Talk:Virtual volunteering

Conflict of interest tag
This article appears to have been written by JCravens42 almost entirely using sources by Jayne Cravens. While Cravens is an expert on virtual volunteering, such a reliance on her sources would appear to be at risk of violating our neutral point of view requirement. I suggest this article needs further input. -- SiobhanHansa 12:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Since user SiobhanHansa tagged this article with the conflict of interest, I have posted repeatedly to various online discussion groups and to dozens of other online volunteering experts, asking them to contribute to this article. I have also tried to better link the article to other resources on Wikipedia, and to get more links to it from appropriate Wikipedia articles. -- Jcravens42 17:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC-8)


 * It's been a few years now since this page was drafted and user SiobhanHansa put a conflict of interest/neutral point of view warning on this article. More than 20 people have now edited this article, and many of the references are not my own. Surely it's long overdue to remove the Conflict of Interest tag on this article? -- Jcravens42 17:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC-8)


 * Of the 15 sources cited in this article, just 6 have my name on them. Again, I ask: surely it's long overdue to remove the Conflict of Interest tag on this article? Hello? Anyone listening?-- Jcravens42 11:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC-8) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.22.246.45 (talk)

=
Hello Jayne, As you know, I have been pioneering online volunteering program development since 1998 and have freely shared my knowledge in this area with many non-profit organizations through presentations, published articles, blogs, videos and podcasts as well media interviews. You mentioned that you attempted to contact other contributors. I do not recall receiving an invite :-) from you to contribute to this Wikipedia article. Not receiving an invite, is not, however, my concern. Online volunteering has been conceptualized, operationalized and implemented in numerous ways around the globe in an attempt to meet the varied needs of non-profit/NGO organizations. Drawing on such diversity will assist in developing a representative body of knowledge to help (and inspire) other non-profits to efficiently and effectively embrace online volunteering.

Thank you.

205.200.196.75 (talk) 22:14, 31 July 2010 (UTC)Randy Tyler http://www.RandyTyler.org

Hello, Randy. I sent emails to everyone in my network (twice, actually), including you. In addition, I wrote about how others need to be editing this page on a variety of online forums/online discussion groups that I know that you are on -- or at least that you used to be on. I've been quite transparent in a number of ways I have sought others to contribute to this page. Why you posted this implication that I have not done so on a Wikipedia Talk page, where it would be highly unlikely I would see it, rather than emailing me directly, which would ensure that I could read and respond to your note, I cannot say. I think your actions speak for themselves. Jcravens42 17:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC-8)

This article reads like an ad for VolunteerMatch.org, a multi-million dollar organization that I found to be a huge waste of time. They don't even allow for support for much needed open source projects if the project isn't a government sanctioned corporation (either for profit or non-profit). I would love to see an article about virtual volunteering that was more balanced and less focused on a bureaucracy like VolunteerMatch. DavesPlanet (talk) 14:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I just took a look at onlinevolunteering.org, clicked the link to create an account and was immediately presented with a list of requirements I would need to meet in order to be accepted. Yes, the requirements were similar to VolunteerMatch.org, the difference is that onlinevolunteering.org took about 1 minute of my time. VolunteerMatch.org took closer to 3 hours. Their signup process allows users to identify themselves as types of organizations that in the end will never be accepted by VolunteerMatch.org (specifically: "I do not have a tax exempt number and I do not intend to apply for one"), and yet the sign up process and the process for posting volunteer opportunities blissfully allow people in need of volunteers to sink hours of their time into the process with no hope of being accepted. DavesPlanet (talk) 14:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Why Don't Wikipedia pages link to this?
Wikipedia may be the largest instance of virtual volunteering, and Wikipedia pages frequently mention that their contributors are volunteers, yet no Wikipedia articles that mention their volunteers link to this article. Why? I'd love to create the links myself, but all Wikipedia-related pages are locked. -- Jcravens42 17:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC-8)

Open Source
Surely Open Source / Free Software is a highly prominent example of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.246.209 (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed, Open Source/Free Software might be seen as virtual volunteering, as might the volunteers who moderated all of the online groups on America Online in its early days (and, ofcourse, AOL is NOT a not-for-profit). But I would really like to see someone else create a section on the page called "Online Volunteers for Business" or something like that, that talks about online volunteers helping with open source initiatives and for-profit endeavors, rather than my creating it, since I'm already under fire for being the creator and author of many of the references for this page. -- Jcravens42 05:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC-8)

Conflict of Interest Tag
Surely this needs to be removed by now. The person "under fire" in this talk has taken action, and in my opinion was never self-serving in the first place. @Jcravens42is known for her groundbreaking work in the volunteering sector worldwide and as far as I can see is one of the few people who have actually contributed to many articles on volunteering here and elsewhere. To see someone, who often volunteers her own time, being attacked in this way boggles the mind! VolManager (talk) 08:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)