coordinators among each group to work out meeting times and means of communciation. An editorial group coordinator should have good organizational skills, be a good (online) communicator, and encourage collaboration. The coordinating editor will have no greater editorial decision-making power but will be responsible for organizational matters. There is a recurrent time commitment in each case for as long as the analysis takes. All editors will be attributed with authorship of analysis articles. If you are interested, contact us and let us know.

Email lists, newsletters and updates

Wikileaks uses several large moderated mailing lists for volunteers, editors and press releases. We need people to maintain and moderate them. The responsibility of an email list moderator requires a small but recurrent time commitment; moderators should be tolerant, respectful, understand email etiquette, and understand the purposes and policies of each email list.

We want to use our email lists more effectively to keep volunteers and supporters informed of news, events and activities. We would like to have regular newsletters and updates sent to appropriate email lists. Anyone writing a newsletter or update should have good writing skills, be well informed, particularly about whistleblowing and truth telling issues, and preferably have experience working on Wikileaks.

Contact us if you are interested.

Secretarial tasks

We get a lot of email! When publicity strikes, in fact, we drown in email. We need people to manage email and correspondence.

Volunteers with media or public relations experience are encouraged to help us respond to press enquiries and with media releases when necessary. (See also media relations below.) Volunteers from particular countries or regions are encouraged to help with responses relevant to their own local situation.

We also need people to manage correspondence from the public, from wiki visitors, from prospective volunteers and others. This of course overlaps with administration described above.

Obviously, those performing secretarial tasks and performing public relations tasks must have a good understanding of the Wikileaks project sufficient to advocate for it publicly and to answer criticism when necessary. Contact us if you are interested.

Servers and hardware

We manage our own servers, but those who wish to donate hardware or provide servers are welcome. Contact us for further details.

Cryptography and information security

Wikileaks has spent considerable time and effort establishing and implementing cryptographic techniques to maximizing information security, privacy and anonymity and minimize risk. We provide several different methods for submitting documents, depending on personal, legal and political risk and level of surveillance: see our pages on onion routing, advice for whistleblowers and submissions for further details. Nevertheless, advice and ideas are welcome from those with experience or expertise in the field. Contact us and let us know.

Outreach

Wikileaks is more than just leaking and analyzing. We strive to catalyse and promote truth telling, courage and integrity around the world. In the ethical leaking movement we offer a community of support, reassurance and encouragement for those who take risks to follow their conscience. As a result, we want to perform as much outreach as possible, online and off, to truth tellers, potential and past whistleblowers, potential volunteers, the human rights community and the public in general.

Whistleblower support communities

We want to encourage and support whistleblowers around the world, in whatever way is most effective in every country and region. Apart from maintaining resources on this wiki, we encourage people to organize and form support groups in whatever way possible.

Whistleblower support groups may meet in real space or cyberspace. They may be based off pages on this wiki, they may meet in our chatrooms, they may meet in person. They might engage in activities like: supporting and protecting whistleblowers and truth tellers who are facing prosecution or persecution; reaching out to past whistleblowers; discussing issues related to whistleblowing; advocating for legal and political reform; organizing public events and lectures; whatever they feel best supports and encourages conscientious action.

Support groups might be based on locality, region, topic or institution; we encourage people to use their own initiative and ideas. If you are interested in establishing or joining a support group, create a page on the wiki for it, start organizing people, or let us know. If you work with an existing whistleblower support group and would like to work with us, we would love to hear from you.

Local chapters

Since legal and political conditions vary so widely around the world, Wikileaks should be a decentralized project that adapts to local conditions. We want to establish chapters across the world, wherever possible, and however most practicable. A local chapter will have its own convenor and advisors, people of honesty and integrity committed to Wikileaks vision of courage and integrity. The convenor should preferably be a respected and distinguished individual, however any motivated and enthusiastic people are encouraged to organize.

Local chapters can meet either online, with the help of this site's chatrooms, or in person. They can interact with or overlap with whistleblower support groups. They can establish their own pages or subsites of this wiki. They can advocate and work for local legal and political reform. They can collaborate with other human rights organizations. They can perform research into legal protections and whistleblowing experiences.

To convene or join a local chapter, create a page on this wiki, email us, find local friends and allies to work with, and start organizing!

Legal and political advice

We want to provide good and useful advice to potential whistleblowers on this wiki, easily available from the advice for whistleblowers page. If people are willing to undertake personal risk to disclose documents to us, we owe it to them to inform them about the consequences of their actions. Advice should be clear, concise, honest, neither blase nor unduly frightening. Advice should tell it like it is, informing potential whistleblowers about potential legal and political risks and providing them with links, resources and support groups wherever possible. Obviously risks depend heavily on individual circumstances, but general advice, with appropriate qualifications, should still be provided. Since legal and political conditions vary so widely, advice should be adapted to local conditions and contain information about laws and procedures in different jurisdictions.

If you want to research your local legal or political situation, create an account or log in and post to the wiki, either on a new page or an existing one. Lawyers and law students are especially encouraged to help here: see legal help for truth tellers below. If you post advice, you should make clear that it is your own personal advice; only advice that has gained the general approval of the Wikileaks community should be held out as the advice of the community here at large.

Local chapters and whistleblower support groups should also provide legal and political advice, and should be available to assist potential whistleblowers wherever possible; see local chapters and whistleblower support groups above. Such groups should provide contact details on this wiki so that they can be contacted.

See also the section below on legal issues.

Online Meetings

In conjunction to local chapters and whistleblower support groups, we will host regular meetings in the chatrooms at this site for volunteers and interested people. This will give supporters and volunteers opportunities to get to know each other and build community online. It will help to connect people. Meetings may be more or less formal and have a more or less structured agenda. We envisage several allocated meeting times a day for people in different time zones around the world to discuss various aspects of the Wikileaks project. See the meetings page for further details.

We need people to chair and moderate such meetings. Such people should have good online communication skills and be knowledgeable about the Wikileaks project. Experience working with Wikileaks is necessary. Contact us if you would like to help out.

Alliances, networking and collaboration

There are many, many organizations around the world working towards human rights, transparency, and integrity in many different domains. Where we share goals and visions, we should connect with each other. Where we share specific interests, we should collaborate wherever possible. Where we advocate and campaign for similar reforms, we should form alliances and coalitions.

Volunteers or others from organizations with aims consistent with Wikileaks are encouraged to contact us and discuss opportunities for collaboration, building coalitions, and working together. Conversely, Wikileaks volunteers who have interest or experience with other organizations are encouraged to contact them and proactively build alliances and connections.

United we are stronger than the sum of our parts.

Legal issues

Obviously Wikileaks faces many different legal issues, relating to the site itself, and to the people involved with it: first and foremost whistleblowers and truth tellers, but there may also be legal issues facing other aspects of the project. Help from lawyers and legal experts would be appreciated on any of the following fronts, or more. Contact us if you want to help out.

Legal help for truth tellers

We want to provide good legal and political advice for potential truth tellers; see legal and political advice above. We want general information on the wiki. We want whistleblower support groups as local communities of people able to assist. We also want local lawyers available to offer advice on legal issues in the particular case.

If you are a lawyer willing to offer free advice to potential whistleblowers in your locale or jurisdiction, we encourage you to post contact details to the wiki under advice for whistleblowers.

In addition, if you are a lawyer or law student and want to research laws relevant to potential whistleblowers in your jurisdiction, go ahead and post to the wiki: see legal and political advice above for various considerations. Relevant laws include, but are not limited to: secrecy laws, privacy protection, government surveillance, and whistleblower protection.

Legal climate worldwide

We would also like to see more general research into the legal climate around the world regarding government and corporate transparency, privacy, secrecy, freedom of information, government accountability and oversight, corporate malfeasance, and other legal issues relevant to Wikileaks. Lawyers and law students are encouraged to research and post with information, examples and individual cases relevant to their jurisdiction. We would also like to see discussion of relevant political issues and repression where necessary.

Legal assistance for editors

We expect Wikileaks editing to be essentially a risk-free job, much less risky than mainstream investigative journalism. But if legal issues do arise for editors, we would like advice to be easily at hand. Lawyers with experience in media, journalism, freedom of speech and civil liberties cases are encouraged to help us out, by providing contact details, either by email or by posting them on the wiki under the editors portal.

Representing and advising Wikileaks

It is possible, even likely eventually, that Wikileaks will face hostility from the powerful institutions it confronts. It may face legal and political attacks. While we are prepared to deal with such attacks, and while such confrontations may be a more political and technical rather than legal affair, supportive lawyers around the world will be of invaluable assistance. Lawyers willing to assist in their jurisdiction can contact us with details.

Furthermore, we would like briefs from lawyers in various jurisdictions about the possible legal issues Wikileaks might face. If you are a lawyer and would like to brief us on the situation relevant to your jurisdiction, please post to the wiki or email us your advice.

Fundraising

At the moment Wikileaks is funded by nothing but volunteer efforts. More funding will allow us to expand more rapidly, improve hardware and software, improve outreach and communications, and devote more time and effort to the project.

Grants

Many institutions offer grants for socially beneficial projects, which would be the most obvious source of funding for Wikileaks. These vary from human rights NGOs, to private foundations, to wealthy individuals, to corporations and governments. If you have experience in grant applications, fundraising, finance, venture capital or have useful connections, contact us and let us know.

Donations

We encourage volunteers and supporters to contribute to the project if they can. Donations are always welcome, and can be made from this page.

Other funding sources

Of course there are other avenues for fundraising, and you may have your own ideas and initiatives. Hold a bake sale! Rattle a collection tin! Leave a bequest! Contact us with your ideas or simply turn them into action.

Media relations

We want there to be a day when every journalist checks Wikileaks regularly as a matter of course; indeed, when Wikileaks has itself become a crucial part of journalism. In the meantime, we may have to pay a thought to media relations.

Wikileaks aims for maximum impact. Many of our volunteers and editors are journalists or work in the media. Many of our documents and analyses will appear in the media. As such our relationship with the media is crucial, and should be positive. For detailed considerations, see media strategy.

When new analyses are completed, we want to inform journalists and make sure important stories are carried in the media. We want press releases -- not PR or spin, but succinct summaries of new documents and analysis -- to go out to the media. We want quick contact with a large network of media contacts. We want to offer the media experts and editors they can interview or contact for explanations and clarifications. We want people ready to handle media enquiries quickly and effectively. All this involves several different roles.

Media coordinators

We need people with media or public relasions experience to handle media enquiries; to some extent this overlaps with communications above. This may involve responding to email, taking calls, referring to experts and answering questions. Note that press interest may be sporadically intense, so time commitments may vary wildly.

We need people with good networking and organizational skills to establish and organize a network of media contacts to whom we can offer press releases.

We need people with excellent writing skills and powers of explanation to write intelligent, accurate, readable press releases which summarize analysis without descending to sensationalism or unnecessary detail.

Contact us if you are interested in helping with any of these tasks.

Talking heads

We need editors who have worked on a document or topic to be able to go before the media for interviews, or to answer questions. Such editors should not only have good analytic and writing skills, but also be well spoken and articulate. If you think you fit the bill, contact us and let us know.

Media coverage of Wikileaks

We want to encourage journalists to cover various aspects of Wikileaks. This could involve stories about truth tellers, about the operation of Wikileaks, and about our impact on society. If you are a journalist and want to do such a story, go ahead and read about us, read our truth telling archives, see who the editors are, or contact us.

We try to monitor coverage of Wikileaks by media around the world. Many articles about Wikileaks which have appeared in the media are archived on the wiki. If you would like to update or improve these, go right ahead.

Advocacy

We are an initiative for openness, transparency and truth telling around the world. It follows that there is a natural place for Wikileaks to engage in advocacy and research aiming for reform and social change.

Issues

We would like to advocate on all issues related to our goals. These include open government, freedom of information, secrecy laws, transprency, corruption, surveillance, intelligence, government oversight, participatory democracy, whistleblower protection, civil liberties and freedom of speech. And since our focus is not just on good governance and civil liberties in governments, but also on these attributes in corporations, we would also like to address issues such as corporate structure, corporate law reform, lifting the corporate veil and corporate crime.

We would like to perform research on these issues, at the level of theory, policy, and practice, and at global, regional, national and local levels. We would like to publish reports on these issues, incorporating our own experiences and findings in the Wikileaks community.

If you are enthusiastic about this idea, have worked with these issues, and have experience in research, policy, or advocacy, let us know.

Lobbying groups

We would like to be able to lobby for reforms, through our grassroots community. We would like to have individuals or groups available to advise and advocate in favour of our visions and goals. Such groups could overlap with whistleblower support groups and local chapters. We would like to do this in different jurisdictions around the world, adapted to local conditions. If you have background in the area and would like to help out, contact us.

Campaigns

Where necessary or appropriate, we would like to conduct campaigns on particular issues or for particular reforms. Campaigns might be global or specific to a particular country. They might address a single issue, or a single institution, or be broad in scope. We would like to change the world not only through our innovative methods of anonymous whistleblowing and collaborative wiki analysis, but via traditional methods as well.

The Wikileaks community could engage in letter-writing campaigns, consciousness raising, public events, protests, demonstrations, or other actions, depending on context and location. Strategy and tactics should be adapted to local conditions and resonate with the will and judgment of the Wikileaks community. If you have experience in organizing for reform or social change, and have some ideas, contact us and let us know.

Distinguished individuals

In society there are individuals who are famous, distinguished, honored, dignified, sanctified, or generally regarded with respect and admiration. Such people can be of assistance to Wikileaks. While it's nice to have celebrity support, the reason we seek individuals of high social standing is their ability to assist with truth telling, particularly in repressive societies, where they may be immune from persecution.

Distinguished individuals may include authors, journalists, performers, lawyers, statesmen, scientists, academics or others who are accorded respect for their courage or integrity.

Become a postal drop volunteer

In addition to anonymous online submission methods, Wikileaks also offers the option of using postal mail. We would like to establish a network of postal drop volunteers around the world to collect this mail and upload it to Wikileaks. Information would be delivered on CD-ROM, encrypted so that it is undecipherable by all parties until it reaches Wikileaks. A postal drop volunteer provides their address, and their name if preferred, in order to receive mail from whistleblowers. For further details, see becoming a postal drop volunteer or contact us.

Offer advice

We encourage everyone to offer us advice, comments or criticism. This is especially true of distinguished individuals whose opinion we respect. If you support our goals, and want to offer advice and guidance, a position as an advisor may be appropriate. A distinguished individual could also become a convenor for a local chapter, or advocate on behalf of the Wikileaks community. If you think you can help in any way, contact us and let us know.

Strategy and policy

The Wikileaks initiative is ambitious. To achieve our goals, we need to plan strategies carefully and devise and implement policies regarding various aspects of our project. At this early stage, we have some strategy and policy documents, but not all is written down. Since we aim to be participatory and democratic, we would like to have specific policies on various issues, open for all to see -- but without bureaucratizing the project by creating unnecessary mountains of protocols and manuals.

Strategy

Our actions as a community should be guided by coherent strategies to achieve our goals. We need strategies at the global and local levels. Strategy affects the directions that the Wikileaks community takes. Strategy needs to take into account public perception and positioning, judgments of political climate, moral and ethical issues, and considerations of priorities and goals. There are many questions with many answers, but people who share our goals and visions are encouraged to share their views. Email us or post to forums or chat rooms with your thoughts or initiatives.

Policy development

We would like policies on basic issues relevant to the project. Some policy/founding documents already in existence are our writer's kit, call to arms, media strategy, wiki conventions and style manual.

We would also like policies on issues such as the following: organizational structure; decentralization and federalization; adapting to local conditions; individual privacy; internal decision-making and democracy; role of advisory boards; role of outreach and advocacy; fundraising strategies; legal strategy; risk management; division of labor; media strategy; wiki conventions; all the way down to style conventions and guidelines for spelling and punctuation.

People who have experience with human rights NGOs, the difficulties and issues facing non-profit volunteer organizations, the good governance community, information security, public and organizational policy, and management, may be able to assist. Contact us with your thoughts or ideas.