Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Sorry for double post; Erik's post below is useful to illustrate my point which I failed to communicate (). Erik Moeller, 28/07/2013 09:31: On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin wrote: For the benefit of c

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:46 PM, John Vandenberg wrote: > On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers > wrote: > > On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < > > daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > > >> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would > >> ben

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On 07/28/2013 11:46 PM, John Vandenberg wrote: > So chapters can offer to help porting tools like this to Labs and > ongoing maintenance of these tools? > Is there a list of such tools that have been identified as needing paid > support? It's probably worth nothing that WMDE has, in fact, already

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 1:36 PM, phoebe ayers wrote: > On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < > daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote: > >> I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would >> benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter. >> >> For ins

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Daniel Mietchen < daniel.mietc...@googlemail.com> wrote: > I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would > benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter. > > For instance, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot > is us

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

I could imagine that certain types of bots, tools and gadgets would benefit if handled and developed with support from a chapter. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot is used widely but cannot be maintained by its original author. It is currently being ported to Labs ( http

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 12:31 AM, Erik Moeller wrote: > On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin > wrote: > > For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you > > offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type > for > > a chapter to take on?

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Craig Franklin wrote: > For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you > offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for > a chapter to take on? It's a great question, Craig. One idea that I think is worth kickin

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Hi Erik (and whomever from WMDE), For the benefit of chapters that are interested in this space, can you offer any examples of projects that are of an appropriate size and type for a chapter to take on? I think that most chapters* would be willing to help out in the software development space if

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 1:57 AM, Erik Moeller wrote: > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER > wrote: > > > If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other > > countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy. > > For my part, I'm happy to offer

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Well, both Hungary and Budapest aims to be the R&D center of the region. There are multiple government and munipal funds and programmes plus a lot of favouring policies on both administrative levels, including a full dedicated neighbourhood on the bank of the Danube, named Infopark (since 1996 [1])

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:39 PM, rupert THURNER wrote: > If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other > countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy. For my part, I'm happy to offer feedback to the FDC on plans related to the development of enginee

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Steven Walling wrote: > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) > wrote: > > > Anyway, being able to disband the SF office as regards software > > development (and perhaps more), and switch to remote work only, would > > probably be the single most

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

> So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software > engineering capacity? > > Actually we've been having this conversation a bit as part of our strategic planning process - how much should Wikimedia UK be doing technology and what place should it have in our long-term goals? After

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Le 2013-07-26 04:23, Everton Zanella Alvarenga a écrit : Wikimedia Foundation planned a few years ago to open an office in Brazil, one India and one in the Middle East, but it has given up of this trial for several reasons. I think before thinking about the idea of this thread, these cases shoul

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Wikimedia Foundation planned a few years ago to open an office in Brazil, one India and one in the Middle East, but it has given up of this trial for several reasons. I think before thinking about the idea of this thread, these cases should be seriously studied, inclusing some possible problems an

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

If WMF is serious about letting development activities grow in other countries this might be taken into account in FDCs allocation policy. Last year Wmch offered to pay one additional developper for wikidata. It was refused because of "too much growth". For wmch this would have been just money flow

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

2013/7/24 Balázs Viczián : > Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the > future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort > reasonable? I'd say this has already happened de facto with Wikidata. And projects are always a bunch - just not always ali

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Is WMF planning to outsource any of its engineering activities in the future? Or are there enough projects in the queue that makes the effort reasonable? Otherwise I believe there is no point for any chapter to build out any software engineering capacity above their local needs or at all. Balázs

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Nathan, you are wrong in shifting to me the burden of proof. The budget states that there are rising costs associated with the current location. That doesn't mean that the slots are going unfulfilled, it is always possible to raise salaries or "import" workers. But is this the best strategy? Have o

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:38 AM, David Cuenca wrote: > Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need > to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as > the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its > geographic pre

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: > Anyway, being able to disband the SF office as regards software > development (and perhaps more), and switch to remote work only, would > probably be the single most effective measure for enhancing communication > and cooperation in t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

David, do you have experience managing a fully distributed organization with offices and staff concentrations spread around the world? If so, can you outline how you resolved the various challenges (HR, coordination between teams and managers, effective oversight and mission management, insurance a

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its geographic presence. As I see it, for example there is no impedement to have a

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

Erik Moeller, 24/07/2013 18:30: On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca wrote: I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development concentrated in SF. Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staf

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca wrote: > I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it is > true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development > concentrated in SF. Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both inside

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

(note this reply represents only my personal thoughts, and is in no way at all anything official) On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:44 AM, Richard Symonds wrote: >> >> *We are a global movement with global projects and global goals.* > > > Indeed we are! But allow me to play devil's advocate here: > >

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

> > *We are a global movement with global projects and global goals.* Indeed we are! But allow me to play devil's advocate here: - How would you run HR meetings? Is it feasible to use videoconferencing? - What are the additional costs involved with this approach? Are there local taxes t

Re: [Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

> > > And it has additional problems like finding technical staff at a reasonable > price there and having to relocate people from all over the world, when > some development centers could be open at other locations too, which might > be cheaper: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_bu

[Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Nathan wrote: > I think your anti-Americanism is misplaced. Let's look at some of the > key people involved in the VisualEditor project. Erik is German, James > F is British, Roan Kattouw is Dutch, Timo Tijhof is Dutch. If you were > to skim the list of the engine