Re: [Wikimedia-l] Proposal: [WCA][Governance] Training for chapter and thematic org. board members
On 22 April 2013 08:25, Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton wrote: > I didn't like the idea, because, chapters are not equal. I believe the chapters are equal. Yes, yes, I'm a idealist dreamer. :-) Certainly all chapters (and in the future 'thorgs') have exactly one voice each, one vote each, one representative each, regardless of how many staff they employ, how big their budget is, or even how successful their programmes are in delivering charitable outcomes. > Why you don't focus your energy sharing experiences in one open wiki, > creating a cookbook (not a manual), and than another communities can use > this material too... I do not think this is an either/or situation. All materials will be public and volunteers helping the WCA task teams are already working on making case studies and cookbook materials available. One benefit of making all materials used in a future training and workshop session public, is that they can be re-used and improved; for example by volunteers making these available in different languages or running their own regional sessions for chapter board members and others that play a part in chapter governance. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strategic plans of the Wikimedia entities: could you link your strategy, please?
On 22 April 2013 23:22, Ziko van Dijk wrote: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy > > Would you like to make a link to your strategy document? I added a link to WMUK's five year strategy document, however I am wondering if this might work even better if the links appeared in a column of <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports>? This then becomes a more central place to find the status of all chapters (and thorgs) which you can then compare to the published strategy (and indeed, confirm if the have a published strategy). Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Question: How much does administration in Chapters cost the Wikimedia movement?
> From: Ad Huikeshoven ... > The accounting standards give guidelines about what can be allocated to > program costs, what should be included in fundraising cost and what are > administrative cost. FDC entities are required to produce audited financial > statements. The external auditor will review allocation of cost and > transparency of explanatory notes. > > International charity guideline is to have > program:fundraising:administrative cost ratios according to 75:10:15, > noting the 10 and 15 are maximums. A source for these ratios is > http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=48 > Hi Ad, it was good to chat with you in Milan. I very much like the rule of thumb "75:10:15", this seems something we can usefully work with to set our own targets. I will take a look at SORP in the UK and ask for a small bit of advice from our leading SORP expert (who is a trustee on our board) to see if there is a standard good practice WMUK might follow, and then consider the comparative models for other countries. > Costs of evaluating impact of programs. Would you include those cost in > administrative costs? Yes, the 'cost of quality' would be an administrative cost, however one conventionally counts the savings from quality improvement, prevention, and the 'cost of non-quality' wherever they are found - this would have to be a separate analysis were one looking to rationalize a quality program. I doubt that the financial standards you reference would detail exactly how these are reported or analyzed, this could be something we might decide to point to a best practice case, rather than laying down arbitrary rules. > Could costs of impact evaluations be part of program > cost. If not, why not? If yes, what is your rationale? Yes, I would expect impact evaluation to be an essential required part of any program plan. My rationale is that reporting back from any funded program should be part of the work products defined in the top level project plan breakdown. I would count this a basic good project management. Unfortunately I see very few project plans that have project briefs agreed with beneficiaries and review milestones (or potential "kill points"), I see schedules but we lack work breakdowns and product breakdowns aligned with resource plans. The good news is that there is plenty of room at the top when it comes to setting best practice in our movement. :-) It is disappointing that no organization has readily come forward in reply to my original question with their pre-calculated "program:fundraising:administrative cost ratios" (I love this way of conceiving of the ratio) it would be really handy to be discussing a real case at this moment. I will have a bit more time in a couple of weeks, at which point I will happily dig into the standards you have linked to, and then pull these out of an example past report, if I can find a good set of numbers in one of the large chapters (WMDE, WMUK?) or even the WMF, so that we can discuss the meaningfulness of starting to make this ratio a top level indicator for all our movement organizations. Note, for those of you that have approached my privately with worries, I believe the value here will be the trend year by year in these ratios, as comparing the proportionate cost of "administration" in one unique organization to another would be impossibly fraught with difficulties of context, organizational framework and varying reporting standards. We are looking for better understanding and improvement, not a witch-hunting campaign, or a race to the bottom. PS as I was asked in Milan, I am not an accountant (!), though I do have a background in exec level management. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Question: How much does administration in Chapters cost the Wikimedia movement?
Hi Tomasz, I knew the chat we had over a tasty fresh fish dinner in Milan would pay off :-) On 25 April 2013 12:28, Tomasz Ganicz wrote: > If you want, we can try with Wikimedia Polska. Here there is a rough table: > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/U%C5%BCytkownik:Polimerek/Spraw_zarzadu#Finanse > just showing our ratio of operational costs and other parts of our > costs for 2012. It looks like a good executive top level summary, though I am relying on Google translate. :-D > In our case the operational costs are well defined by general rules of > accounting, but they differ from your definition - i.e. it does not > cover all salaries if they are integral part of the projects, but does > cover salaries of our secretary and accountant. But for example it > also covers cost of our toolsever and internet domains... I don't see any problem in salaries (or contractor fees) that relate to project activities being declared as "program costs". We should just take care that these are not used to account for regularly recurring costs which ought to logically be thought of as administration even if "technical" costs. > IMHO the general reporting could be like this: > *General operational/office costs (salaries of office workers, cost of > maintaining office, cost of legal stuff, cost of travels and meetings > of workers and members of the boards and other "decisive bodies") > *Technical infrastructure costs (servers etc. + salaries of > technicians who maintain it ) > *Costs of projects and special programs (overall, salaries, meetings, > travel, technical, others) - maybe spread by a type of program (ie. > producing content, software improvement, outreach, promotion, others) > > + > > *General info about overall costs of all salaries (easy to calculate > and define). > *General info about costs of all travel reimbursements (easy to > calculate as well) > *General info about costs of all meetings and conferences. Excellent, so quickly looking at your Income and Expenditure tables, let's take Ad's good practice ratio and define the 3 categories needed as: fundraising = administering grants and fund applications (I can see your grant, other income and membership dues, but not the cost of managing these; it may be better to estimate them and deduct them from "administration" rather than leaving this as zero) program = costs of projects and special programs (I would add your costs of conferences and scholarships (stypendia) payments here) administration = general operational/office costs + technical infrastructure costs (unless specific items can be identified as 'program') I am unsure where Promotion (Promocja) fits in, this may need to be broken down a little more if it splits between the 3 categories above. Does this mean that you could now calculate a provisional 'fundraising : program : administration' ratio? Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Question: How much does administration in Chapters cost the Wikimedia movement?
On 25 April 2013 14:07, Chris Keating wrote: > Rather than focusing on understanding our costs in detail, I would like to > understand our benefits in detail. Sure, it would be great to have a top level performance indicator for this. Measuring programmes in terms of hard benefit to the beneficiaries, using measures agreed in the project brief, would be a pragmatic start. > The idea of an "acceptable" fundraising costs ratio is, to be honest, a bit > of a red herring. In general for a mature organisation it is easy to reduce > the fundraising costs ratio, by raising less money (fundraising > opportunities tend to exhibit diminishing marginal returns). I am a donor > fundraising manager for a British university (and before that a charity and > a political party). In any of those jobs I could have recommend terminating > all of my projects and sacking my entire team, and doing that would reduce > the ratio of fundraising costs. It would not be in the best long-term > interests of the organisations or their beneficiaries. In practice, > growing long-term income tends to involve investment. Maybe. Though as a donor, I doubt I would be happy if more than 50% of my donation was spent on "fundraising" unless there were extremely good reasons given. To me, this would be an clear indicator that the mission of the charity was to build an organization of staff or high value capital items. Our shared mission clearly is not of this nature, which makes us distinct from, say, hospitals or housing trusts. Any charity which cannot answer the question, "how much of my donation will be spent on administration and taxes?" is one that remains severely exposed to reputational risk if this is later exposed as so high as to be unexplainable. > "Administrative overhead", too, while perhaps useful to know, may not be > not useful if it's a target to be clamped down on. See for instance this > piece of research, which shows that charities with the minimum > "administrative costs" are actually less effective at delivering their > missions: > > http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/09/why-ranking-charities-by-administrative-expenses-is-a-bad-idea/ > > So I am relatively relaxed that we are not great at measuring programme vs > administrative expenditure. Yes, I was happy that Frank presented the ideas of how programmes might be evaluated at the top level as a way of supporting the FDC. However based on a chat I had with him the following day, his presentation was quite clearly not intended to replace the need for all programmes to have plans to evaluate their own impact rather than leaving it to an external team. This remains within the responsibility of all chapters and thorgs to self-govern. > I am not at all relaxed, however, that we as a movement are not great at > measuring the impact of our organisations. I found Frank's session at the > Wikimedia Conference really helpful, and I think the FDC framework can > really help with this as well. But please let's focus on defining the > impact of what we're doing before we worry about what's overhead and what's > not. I find it an odd rationale that there must be a "choice" between clearly reporting how much of our charitable funds are spent on internal administration in proportion to delivering the outcomes that donors are actually giving for, and measuring the impact that the outcomes have. I suggest we should push for both to be delivered. In the meantime, there is little excuse in not spending an hour or two with a calculator and the financial report of any chapter with published accounts, to produce some simple ratios as a Key Performance Indicator that we can benchmark from year to year. Rather than finding reasons to avoid making progress on simple reporting using measures easy to hand, perhaps we can just get on with collecting these and then discuss what they mean, and not insist on first delivering massive effectiveness assessment programmes, that may never produce hard figures, but are likely to be limited to subjective statements and soft surveys of beneficiaries? As WMUK is subject to SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice, Accounting and Reporting by Charities), the chapter is required to publish a "summary of any measures or indicators used by the charity to assess its achievements". So as well as the simplistic ratio we are discussing here, WMUK could provide the movement with an excellent case study for other chapters on how to address these regulatory requirements for top level performance indicators focused on achieving the charitable mission. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Train Wikiexpedition in Poland
"Polish Railways will provide us free tickets" excellent negotiation! Hey, train enthusiasts everywhere else (including the UK and USA) here is an incredibly tough target for the rest of us to try and beat. :-D Fae On 26 April 2013 15:19, Tomasz Ganicz wrote: > Hi, > > We are about to organize a wikiexpedition devoted to train > infrastructure in Poland. It will be officially co-organised with > Polish Railways. Polish Railways will provide us free tickets for > traveling across Poland using any trains and special passes to legally > enter and photograph rail tracks, workshops, rail yards, cargo railway > stations, museums belonging to Polish Railways etc. In order to get > the pass it will be obligatory to undergo a special basic one-day > railtrack safety training which will be provided for free by Polish > Railways employees. Actually we don't know what time it will happen - > for sure during summer, but it is actually to negotiate. It is > possible to have several 2-4 people teams. The requirements will be > just: > *being devoted wiki-photographer ready to submit photos to Wikimedia > Commons under free licences > *being highly crazy about railways stuff - i.e. be ready to travel > across Poland using mainly slow, local trains which stops on every > tiny station, sleep in low cost hostels, feed yourself for 32 PLN a > day :-) > *You don't need to speak Polish - we can try to organize a mixed teams > fro both training and expeditions. > > If there is anyone ready for such a wiki-safari - just drop me an E-mail... > > > > -- > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ > http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29&title=tomasz-ganicz > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Fae fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae Personal and confidential. Unless otherwise stated, do not copy, quote or forward this email for any reason without permission. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Train Wikiexpedition in Poland
On 26 April 2013 18:25, geni wrote: > National Railway Museum in york is free. LOL, but they have yet to match "free tickets for traveling across Poland the UK"! For a railways related job interview, I once had travel-anywhere ticket (they were red back then) for free travel for the day anywhere in the UK, but that was in the days of a more unified railway system. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Resignation announcement, and a parting remark to everyone
I am very sorry to read this Deryck. I know how completely committed you are to our movement and you have my sincere respect. I hope that those with influence carefully consider the issues you raise, and take a moment for doubt and serious review. Fae (mobile) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed
Hi James, thanks for the links. Keeping in mind that there will be users that unexpectedly find their much loved account name changed the next time they try to log in, and this may be central to their established online wiki identity, is there a community discussion that we can point to where this approach was consulted on? Thanks, Fae On 30 April 2013 03:29, James Forrester wrote: > All, > > The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts > work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools > for our users (like cross-wiki notifications). These changes will mean > users have the same account name everywhere, will let us give you new > features that will help you edit & discuss better, and will allow more > flexible user permissions for tools. One of the pre-conditions for > this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 > Wikimedia wikis.[0] > > Unfortunately, some accounts are currently not unique across all our > wikis, but instead clash with other users who have the same account > name. To make sure that all of these users can use Wikimedia's wikis > in future, we will be renaming a number of accounts to have "~” and > the name of their wiki added to the end of their accounts' name. This > change will take place on or around 27 May. For example, a user called > “Example” on the Swedish Wiktionary who will be renamed would become > “Example~svwiktionary”. > > All accounts will still work as before, and will continue to be > credited for all their edits made so far. However, users with renamed > accounts (whom we will be contacting individually) will have to use > the new account name when they log in. > > It will now only be possible for accounts to be renamed globally; the > RenameUser tool will no longer work on a local basis - since all > accounts must be globally unique - therefore it will be withdrawn from > bureaucrats' tool sets. It will still be possible for users to ask on > Meta for their account to be renamed further, if they do not like > their new user name, once this takes place. > > A copy of this note is posted to meta [1] for translation. Please > forward this to your local communities, and help get it translated. > Individuals who are affected will be notified via talk page and e-mail > notices nearer the time. > > [0] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Unified_login > [1] - > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Single_User_Login_finalisation_announcement > > Yours, > -- > James D. Forrester > Product Manager, VisualEditor > Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. > > jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester > > _______ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae Personal and confidential. Unless otherwise stated, do not copy, quote or forward this email for any reason without permission. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Single User Login finalisation: some accounts will be renamed
Thanks James, personally I'm comforted by your prompt reply. My intuition is that this would be unlikely to affect any accounts with more than 5,000 edits, possibly fewer. I have no doubt that you intend to take special care to help users with significant contributions, such as those with a well established contribution history at this level. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae Personal and confidential. Unless otherwise stated, do not copy, quote or forward this email for any reason without permission. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Fundraising 2013] Wikimedia France stepping back from payment processing
On 29 April 2013 21:28, Christophe Henner wrote: ... > In face of that situation, Wikimedia France board has asked WMF to > stop being a payment processor in 2013 Hi Christophe, thank you for giving this difficult decision some suitable context, and for doing so openly and promptly. Could someone advise me, is there an official table on meta showing the current list of Chapters with payment processing agreements in place for the 2013 fund raiser? Independently of any hat I happen to be wearing, I am planning on putting aside some volunteer time to examine the "admin:fundraising:program" ratio for our organizations over the next few months, so it makes sense to ensure this is achieved for the current payment processors, rather than just those organizations that are "easy" to find the figures for or come forward spontaneously. I would support other sensible top level performance indicators should they be identified and become available soon, FDC members may have a view on what might work well as the "top 5" indicators. Hopefully at least the admin ratio can be publicly shared before October this year to help foster a pragmatic discussion on simple dashboards and governance. I'm hoping that the WMF can set a lead by publishing a calculation of admin ratio for themselves. ;-) PS staff salaries are not all automatically 'admin', I hope we can agree that some program activities are entirely justifiably supported by paid staff and contractors. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why not everyone have the right to vote in the Board & FDC elections?
On 30 April 2013 10:47, Ting Chen wrote: > And to come back to the topic. > > At least in the theory, if someone is blocked in a project, than he has a > serious problem with that community. And the reason that his block is not > lifted should be a serious one. And if someone has a serious problem with > more than one community, than it is questionable if he should be eligible to > take part in the decision of such an office. So from the theory I think the > rule is ok. > > If in the praxis someone is blocked by a project arbitrarily and he is not > able to appeal by that community, than that community and that project has a > real problem. And we should look into detail what is going wrong in that > project and in that community. But this is not an issue of the election > committee. Certainly that is a theory. However we also have people that are voluntarily blocked as part of an enforced wiki-break, and we also have examples of Wikimedians who were blocked on a project years ago, and never could be bothered to go through the pain of an appeal but instead successfully focus on some of the other Wikimedia projects and leave that pain behind. In neither of these examples would it be fair to claim that such folks are so set against our mission that they must not have a vote. Perhaps we ought to separate these things and allow individuals to apply for a right to vote if they can provide a case of unusual circumstances that may make a waiver against the basic rules seem reasonable to a panel? As for when a block might be "arbitrary", I don't believe the WMF or the community has any way of determining when this is the case. Certainly some rationales for blocks appear arbitrary. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [WCA] [Wikimania 2013] Research and Presentation: Chapters in Numbers
I have two presentations in at the conference, one specifically about
the work of the WCA peer review task force :-)
Links:
*
http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Peer_review_for_chapters_and_thematic_organizations
*
http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Top_risks_for_Wikimedia_Commons_partners
In a week or so's time, I will also start arranging a
chapter/thorg/WMF "board members" training event, to run either the
day before the Wikimania main schedule starts or later in the year if
timing defeats us. Logistics and details of content have yet to be
worked out (Wikmedia legal issues, risk management and financial
reporting are the sort of core topics to address), but this seemed to
be very warmly received by sufficient chapter folks, and certainly
trustees of the WMF board, as an effective and economic way of
ratcheting up our governance quality across the Wikimedia community.
Michał, I will be following up on "admin:fundraising:program" ratios.
Obviously we can share any information we pull together in the area of
metrics and performance indicators. There is never going to be a
single metric which tells us "good" or "bad", that is why I like the
idea of very simple one-page dashboard of key indicators and trends for a board
("executives" on any board need something they can crib from in 60
seconds while travelling to a meeting ;-) ).
PS I can't *guarantee* that my chapter will fund me to attend yet, the
board cannot commit on which trustees are being sent until after we
elect a new board in June.
Cheers,
Fae
--
fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm
Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] UK.Gov passes Instagram Act
On 2 May 2013 07:54, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: ... > If that's it, the law is completely useless, it just parrots general EU > regulations. The big question in Europe is what qualifies as a "diligent > search": I don't know if as usual UK wants to decide on its own, in any case > it would be useful for WMUK to ask a committee or whatever to assist the > Secretary of State in the decision and to be appointed/heard in such > committee. Usually they only listen to publishers and sometimes librarians. > > Nemo Nemo, don't underestimate the power of us. :-) If a GLAM or a magazine with a long term digital archive (just two of some pressing cases in my mind) would like help with logging an official record of a "diligent search", then they could do much worse than contacting us regulars on Wikimedia Commons and/or the UK Chapter for assistance in generating and validating its content. For any serious collection of orphan works of high public value, I would be happy to spend several hours of my volunteer time contributing to a wiki-based public search report and gaining opinions and additional searches by our volunteers, many having highly developed understanding of copyright, the nature of orphan works and where to check for copyright claims and registration. A couple of such example public reports would be highly likely to be adopted by government as an reference case studies of implementation. Shall we just do it? Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] The world's most efficient charity?
Interesting case of a low percentage of common sense. At the moment, I believe that none of our chapters publish figures or estimates for the ratio between admin, fundraising and admin work, even if we publish detailed annual reports. Personally, I don't feel we are in a strong position to be amused by inadequate reporting by other organizations when we are not clear on this ourselves. It would be a great improvement to transparency if I could say, even roughly, whether my own chapter were spending 90%, 80% or 70% of our donated funds and grants on planned charitable outcomes, rather than having no figures, and having to defend the position of not knowing and finding reasons why we would never try to calculate it from the figures sitting in our reports. If it turns out that less than 70% of the money was being spent on the outcomes defined in our shared mission, this might encourage us to look rather carefully at exactly where the rest was going, don't you think? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 13 May 2013 08:18, Keegan Peterzell wrote: > On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:03 AM, James Alexander wrote: > That's a bit relative, James. The active folk on this mailing list make > for a pretty good cross section of thoughts/feelings/opinions of the > movement. I've refrained from this discussion and will continue to do so > on specifics, because it's politics and that's not something I do on > Wikipedia/Wikimedia. On this, I have watched this thread with interest. I started following it when sitting in a chapter board meeting all day on Saturday. From the outset I knew I would not want to make any specific comment and get sucked into another dramah, I have too big a pile of these already anyway. There are lessons to be learned here. I continue to hope that the WMF can find a way of learning from these experiences, particularly if they set a long term pattern, in addition to answering the specific questions about this incident. For me, I certainly have learned that for the other organizations I am involved with that control wikis and have the wonderful luxury of working through the good will of unpaid volunteer admins and bureaucrats, the policies that apply should only change with careful and recorded consultation, even if I am personally sure that there are very clear legal or excellent good and important or urgent governance reasons to make changes. For those on Monday morning finding a little egg left on their faces, perhaps it is time to brew some freshly ground coffee, make some hot buttered toast and turn this into a productive breakfast? Stay mellow. ;-) PS I'm not attempting to claim any high ground here, so before anyone points it out, yes I'm pretty darn flawed myself. Sometimes I do learn from mistakes though, I have a lifetime of foolishness to regret and learn from. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement blog, not WMF blog, was: Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 13 May 2013 12:00, Tilman Bayer wrote: ... > Curiously, here you left out one sentence from my 2011 email: > > "And while I don't want to pass judgment over your work on the > projects, the fact that you are currently blocked on Meta etc. makes > it difficult to justify keeping your access at the moment." If you did not want to pass judgement in 2011, you certainly seem to be making up for that retrospectively now. Perhaps it might have been the better path to stick to that principle, rather than put this damning email out in public, particularly an email officially from the "Wikimedia Foundation" rather than a personal one. By the way, I am unclear, was the email you are quoting extensively from, rather than summarizing, a public correspondence, or are you choosing to publish it now, on a permanently and publicly archived email list, two year later? Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement blog, not WMF blog, was: Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 13 May 2013 12:42, Tilman Bayer wrote: >> By the way, I am unclear, was the email you are quoting extensively >> from, rather than summarizing, a public correspondence, or are you >> choosing to publish it now, on a permanently and publicly archived >> email list, two year later? >> >> Fae > > Hi Fae, > > I believe you may be confusing me and Huib here (perhaps because of > the similarity of our volunteer user names?). It was not me who posted > the content of a private email to this list without the sender's > permission. Only after this had already happened I corrected the > tampered quotation of what I had written, because this silent omission > greatly distorted the sense and context of the divulged email. > -- > Tilman Bayer > Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications) > Wikimedia Foundation > IRC (Freenode): HaeB No, I don't think I am confused about the order of events. Even if Huib posted some of a past private correspondence, I would not expect trusted staff members to start publishing the rest of that correspondence from two years ago using their official email account and therefore representing the Wikimedia Foundation in this action. It is not that hard to respond to, or correct, perceived misreporting of the facts, without cutting and pasting from past private correspondence. Should you have (privately) first asked for permission to publish extracts from the private correspondence, I suspect you would have been given permission anyway. Thanks for your prompt reply on this, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] movement blog, not WMF blog, was: Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)
On 13 May 2013 12:54, Craig Franklin wrote: > All other things aside, misspelling the person's name and then calling them > an "asshole" is hardly likely to lead to an amicable solution, peace, love, > or understanding, is it? That's correct. However I think we all recognize, that if you call someone an asshole on an email list, then bang, you automatically lose any debate. After that language, there is no real need to make any reply, in fact as a rhetorical strategy, it is the much better option to walk away rather than attempting to argue and making it appear than there are two "sides" to the argument. In fact, I see this gave Huib the opportunity to now apologise for using the word. So now we are left with poorly judged emails on public record from both "sides" for ever. Not great. Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] AffComs $40,000 Hong Kong junket
On 14 May 2013 08:45, Lodewijk wrote: > 2013/5/14 Lodewijk ... >> Personally, I feel that WMF Committee (and board) members should not be >> treated to a lower standard than staff members, simply because they are not >> being paid for their work. But maybe I'm the only one in thát opinion >> though... >> Lodewijk I am pleased to say that from day 1 of Wikimedia UK employing staff, our policy has been that precisely the same expenses policy, travel and hotel standard applies for staff and volunteers. The reason I helped create this policy a couple of years ago, is that anything else would separate the staff from volunteers at events in a visible and unnecessarily community divisive way, and potentially can cause problems with fulfilling our mission for "access" which must account for undeclared ability needs and diversity requirements. I consider this the *community norm*, rather than WMF's policies. In line with our shared values of openness, our Chief Executive, Trustees and our Operations are required by our finance policy to publish expenses on the public wiki, so I encourage you to email Jon Davies for the current summary should you wish to compare WMUK for the nature of staff expenses for travel and accomodation to other chapters or the WMF. You can find a summary of WMUK's financial policies and plans at https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Finances Should AffCom or any other group wish to benefit from WMUK policies or procedures, I would be happy to provide some advice as an unpaid volunteer. The UK Chapter has invested a lot in governance improvement. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] AffComs $40,000 Hong Kong junket
On 14 May 2013 21:13, Bence Damokos wrote: ... > to be effective in the meeting. In the long run, if the WMF doesn't amend > its travel practices one can always join any of the WMF volunteer or staff > communities that result in occasional travel as a perk and more often as a > cost of doing their business effectively. Sorry Bence, "travel as a perk"? No, for me airport security, cramped on a coach class flight and having to navigate public transport both ways, in order to find my economy hotel has never been a perk, more of a ruddy drawn out stressful punishment. Probably me, I obviously have a jaded old man's perspective compared to most unpaid volunteers in our community. Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [wca] next phone meeting
Hi, I'll need the phone in details to join in tonight. Cheers, Fae On 15 June 2013 23:30, Markus Glaser wrote: > Hi WCA and friends, > > we will have a phone meeting on Sunday, 16th of June @ 19:00 UTC [1]. More > details and the agenda can be found here: > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-24 > > If you want to join, please contact me for the phone meeting number. > > Please note there is an agenda point about current issues in the chapters. > If you have anything trouble (or, of course, good news) you'd like to > discuss, that's the time to do it. > > I think we also should talk about the board elections and a chapter > perspective on the candidates. > > Best, > Markus > > [1] http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130616T1900 > > -- > Markus Glaser > WCA Council Member (WMDE) > Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. > > -- > Markus Glaser > WCA Council Member (WMDE), Chair > Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae Personal and confidential. Unless otherwise stated, do not copy, quote or forward this email for any reason without permission. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Breaking bots // HTTPS for logged in users on Wednesday August 21st
On 21 August 2013 07:49, Terry Chay wrote: ... > Luckily, the standard for the Movement is consensus, not catering to every > extremist view with 100% buy-in. As a Commons user responsible for over 2.5 million edits, I would hope that the WMF do not label or quickly dismiss me as an "extremist" if I raise some questions about this notification. I am concerned about how many valuable bot activities a mandated move to https might break. Some will be fixed by operators such as myself changing account preferences to force an opt-out or re-writing code, however many useful bot activities have semi-retired operators, particularly on Commons, and some are bound to just never be fixed and their value will be lost. In planning this change, has some support effort been allocated to fixing or re-hosting the bots that break (such as taking the option of 'remotely' setting community-identified useful bots to opt-out of https, at least for a test period, rather than forcing an opt-in) and has there been a survey of this impact? Though I agree we don't expect "100% buy-in", as an active volunteer, batch uploader and bot writer, I would have expected to have been given a friendly, non-confrontational and relaxed opportunity to raise and consider these issues in a RFC or other consensus building discussion on my home project and engage in discussion there, rather than, apparently, no buy-in needed from us unpaid volunteers and content creators. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Equipment exchange forum on Wikimedia Commons
On 5 September 2012 16:50, Tomasz W. Kozłowski wrote: > Over a month ago, an equipment exchange forum has been started on > Wikimedia Commons at > <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Equipment_exchange>, aiming > to be a place where "media contributors (...) can request, donate, > sell, or barter equipment for the production of free content, > including camera equipment, computer equipment, art supplies, and > software." I recently raised this Commons page as an idea for Wikimedia UK to support modest costs of international postage for items of obvious benefit (and of reasonable quality) to the open knowledge projects. This could be an interesting and relatively simple way for inter-chapter collaboration to work at the small scale. See <https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2013_Activity_Plan/Ideas#International_Camera_Exchange> for the UK proposal. I would encourage representatives from other Chapters to make a comment on that ideas page, if you can imagine this being a practical thing to get working. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Richard Symonds email last night
Forwarding message from Jon Davies as his email bounced from the list. Thanks, Fae > -- Forwarded message -- > From: Jon Davies > To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Cc: > Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 09:25:46 +0100 > Subject: Richard Symonds email last night > I'd like to point out that Richard's email last night regarding the Slate > article was meant to be in a personal capacity. In haste he used his work > email address. > > Jon Davies. > > -- > Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169 > tweet @jonatreesdavies > > Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and > Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered > Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. > United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia > movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who > operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). > > Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. > > Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] FDC Proposals
I have quite a few emails in my inbox that mention problems using the submission form, and how much of an administrative burden this created. Where is the best place to raise suggestions for improvement (including, I hope, pointing out the aspects that are working well), and who will be promptly managing those suggestions of behalf of the FDC? It would be sensible to ensure, and be seen to ensure, that the administrative burden on Chapter staff and volunteers is kept to a minimum. Thanks, Fae '' Writing as me, personally, rather than in any role people might think I have. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] What is the status of the WCA?
On 6 October 2012 16:12, Thomas Dalton wrote: > What is the current status of the WCA? The last update I can find is an > email from Ziko to this list on 24 August (a month and a half ago) saying > there would be a full report soon. Have I missed that report or are we > still waiting for it? Yes the report did not happen. Here is my update sent to the Chapters list 2 days ago to avoid any confusion about what is planned: >>>> Subject: Re: [Chapters] Calling for WCA meeting ... A more detailed email is being prepared explaining the supported recruitment process that we expect to establish the Secretary General by the end of this year. I am recommending that: * this is not dependent on finalizing a budget, as we can now confirm sufficient budget commitment to the WCA to, at a minimum, have sufficient to cover wind-up costs for the SG after employment * the process will "piggy-back" on the WCA committees already formed, however I would expect the recruitment process itself to be open to all Council Members at every stage * I have asked for a telecon schedule to be published on :meta next week, so that Council Members can ask questions of the recruitment manager and be updated on progress through out the recruitment process. I want first to raise this as a proposal with the Council Members, to check if we need a resolution and a vote or they are content to proceed. This will be the key purpose of the above email being prepared. So I am being naughty in telling you first on this list before we do that. :-) <<<< Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
Hi, I have created < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resolutions/2012_SG_recruitment> for a resolution of the WCA Council Members to support a resourced plan to recruit the WCA Secretary General. Should you have questions, please raise them on < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resolutions/2012_SG_recruitment >. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) f...@wikimedia.org.uk Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
On 11 October 2012 22:01, Andrew Turvey wrote: > This sets out that the organisation would incorporate first and then > recruit the SG, which appears to be a more logical sequence of events. > However, I notice that the incorporation step is not part of the process > that the interim consultant will help with. > > Could you expand on the rationale for this please? Hi Andrew, Recruiting a Secretary General is likely to take more than 6 weeks and we would all like to see this done by the end of this year. Incorporation could be done in a few days in several alternative countries as soon as one is chosen. Unfortunately, discussing where might be the best location for WCA administration may take several months due to the political, tax and financial implications that everyone is keen to worry about. In fact there is no guarantee we would ever reach a conclusion if only volunteers are available to do this analysis in their spare time. The city/country for incorporation has been a topic of hot debate as many assume that this will also be where any administration for the WCA is likely to be located (not necessarily true). By unlocking the location for incorporation from getting the recruitment process started, I hope to avoid us taking several more months debating locations when it is not clear that this is necessary for an SG to be appointed - the SG can be paid a "competitive market rate" for their country of residence and their employment contract could either be negotiated in their home country or a legal initial incorporation (say, in London) for convenience later to be superseded by a location that the SG can make proposals for. The Council Members may well end up delaying the recruitment process until 2013 while we continue the (mostly political) debate on WCA office/administrative location if we insist on planning and doing these things sequentially. This would mean that we would struggle to appoint a SG before the Chapters Conference next year. However, a legal or other firm argument as to why the initial stages of recruitment cannot start in parallel has yet to be presented. So that this is nominally on the recruitment schedule in the resolution, I have added a footnote to step 4 and I suggest we plan to incorporate a body that can employ the SG without that being a commitment to have an office in that same country. Either London or Berlin would be good choices considering we only need to know legal and accounting firms that can help us sort this out and there are no implications for any physical office. PS I am not going to be available for the next few days due to the CEE conference, so it may be an idea to continue this discussion on the :meta talk page so that Ziko, Stefan and others might pick up and discuss some alternative options. Thanks, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Recruitment process for Secretary General of the Wikimedia Chapters Association
On 11 October 2012 22:10, Thomas Dalton wrote: > The consultant has apparently been chosen already based on a recommendation > from Pavel. What other consultants were considered? What was the process? > Did you get competing quotes? No, I did not get competing quotes. This is limited to 3 to 4 thousand euros of part time work over two months. I have had agencies and consultants approaching me but Pavel's recommendation was solid. Unfortunately Ziko was unavailable on the day for the interview. Considering that Stefan comes with a great recommendation and experience of doing very similar work, this seemed a low risk decision. I have never worked with Stefan before and have no conflict of loyalties in this regard, I am merely going for a low risk pragmatic decision to ensure tangible progress on our first and most important goal for this year - getting a Secretary General established. If the Council wishes to pause progress and consider a more detailed recruitment process with a number of bids against an open specification, I can ask Stefan to stop or terminate at any time and WMDE will cover those costs. Considering the relatively low amount of money involved, this might seem a poor use of our time, but I realize that I am only the Chair, and apart from my passion and charisma, have little real authority to proceed without a resolution in place. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: 2013 WCA Chair elections
Dear Wikimedians and Chapter members, Many representatives on the WCA Council are aware of my views on our Chair election process and it may help current discussions about the Secretary General recruitment to share my view more widely, and make the following proposal. I was prepared to be nominated at Wikimania 2012 for the WCA Chair position this summer, but I expected a tough competition with several nominations where the Chapter Representatives could judge my skill and experience against other quality volunteers. I was surprised and disappointed to be the only candidate, and I have no intention of staying in this post "by default" or 1 or 2 years without a better and visibly democratic election process, particularly as it was the first time we had tried electing a Chair and would probably all prefer a more rigorously formal process next time around. I recommend that we have a well designed process that starts in March, at least *4 weeks* before the next Chapters Conference in spring 2013 <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013>. This will ensure that the Conference starts with a freshly elected chair having gone through a robust election process against several candidates. I recommend that a page is set up this year on :meta for the election process, so that we can discuss and agree how candidate nominations and votes will work, including a questions/answers section in multiple languages. Having an open and public nomination process may also encourage new chapters to join the WCA before the Conference in Milan, and put forward their own candidate for the WCA Chair position. :-) Hopefully this will also provide sufficient time for our new Secretary General to get established, before there is a change of WCA chair and avoid any sense of instability, even though I would have been in post for only 8 months or so before we have another election. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) f...@wikimedia.org.uk Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Request: Location proposals for the Wikimedia Chapters Association
Re: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resolutions/Public_call_for_proposals Dear Wikimedians and Chapter enthusiasts, This weekend I am planning to put forward the above drafted resolution for the WCA Council on the location for legal registration. (Closing date Sunday 11 November as voting opens on Monday.) There have been only a few proposals discussed for location, and I and the other Council Members would welcome wider engagement on proposed locations. Please see the above resolution page and its discussion page for more information. If you are disappointed not to see a location you think would be ideal, please raise a question on the resolution talk page on the :meta wiki, or directly approach and discuss the proposal with a Council Member (see the list at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership>) as locations should be "sponsored" by at least one Council Member; they do not have to be part of the chapter in the location country. There is not much time to add a proposal, however the process is relatively simple: 1. Ensure one or more Council Members will "sponsor" the location. 2. Address the questions listed for locations in the resolution in a page on :meta with some simple answers. If you are having trouble contacting a friendly Council Member, please contact me personally and I'll try to help out. If you would like to review the proposals for locations and raise questions or suggest improvements, that would be great too. :-) Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Request: Location proposals for the Wikimedia Chapters Association
[off topic] On 10 November 2012 01:02, James Alexander wrote: ... > On an incredibly picky Wikipedian side note: What are you meaning by the > ':meta' notation? It seems "like" interwiki links but the colon is in the > wrong location (a wikilink would obviously be meta:, m: or wikt: etc ). > They were just a bit confusing to me, I may be missing something :). I tend to use this as my convention in emails as "word:" may be confused for being the start of some sort of list but ":word" would not be and if I use "wmuk:" I might mean the UK chapter but by ":wmuk" I always mean the UK chapter wiki. On wiki I often stick a colon in front of a link as I am used to this being the convention to link to images rather than embedding them. If left in by accident, the colon does not hurt any interwiki link as I believe it is always parsed out. For example [[m:Main page]], [[:m:Main page]] and [[::m:Main page]] all go to the same place. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Serbia office
On 20 November 2012 22:09, Filip Maljkovic wrote: > Our employee is Mile Kiš, our General Secretary. He's been a tremendous help > for us in the past years and he's been doing more than full time work for us > as a volunteer, so I'm especially glad that he's going to be able to help us > as an employee, as well as be able to work on his personal > professionalization. My personal congratulations to Mile, and to Filip and rest of the team in Serbia for taking this strategic step. :-) You were all welcoming and brimming with energy at the WMCEE conference, and I look forward to the great things you are going to achieve in 2013, pushing forward the boundaries of open knowledge on behalf of the movement. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae@gmail.com Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Aaron Swartz is dead
On 12 January 2013 12:04, David Gerard wrote: > Killed himself. > > http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/swartz.html Awful news. -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outcome of Wikimedia board discussion on the Chapters Association
The figures that James was going from here were rejected, this was stated on the meta page in question, but I have made it a lot clearer by repeating the word 'rejected' several times in upper-case. There was a lengthy discussion about covering basic wind-up costs for the SG recruitment rather than attempting yet again to produce a full budget for the Association. This is mentioned in the resolutions on meta, however I need to think about a diplomatic reply to the WMF board letter rather than going on a tangent. I am sure someone can put the right links against your question and you can see if our previous discussion was sufficient, or not, in your view. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Outcome of Wikimedia board discussion on the Chapters Association
On 5 February 2013 15:05, Nathan wrote: > ... Is it fair to assume that the WMF will take a dim view of > FDC-allocated funds being transferred to the WCA? I'm sure no chapters > anticipating an FDC allocation would like to put that at risk. Would someone sitting on the FDC like to pick this one up? Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement
On 6 February 2013 13:52, Tom Morris wrote: > Sell us, the editors, on why these things are necessary, and the > process of getting approval from the WMF Board will be easy because > the political winds will shift in your favour. What exactly are > Chapters trying to do now that they are failing at that necessitates > the creation of the WCA? My pick list of things we know that some chapters are failing at, and that having an Association will help with - off the top of my head: * Shared processes and requirements for good governance * Shared (Chapter) best practices (such as financial reporting, activity reporting, records and reporting) * Peer review * Benchmark independent review and assessment * Managing effective boards * Effective and efficient programme management * Holding senior management to account * Credible public reporting on funding outcomes * Transparency Of course, I am personally happy to help chapters with this sort of thing, but I'm only one man with a few scars from painful experience; so having an Association helps folks like me to help others. PS Tom, knowing you as long as I have, I would not dream of trying to sell you anything. ;-) Cheers, Fae -- Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement
Hi James, I added "REJECTED" several times to that page yesterday, just to make the situation clear. Based on your email, I have now made that word big and red so there can be no mistake by anyone when they land on the page. Doing an analysis and lambasting the Chapters Association for a concept document that the majority of the Council Members quickly rejected, is a bit of a waste of your time. Certainly I have absolutely no interest in defending this document, as I was personally unconvinced by it (though grateful for the volunteers that worked on it in good faith), and spent hardly any time reviewing it when it was presented. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement
Thank you for putting it so well Markus. I have now emphasised the existing word REJECTED in bold and red on that second table too. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae Personal and confidential. Unless otherwise stated, do not copy, quote or forward this email for any reason without permission. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Strange, surprising, bold and unnecessary - reply to the WMF board statement
On 7 February 2013 12:08, Ziko van Dijk wrote: ... > mentioned it, but the Council did not even vote. So, to be absolutely > correct, the Council also did not 'reject' it. > Kind regards > Ziko Good point. Shall I change the word used on meta to the phrase "Not accepted by the Chapters Association" or would something else be clearer? Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Patent claim relating to QRpedia
On 8 February 2013 10:22, David Richfield wrote: > It would be greatly appreciated if you would consider the Walk and > Talk Tours patented system in 1999 with regards to information signage > relating back to electronic media to obtain information in respect of > a site. > A brief review of the patent seems to indicate that it doesn't cover > anything except for phone calls, but the wording is sufficiently broad > that one could construe it to refer to any data sent over a wireless > network. Can someone on this list please give an opinion? I suggest you consider it as they requested, file it, and do not reply. I see nothing in this patent that could be considered anything infringed by QRPedia technology that is not long established as open source or irrelevant. My past experience, having worked in mobile technology for some years and been part of managing the international IP for new technology, is that the mobile technology sector lawyers (or more often proto-lawyers) will scour the internet hunting for anything that might get them a decent commission. Speculative letters are cheap to send and as QRPedia gets more press coverage, this sort of contact is likely to become very frequent. This is not professional advice, I am not writing in my capacity in any organization I am affiliated with or was affiliated with, blah, blah, imagine a lengthy disclaimer here... Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] "Voice Intro Project"
On 8 February 2013 17:09, Risker wrote: > Okay. So I looked at this a couple of times, and couldn't come up with a > good idea for "notable" people to want to deliberately record and upload > with an open license a recording of their own voice - knowing that it > *will* be abused and misused and mashed. (There's little question that > this will happen. Just because Wikimedians are pretty decent sorts doesn't > mean the rest of the world is.) > > Now, I have no objection whatsoever to supporting article subjects who > *wish* to do this, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea to actively try > to persuade them. I'm not convinced that recordings of a person's voice is > actually "information" about the person, either, except in the way that > their fingerprints are. > > Risker/Anne I'm afraid, rather sadly, I have to agree. At a minimum, I would recommend that those donating their audio or video are cautioned very clearly about what free re-use might mean, and that the licence is certain to be irrevocable, even if we do later make a community decision to delete a file from Commons (which is highly unlikely if they are notable and the release was unambiguous). It's a nice idea, but my frank advice to a notable person would be to release on a CC-BY-SA-ND licence which means that re-use is far more likely to stay "respectful" and even though this means that Commons could not host, articles on Wikipedias could still provide a link to a stable host site that did accept the ND restriction. This is the same advice I have provided for sensitive modern cultural content, such as photographs of the general public at festivals where there is no specific release from the models, or tribal rituals which may contain children or partial nudity. Sometimes this means turning away super content, but I would much rather do that than have upset partners who may suffer reputational damage as a result. Obviously if you are notable and you don't care because your voice and image is everywhere already (and perhaps massively misused or used in parody), then perhaps the caution will not put you off that much anyway, as it would be water off a duck's back. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Patent claim relating to QRpedia
On 8 February 2013 17:53, James Heilman wrote: > QRpedia is still owned by Roger Bamkin I think > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRpedia The projects code appears to be > open source. > > What does this mean for long term stability? How is the site licensed? > What authority do the volunteers / cities putting these up involved > have over its functioning? Hi James, See discussions at <http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler#QR_codes> (and the later thread on the same page), lots of information and discussion there, and the Water Cooler will stay up to date as events progress. I welcome further questions that have not already been raised to be added there, I find it a handy place to reference. As it happens, the UK Board is reviewing the negotiation tomorrow and there may be an announcement to make then. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) f...@wikimedia.org.uk Wikimedia UK Trustee http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Email_disclaimer Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA - Meeting Report / WCA - Bericht
Hi Manuel, Thanks for sending around an early quick personal report. I will be sending out a very brief summary of next steps as the Chair shortly to Wikimedia-l, the chapters list and on meta. I need to put in a little time going through the notes on etherpad and I am aiming to release these as minutes tomorrow, but anyone who is curious can read these in provisional form at <http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/WCA>. Anyone quoted in the etherpad notes - today is a good day to make any changes you would like to see whilst your memory is fresh. :-) Once the minutes are posted, I would welcome help on meta adding cross-links and fixing layout and typo problems (it's a wiki!). Significant content or context changes should be checked with the person quoted, or back with myself as the Chair. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: [Chapters Association] Next steps from the WCA coordination weekend // 16-17 Feb
Dear fellow committed Wikimedians and Chapter enthusiasts, Last weekend a number of Wikimedia Chapters Association Council members, two trustees from the WMF board and some welcome guests, worked together to review in detail the current progress of the association and feedback given by the WMF board.[1][2] A total of nine Council members took part with several being able to join using video conferencing and etherpad. There were a number of firm recommendations, along with a series of immediate actions. The meeting minutes will be issued later this week and everyone can preview all the notes taken during the meeting.[3][4] The meeting was fully open and the Council will continue to use open public communication channels, in preference to closed lists or meetings, recognizing recent community feedback on how best to meet our shared values of openness and transparency. As the Council chair, I can summarize these points as follows, and will be happy to refine and discuss these with an open dialogue on meta[4]: 1) A small set of action teams have been agreed with a focus on external deliverables including chapter peer reviews, providing advice and analysing chapter practices. The time-frame is *three months* for key deliverables and all are expected to be part of the Milan conference in April.[3][6] 2) The recruitment of a Secretary General is parked until such a time as the council is confident of securing a budget and there is a strong consensus on the immediate necessity of such a role or its equivalent. Legally incorporating the Association will also be similarly parked, as the driving factor would have been the need to employ staff. 3) The previously planned elections for Wikimedia Chapters Association Council Chair will be brought forward one month, to starting this week. A separate note/email will explain the process of one week calling for nomination statements, questions and a similar time for the council vote. Thank you to those who have engaged already with feedback and those that were available to take part in the meeting last weekend. For those Council members and interested Wikimedians who were unable to take part, I welcome your feedback on this pragmatic way forward as early as possible, and I encourage you to lend a hand with the action teams, as they will benefit your chapter directly. A special thanks to Wikimedia UK for offering to host the London meeting, including Richard Nevell's support with practical logistics all weekend, including much needed coffee and sandwiches. I look forward to seeing many Chapters helping the action teams and future activities of the Association, with suggestions and practical offers of staff support. :-) Links 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association#WMF_Board_letter_regarding_the_Chapters_Association 2. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-07/Questionnaire 3. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Meetings/2013-07 4. http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/ep/pad/view/WCA/latest 5. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association 6. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013 Thank you, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking back at the London Conference
On 19 February 2013 23:47, James Alexander wrote: ... > Groups should grow naturally, they should incorporate only when necessary > and get staff only when necessary, trying to push them before they are > ready only makes things worse. We have been having a long standing habit > within the meta movement to rush towards organizations and staff long > before it's necessary, pissing away money and good will. > > James I don't disagree with the sentiment. I recall the WMUK strategy weekend when the chapter board and staff all stood in the room to indicate how important to the new charity fundraising was. I was the Chair at the time, and I think I annoyed almost everyone there by being the only one standing in the middle of the room, and saying that I could do everything in our mission with a bag of crisps and money for a coffee, while almost everyone else was putting fundraising as the highest importance. Money is not in our mission statement or our values. It's a burden and a governance nightmare. I already have a track record of doing good things relying on *other people's* money, it does not have to be in my bank account in order to have institutions and others eventually agree that: * archives should be on a fully free license * governments should support open knowledge for selfish reasons * everyone should consider becoming immortal by releasing the copyright on their creations in their wills * publishers should stop worrying about being gatekeepers and become knowledge facilitators * academics should help their careers by sharing early rather than hoarding * knowledge institutions should really mean their mission for the public good, and make it happen in the real world To change everything, all we need is time, perhaps a life-time, an off-peak train ticket and maybe a cheap sandwich. With a bit of money we can do a little more, but you know, it's not the most important thing, what matters is the vision we have to share and not being let down too many times by the hierarchy we have chosen to create. Now, if you want it faster than folks like me, on our own, liberating knowledge and having enormous fun talking to one person at a time and evangelizing the bejesus out of them, we might need to talk about using some donated money in smart ways and we might need to have something more reliable and consistent than wacky volunteers like me who tend to burn out all too quickly and all too often. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking back at the London Conference
On 20 February 2013 07:57, Charles Andrès wrote: > Hello Ziko, > > Because you want to hear: > > 1)Their is no census within the chapter whether we still want a deputy chair > position It's better for us to focus on the actions we are taking for the next 3 months. We decided to defer discussion about changing roles and considering a board, or changing the titles we currently use. Any member of the Council is welcome to draft a resolution or discuss alternatives, but this will draw the oxygen away from being seen to make progress on solid outcomes, rather than internal affairs. > 2)if we keep a chair and a deputy chair, it has always been planned that this > position should be open to vote at the next WCA meeting It was my decision, made after private discussions with Ting and SJ, apparently in response Jimmy Wales raising this for the WMF board's attention immediately after my English Wikipedia ban and before the end of the summer conference in Washington DC, to ensure that we would have an election this spring for the Chair position in a more formal and structured way. Though our vote was valid, I was never very happy at being elected without competition or much discussion. For that reason I was not prepared to just stay in position for 2 years. You will recall that for the Deputy Chair position, there was a competition and discussion so I believe this had a firmer sense of democracy. > 3) 7 council member connote decide on their own of keeping in place the > deputy chair!! Similarly, this was no a decision that was ever tabled or considered necessary. > 4)The WCA do not need continuity, since ten month we haven't been able to > provide something real , I don't see why we should continue this way We chose to radically re-frame our plans. We have done this in a way that does not require resolutions or complex bureaucracy to move forward. I don't see how asking Ziko to go through an election process now, helps demonstrate that we are taking an external focus. The election process for Chair is a different matter, it was always planned for March and I have chosen to bring this forward based on the continued private approaches to the Council from 5 WMF trustees since my election, who were not happy with the WCA having me as our elected Chair, though the WMF itself has no public position on this matter. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Looking back at the London Conference
On 20 February 2013 08:59, Christophe Henner wrote: > Why do we need two "announce" mailing lists? Can't we all use > wikimedia-announce ? I don't really care much about how it works, just that it does. Manuel Schneider took an action at the weekend to advise on points of contact, and set up the system where needed. He is wonderfully knowledgeable about our sites and systems, and has the technical skill to sort this out. Even if we do start using our WCA announcements list, I would want to cross post everything of any possible interest. Whether logistics for the WCA action teams needs to be on Wikimedia-announce, I don't know, though if doubt remains I would rather keep cross-posting until there are requests to stop clogging up these extra channels with our info-spam. :-) Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMCH resolution about providing a web conferencing system for the Wikimedia Movement
On 22 February 2013 09:46, Charles Andrès wrote: > We plan to give access to these tools at first to all the chapters and > affiliated group, as then as well for thematic groups. > > Deployment is planned for the next Wikimedia Conference in Milan. Hi Charles, Thanks for choosing to open this up as a service. I will be recommending to my own chapter that we should test out this tool in preference to non-open source solutions that we are currently using (such as Skype and Google Hangout) and I would like to offer it to the GLAMtoolset project (there are regular sprint reviews that rely on video conferencing). It would be great if we could share a test platform in advance of deployment for Milan so that we can make sure that on-line guides and advice are well established. Could we make a general offer to all chapters that if they want to use this tool to have open board meetings or committee meetings (and preferably record proceedings), that we will offer this as an actively supported service? This may mean setting aside a small budget for technical support. It seems exactly like the type of inter-chapter initiative that the WCA should seek to promote. As part of a supported service, it might be an idea to recommend what sorts of hardware kit work well with video conferencing. In my own chapter we have a history of poor audio problems, and sharing experiences of good value multi-directional microphones, recommended bandwidth and so forth, would be helpful in deciding how to minimize our spend on hardware and provide high quality recordings at the same time. It may even be an idea to have a recommended virtual meeting kit box for chapters (mini-sound mixer, mic types, mini-tripod etc.), this would make it easy for any chapter to estimate and add a non-controversial line item in their funding proposals to support good quality virtual access, in line with our shared values of openness and transparency. ;-) Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?
On 22 February 2013 20:15, Balázs Viczián wrote: > I believe chapters are tools for the local communities to achieve certain > goals that otherwise would be very difficult or (almost) impossible, and a > great aid in local community building. +1 The vast majority of volunteers like the idea that there is a Chapter they can turn to to ask for help, or to get their idea for a project reviewed, funded and looking "official". If a volunteer came to a wikimeet with a brilliant idea for a project, but said they could not stand the stupid bureaucracy of chapters, I'd say "excellent mate, you go for it and I'll see what I can do to help with funding if you need it." Most of us started this stuff before our chapters were anything more that a society for a handful of embarrassed lonely encyclopedia fanatics meeting in a pub, confessing how much they loved the idea of the open knowledge movement. It's just unavoidable that chapters have to get formal once you have projects spending six figure sums rather than three figure sums. Getting formal without sucking all the joy out of it, well that's the real challenge for all of us. Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
Hi, I have started a draft of the process for the WCA election for a Chairperson at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2012_Chairperson>. This is in line with the discussion at the London meeting last weekend. The election for a Chairperson is limited to votes by Council members (as defined at the time of opening the vote) and the Chairperson needs to be a member of the Council. I invite Council members to not only consider if they have some skill and experience to bring to the role of Chair, but also to take an selfless viewpoint, and consider if there are individuals with skills elsewhere in their Chapter that might mean that now would be a good time to quickly swap their position with someone else in their Chapter, so that the WCA benefits overall. I strongly recommend that this is a contested election, particularly with representatives from smaller Chapters running for Chair. A key reason that I planned last year for a re-election for Chair to happen before the Milan conference, was that I was uncomfortable that my appointment without contest. In my view, this was a weak demonstration of our democratic process. If anyone has good tips for improving the process then please chip in, preferably on the meta talk page. My objective is to keep this as simple as possible to understand, and as non-bureaucratic as possible, so please try to make any suggestions with that in mind. :-) I propose we accept self nomination statements in languages other than English, and allow others to help with good translations. I would expect to be opening for nominations on Monday 25 February 2013, unless there are significant objections (such as prospective candidates being unavailable for this coming week and needing an extension to this schedule). Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?
On 24 February 2013 10:27, Balázs Viczián wrote: > Maybe I wasn't clear enough, imo chapters are NOT part of the communities > (nor the global community), just a tool for them to achieve certain goals > that otherwise would be much more difficult or (almost) impossible to reach. +1 With the logical extension that so are AffCom, the FDC, the WCA, the WMF ... If these tools become ineffective, then we should look again at what we (the movement) need in our tool box. Indeed I believe we have been doing precisely that by creating the FDC and the WCA in the last two years and the WMF has strategically been 'narrowing focus'. As an unpaid volunteer and thus with no vested interest, I would be perfectly happy with a completely new and improved tool box for Christmas. It is only human nature that it is much, much harder to see the world this way and accept change, when your employment may depend on the existing tools. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Are chapters part of the community and board seats for affiliates?
On 24 February 2013 11:14, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: > Balázs Viczián, 24/02/2013 11:27: > >> Maybe I wasn't clear enough, imo chapters are NOT part of the communities >> (nor the global community), just a tool for them to achieve certain goals >> that otherwise would be much more difficult or (almost) impossible to >> reach. > > Here we are, this is one of the things I wanted to point out (maybe one by > one it's easier): a "chapter" is not a person, of course it's not a > "community member"... but (IMHO) *of course* chapter members are Wikimedia > community members. > Logical consequence: the "chapter" meant as "set of the chapter members" is > a subset of the community and hence a "part of the community". > > The /structure/ of the chapter (assembly, board, president, ...) may work > well or not, "represent" some obscure interests of the chapter members or > not, further the (mysterious) "interests" of "the"* community at large or > not, etc. etc. etc. But that's an entirely different matter. > > Nemo Yes, organizations are composed of people and those people that contribute to Chapters are part of the community. However the point being made, I think, was that these organizations we create together are just tools to achieve a desirable outcome. If we don't understand or cannot measure the outcome, then the tool is not fit for purpose. This does not mean that we abandon the people involved, we just might re-form the organization or change its scope and priorities to create a new tool. In my case, as a volunteer, I was democratically elected to be a charity trustee for the UK Chapter and I was elected to be the Chairperson for the Chapters Association. This gives me an unenviable responsibility to not only represent that part of the community that wanted to vote for me to fulfil these roles, but also to consider the views of the wider movement. Conceptually I am much happier with the idea that we have community members that are pushed forward to help provide a voice in decision making or trusted with administrative tasks (such as the burden of being a signatory to the bank account or interviewing staff and contractors), rather than the idea that the voter supports a particular bureaucracy or the fine wording of a particular role definition. In summary, I would say our community (at least that subset interested in how donated funds are best deployed, rather than getting on with the real business of getting elbow deep in creating open knowledge content) votes for the outcomes and priorities they would like to see, rather than the organizations of the moment and the transient roles within them. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
Hi, The schedule of election for the Chapters Association Council Chair has been announced at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair> The schedule is: Nominations open midnight (UTC) on Monday 25 February 2013. Nominations close midnight on Monday 4 March 2013 and voting is opened. Voting closes midnight Monday 11 March 2013. Note that all 21 Council members will be eligible to vote, including those that stand for election. In a heavily contested election, expecting nominated candidates to refrain from voting would not be workable. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
@Jan-Bart One of the early discussions before agreeing the WCA charter was the possibility of automatically counting all legally recognized chapters as members. It was felt that this would not result in a credible democratic process, indeed the current 21 members are not all very active in votes and the current voting pattern shows participation at around 2/3 of the members or less in any vote. If we counted all Chapters, then a quorum would have to be set to be artificially low.<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resolutions/2012_votes> Should any Chapter wish to vote in this election, they need only provide a statement to me and then the new Council member sends in a statement that they support the charter. The Council member need not be on the board of the Chapter. There are no fees, there are no specific duties and we are always looking for more light-weight ways of handing our processes. Any Council member recognized before the vote opens, will be eligible to vote. @Newyorkbrad My original thought was to allow an overall three week process, but was put under pressure to do this quickly to make a clear demonstration that I was going; however I would guess that opening the election does this rather than bringing forward the deadline to close it. I will take a look at the schedule again later today and reconsider the deadlines. In practice, I have had the opposite feedback from Council members, who thought that allowing 2 weeks for a vote as our past custom, was unnecessarily long. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
On 25 February 2013 09:40, James Alexander wrote: > Err ok, I'm sorry but this actually moves to the realms of scary. You > require the new Council member to send in a statement ... pledging loyalty > essentially? I don't see anything in the charter that would require > something like that, is it in your remit as chair? Sadly that just sounds > like a way to force out reformers, if you don't support the charter you > can't join the council? How do you expect to get things to change when > necessary? The charter is very basic. If you want to turn the organization upside down, throw away the charter or sack the Chair, it's very easy, you just put forward a resolution. The wording on <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership> is: :"Declare that your chapter, and the appointed Council Member, respect the WCA Charter." If you fundamentally disagree with the existence of the WCA, then it would be odd to join it. I believe it is entirely possible to join the WCA with the ambition of changing it, in fact I would love for more Council members to join with reformation agendas as it would bring plenty of energy into discussions. As for scary, well, I can't comment, many folks seem to find me scary which puzzles me immensely. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Term limits for WMF board members?
On 24 February 2013 17:14, Alice Wiegand wrote: ... > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Democratizing_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#Result_of_the_Board.27s_discussion_about_term_limits I am pleased to see that the WMF notes that term limits "are recommended by Compass Partnership for WMUK's Board" and has taken this into account, even though the conclusion is that the WMF board prefers to not be bound by "a hard rule". The UK Chapter appreciated this recommendation from Compass which re-enforced the board's past discussions in this area, and personally I would hope to see this pass as a change to process in our next general meeting or as advised by our Governance Committee. I would recommend this improvement to every maturing Chapter, the WMF board, and every other long term management board, as our collective demonstration that we are fully committed to adopting charity best practice in our governance processes. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Term limits for WMF board members?
On 25 February 2013 11:43, Thomas Dalton wrote: > On 25 February 2013 11:30, Fae wrote: >> The UK Chapter appreciated this recommendation from Compass which >> re-enforced the board's past discussions in this area > > What discussions did it reinforce? The last discussion about term > limits I'm aware of (February 2012, if memory serves) was very short > because the board was unanimously against it. It sounds like there has > been a big swing since then... I think we must have been in different meetings, my intuitive sense tells me that the board has never been unanimously against it though I would be happy to be corrected against the minutes. I have always been for term limits, and the classic 2x3 limit suggested by Compass happens to fit perfectly with discussion the board had about a term limit of a maximum of 5 or 6 years. This dates as far back as discussions when Andrew was Chairman, and though we always want to retain continuity and the knowledge that long serving volunteers offer, this must be balanced against ensuring suitable turn-over as part of a demonstration of openness. In practice, we still draw upon ex-trustees with brains full of valuable knowledge by adopting them as advisor, associates, inviting them to join Committees or having them retained as committed and recognized leading volunteers. I would like to see past trustees re-join the board after a year or more away doing more interesting things, I have been around long enough to appreciate their value and special talents, especially yours Tom. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
For those commenting here that they would like to see all AffCom recognized chapters voting for the Chair, please note this would take a resolution to change the charter (section B Art 3) "Each Chapter selects one Council Member, by announcement of the Chapter to the Chair of the Council." I estimate that in practice such a resolution would mean that we could not run the election for Chair until after the Milan conference, and I would have no confidence that it would pass. @Jan-Bart, as the only WMF trustee discussing this here so far, and as the person who started this line of discussion, would the WMF trustees be content to see me stay in place for so long whilst we reach a consensus? I was aiming to open nominations at midnight today my time, so apologies if by the time you read this it is already too late to change the schedule. Thanks, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
Sorry wrong ref, easily done - I meant to paste in "The Council elects from its own Members a Chair and a Deputy Chair." (Section 3 Art 6). Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Election for WCA Chairperson
On 25 February 2013 04:17, Newyorkbrad wrote: ... > voting. To the extent that a given member might wish to decide his or her > vote through consultation with his or her chapter -- through internal > discussion and consensus or a vote of the chapter board members or all the > chapter's members, on a mailing list or at a chapter meeting -- I'm not > sure one week is a long enough period in which all chapters can do so. I have added a week to the overall process, which would not seem to be an issue with installing a Chairperson well in advance of the Milan conference. The dates I have added are: Nominations open midnight (UTC) on Monday 25 February 2013. Nominations close midnight on Wednesday 6 March 2013 and voting is opened. Voting closes midnight Sunday 17 March 2013. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Announcement: Nominations are invited for Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council
Re: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair Nominations for candidates for the position of WCAC Chair are invited above. The schedule for nominations and votes is: Nominations open midnight on Monday 25 February 2013. Nominations close midnight on Wednesday 6 March 2013 and voting is opened. Voting closes midnight Sunday 17 March 2013. If your chapter does not currently have a representative on the council and would like to put forward a candidate, please contact me now so that your candidate can be nominated before the 6th March. There are no costs, and non-English nominations and nominations for candidates outside Europe are welcome. There is an explanation of what the WCA is and what it does at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA>. Voting will be limited to Council members registered before voting opens, anyone is welcome to add their views, ask questions and influence the outcome on <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair>. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open Knowledge Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation
On 1 March 2013 12:08, Everton Zanella Alvarenga wrote: > http://wiki.okfn.org/Open_Knowledge_Foundation_and_Wikimedia_Foundation > Tom Good idea Tom. As it's a wiki, I have taken the initiative to move the page to <http://wiki.okfn.org/Open_Knowledge_Foundation_and_Wikimedia>, as based on the page introduction it appears to be intended to cover projects wider than partnerships directly with the Wikimedia Foundation. There are many other groups like the Wikimedia Chapters and the evolving Wikimedia thematic organizations, that act independently but are part of the Wikimedia community, and run all sorts of interesting open knowledge content projects, as well as lobbying for legal and government policy change to enable access to open knowledge. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Open Knowledge Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation
On 1 March 2013 13:42, Sarah Stierch wrote: > We're actually even considering making the wiki internal because it's not > fruitful for anyone outside of the internal community. So..don't expect much > to happen with that wiki space. I think it would be great to have a public page like this to demonstrate our partnerships between the two organizations. It is a handy thing to point to, in order to show off some of the stuff our global networks of volunteers work together on. It seems a pity to only do this on a country-by-country basis. The UK chapter has a page for active GLAM partnerships <https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cultural_partnerships> and a historical record forms part of our Annual Report (the next one will be at <https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2013_Annual_Report/Partnerships>). I think doing something wider like this for a couple of close partners is sensible (i.e. those partners where our Mission greatly over-laps), so long as it can be maintained and is somewhere where we can find it again (!) ;-) Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Call for chapter peer review participation
In the light of Asaf's news about Wikimedia Kenya, it seems timely to highlight one of the positive tasks I agreed to at the last Wikimedia Chapters Association coordination meeting. This was to start chapter peer reviews. In a couple of weeks I plan to put out a call for involvement and set up a meta page to get this going. As well as using practical (and cheap to do using virtual meetings) and non-bureaucratic peer reviews, better to understand governance and share best practice for Wikimedia Chapters, it would be great to extend this as a means of learning about best practices for Wikimedia User Groups. If the WCA can adapt to helping provide better engagement with User Groups and other Wikimedia organizations, this will be a positive step for the movement; though it may require quite a bit of patient help from friendly Wikimedia volunteers :-) If anyone who is in a Chapter or User Group (or a prospective User Group), would like to get involved at the start in receiving or delivering peer reviews, please drop me a note and I'll ensure you get an early notice when I kick off this, interesting but tricky, bit of international teamwork. Expect me to be depending on you for help. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?
Hi Jane, I am sorry to hear this has been a concern. My intuition is that this would be far less of a tangible risk to a team project than the fuss about this stuff might lead you to believe, so long as we can demonstrate sensible advice, review and precautions being taken. In the UK, FOP tends to be very liberal, however memorials have special issues to consider if the intention is for a free release on Commons. I would have encouraged some guidelines for photographers/uploaders to be written up, and then continued with the event with these in place, possibly with a means of contributors asking further questions and having their uploads reviewed for compliance via an on-wiki project page. A few nuts and bolts of it based on my experiences on Commons (from a UK perspective, so this will vary somewhat in other parts of Europe) are: 1. Any memorial must be a permanent feature. Any work of art that appears temporary is unlikely to be covered by FOP. 2. Text on a memorial may be under its own copyright even though it is on permanent public display, so the text itself must be demonstrably out of copyright. This is a separate issue from the general FOP provisions. If the text is incidental to the photograph, i.e. not a close up and the text is effectively de minimus, then FOP is likely to be valid. 3. Text which is embossed and made 3D, such as being part of an inscribed plaque, may be considered a 3D work and covered by FOP. 4. Any memorial photographed whilst standing on private land may not be covered by FOP. The US has free speech, but is a long way from a country that accepts FOP, however so long as the photo is taken in the EU and is of a fixed and identified memorial, EU copyright law is the principle one to consider and FOP applies. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Question: Plans for the Wikimedia conference in Milan
I'm about to book my travel for Milan, and wondered if there were any views from Council members or other chapter enthusiasts if we might try to arrange meetings outside of the core Friday 19th to Sunday 21st April. If there are no particular plans for meeting during Thursday 18 April, then I'll plan on arriving late that day. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?
On 2 March 2013 19:28, Andrew Gray wrote: > On 2 March 2013 12:04, Fae wrote: > >> 2. Text on a memorial may be under its own copyright even though it is >> on permanent public display, so the text itself must be demonstrably >> out of copyright. This is a separate issue from the general FOP >> provisions. If the text is incidental to the photograph, i.e. not a >> close up and the text is effectively de minimus, then FOP is likely to >> be valid. > > One other thing to remember: most of this text is fairly uncreative - > in many cases, standard phrases or dates, and lists of names. We could > make a reasonably good case that they are unlikely to be copyrightable > texts regardless of age. That's true, and I have uploaded plenty of my own photos of war memorials with close up details of names, rank and so forth. However I have run into problems with memorial statements that contain poetry, simple drawings and original dedications and some of these have been deleted despite me being reasonably cautious. I still think this is solvable with some simple guidelines/principles for those taking part in an event to take care to avoid any later problems with uploads. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?
On 3 March 2013 06:50, James Alexander wrote: > On Sat, Mar 2, 2013 at 3:59 AM, Tobias Oelgarte < > tobias.oelga...@googlemail.com> wrote: > >> The problem are not the European laws. It are the US laws that don't >> recognize the European FOP. That means it would be perfectly legal to host >> such images on an European server (in a country that recognizes FOP), but >> not on US servers, because they are subject to US law. >> > > I'm sorry, I keep seeing this argument and while I can understand the > basic idea every time I see it I feel like little kitten dies. There is no > doubt that the US FOP laws are a little insane and that the EU ones are > generally much more lenient, however, it is obviously far far more > complectated then that. There are plenty of EU laws which would are > applicable to site/image hosting which are far more complicated and harder > (or impossible) for us to follow. Overall the laws in the US have still > tended to be much much better to host, and that doesn't even get into the > problem of hosting in multiple locations and still trying to serve to a > site hosted (or with staff) in the US. *No kittens were harmed during this discussion* We should keep an open mind, and the location of the servers to support the global movement should be reviewed and seen to be reviewed on a periodic basis, if nothing else international law, economics and political stability, changes every year. By default, we would never change unless there were jolly good reasons to justify the hassle and expense; though folks are always going to enjoy challenging the status quo, which is probably a healthy thing and the kittens get their dinners regardless. Cheers, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Commons-l] FOP in Europe: does this include WWII monuments with art?
On 3 March 2013 12:10, Jane Darnell wrote: ... > In that discussion, the whole category for the Washington, DC Vietnam > memorial was nominated for deletion, see here: > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Category:Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial > The last word on that discussion was "I called the Smithsonian and the > Park Service about this. Aside from laughing, they were confused why > anyone would assume that the copyright was owned by anyone except the > USGov, or that it wan't in the PD. I can't get anyone on the record > about this." > > I would go so far as to assume that the same is true for Dutch WWII > memorials, and if we cannot come up with a good way of preserving > Dutch WWII memorial images for the Dutch Wikimedia community to use in > any Wikipedia project (so not just the NL wiki), then I propose a > Dutch Wikipedia blackout on May 4th out of protest, since obviously > the only hindrance is the fear of Wikimedia Commons users that they > will be legally pursued, and I assume that this fear is real enough > that we can go public with it. > > On a personal level, as a Dutch citizen, I would be willing to be the > first to be tried legally on such an issue, and after my discussion > this morning, I believe I could crowd source my legal fees with > support from the Dutch Wikipedia community. Hi Jane, I know it's all rather frustrating. I suggest a common sense approach to the Commons community. There are a few rather good copyright wikilawyers that dominate the discussion on Commons, the primary way of handling them (us?) is to make sure that there is (i) clear policy or agreed guidelines and (ii) legal clarification and external advice where this would be helpful. Our critical wikilawyers do not make the law, but they do help highlight how daft it can be at times. :-) Now, in the *real world*, there is unlikely to be any issue were the GLAM project you envisage to upload 1,000 or 100,000 images. A tiny percentage will be deleted for various reasons, as a matter of course, no matter how hard you try to run detailed guidelines. The idea that such a project either must not proceed, or would be judged a failure by the Wikimedia community, were a single image to be a potential copyright problem, is not feasible, and we do not want such great projects to be paralysed for fear of criticism because we have not got full answers to every possible risk. The key Commons policy to consider is the Precautionary Principle, so long as there are no *significant* doubts with regard to copyright, then this indicates it is perfectly okay to upload images where one has taken simple and obvious precautions.[1] Commons benefits from another great community approach, that of staying mellow, you may want to take the Smithsonian's approach and laugh most of this away. I suggest rather than brinkmanship and calling for black-outs and legal cases, you consider different avenues of community consultation, such as relevant questions on the village pump, the copyright noticeboard and set up a GLAM Commons WikiProject page for long term guidelines for your project members to discuss and improve. With such consultation banked, it would be hard for anyone to come along later and criticise you for not trying to address the issue and reach a practical conclusion.[2][3][4][5] My viewpoint is as a well known Wikimedia Commons contributor with 40,000+ image uploads, 600,000+ edits and over 1.2 million further edits by bot. Oh, and I do other more important stuff too. :-D Links 1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Project_scope/Precautionary_principle 2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Staying_mellow 3. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GLAM 4. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright 5. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Chapters] Question: Plans for the Wikimedia conference in Milan
I agree with the previous thoughts on this thread that any WCA Council meeting should be in the core time, on the principle that we want any meeting to be open. Any of the outcomes of research, analysis and services that we have been discussing should be presentations and workshops integrated with the core schedule rather than a specific Council discussion. For those like Manuel that are unable to come for logistical or financial reasons, we should ensure that good efforts are made to enable their virtual presence, even if only for selected slots in the timetable. This would be an excellent chance to show off recent progress with open source software for video conferencing. I'll aim to book my travel to arrive on Thursday afternoon and fly back late on the Sunday. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Karthik Nadar appointed as WCA Council member for Wikimedia India
Dear Wikimedians, I am delighted to announce that Karthik Nadar has joined the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council. This appointment makes a total of 22 members.[1] Karthik is on the board of the Wikimedia India Chapter and serves as the secretary. He jumped to Wikimedia fame after volunteering to become a poster boy for the 2011 fundraiser.[2] Links 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership 2. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011#Karthik_Nadar.27s_Appeal_December_3.2C_2011 Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Chapters] Question: Plans for the Wikimedia conference in Milan
On 4 March 2013 12:40, Laurentius wrote: > In data lunedì 4 marzo 2013 10:38:49, Fae ha scritto: >> [...] >> I'll aim to book my travel to arrive on Thursday afternoon [...] > > Note that the WCA council meeting is currently planned for Thursday (as > discussed in a WCA meeting some time ago). Okay, I haven't booked flights yet so I should be able to include all of Thursday. Discussing the agenda in any detail will have to defer until after the current election for Chair, however I suggest arranging an afternoon meeting so that people can arrive in the morning without too much hassle. As previously discussed, we should aim to keep material of general interest to the main schedule, however programme status resulting from actions from the last coordination meeting and getting the best out of the conference are suitable to walk through. If there are a few of us available on Thursday morning, we might be able to workshop some details from the WCA action teams (research, peer reviews etc.). Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
On 6 March 2013 07:11, MZMcBride wrote: > It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and > Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs. It seems all Wikimedia > Foundation employees are required to sign one. Staff contracts should effectively do this, though one might need to add NDAs for temporary contractors and consultants. (A personal statement, off the top of my head and without doing any research...) trustees should not be asked to sign a NDA as they should be free to act with their conscience for the long term benefit of the charity, which may include being free to publicly discuss negative material; hard to do if every email and document is covered by a NDA. Plus one expects trustees to have liability insurance, so unless there is gross misconduct, such a contract would never be enforceable if the trustee can claim to be acting within their role as a trustee (i.e. any civil claim for damages would effectively be the charity acting against itself). Wikimedia UK has a Trustee Code of Conduct, which ensures that trustees do not go "off the rails", and sets the behavioural expectations for prospective trustees rather nicely.[1] As well as a list of NDAs, it would be good to have an index of similar governance related codes (Trustee CoC, COI policies,[2] Financial reporting standards, et al). Links 1. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trustee_Code_of_Conduct 2. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_Interest_Policy, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Shabab Mustafa of WMBD joins the WCA Council
Dear Wikimedians, I have the pleasure of announcing that Shabab Mustafa has joined the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council. This appointment makes a total of 23 members.[1] Shabab is a founding member of the Wikimedia Bangladesh Chapter and currently serves on the Executive.[2] He is a veteran open source software advocate. Links 1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership 2. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Invitation: Question time for WCA Council Chair candidates
Dear fellow Wikimedians, An invitation for you, and a quick reminder for the WCAC Chair candidates, to review, contribute and discuss questions for the candidates at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Questions_for_the_candidates>. To given everyone a fair chance to reply, I ask that "Question Time" ends next Friday (15th March). This is an excellent opportunity for candidates to publicly put their viewpoint for the future of the WCA and argue their vision for change. I heartily recommend good use is made of the discussion over the coming week. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] בקשה למרואיין
On 11 March 2013 19:56, Michael Snow wrote: > Too bad - I was hoping it was a sign that people were taking seriously the > notion that this could be a multilingual mailing list, not just > English-only. Me too, I thought it was rather refreshing for folks to be corresponding here in something other than English; even though that's all I can read. :-) Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Invitation: Question time for WCA Council Chair candidates
Dear fellow Wikimedians, Re: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair Today, Sunday 17th March, is the last day for discussion about the 3 candidates we have for Wikimedia Chapters Association Chair. The formal question period is over, but everyone is invited to discuss and react to the answers from the candidates at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Questions_for_the_candidates>. Voting by the Council Members will close today at midnight UTC (which happens to be the same time as in London), so all Council Members should add their vote to the election page today. You can check who your chapter's member is at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Membership>. A special personal thank you to everyone that took time to raise questions, and for the candidates in gamely replying with well thought out and wise rationales. Thanks, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Markus Glaser is elected Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council
Congratulations to Markus on becoming the Chair of the WCAC. The election results is available at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Votes>, with an associated detailed Q&A from the candidates on the associated talk page. Thank you to all candidates for coming forward and taking part in the public debate so well. I look forward to supporting Markus in his role as our Chair, and the discussions with everyone at the Milan conference next month. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council Chair http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
I enjoyed Ting's perception, he always seems to have a viewpoint reliably in the center of the Wikimedia movement. I previously pushed for a commitment to perpetuity, including a 100 year plan for basic backup. The operational side of our movement failed to either understand why this is important, or properly to respond to a relatively simple proposal for a better strategy. Should an endowment run the risk of establishing a century spanning immovable bureaucracy, then our shared open knowledge vision, must be far greater than the English Wikipedia, bigger than Wikipedia, span wider than any Wikimedia project. These projects have a natural lifespan of less than a decade, not generations. Until the movement is ready to lay out a serious vision and strategy that covers the next 100 years, we are not ready to justify asking donors for hundreds of millions of dollars to stick in a WMF managed investment account. This alone would create a potential for reputational risk so great, it could wipe out the Wikimedia brand, and our stake in the open knowledge movement, permanently. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 09:03, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > hi Fae, > > I share your commitment to avoiding a bureaucratic monster. However, I have > to practically point out, that in our case any vision and strategy of a > long time horizon is a grave mistake. We can't predict technologies and > Internet trends 10 years in the future, so even vision creation beyond this > point is a dangerously blinding and binding exercise. Strategy creation and > its time horizon have to be based on the stability of the environment. The > only business I know of that relies on something close to 100 years of time > horizon for strategy is forestry. We, on the other hand, are in the > Internet business, and going beyond 5 years in terms of strategic plans, > and beyond 10 years in terms of long-term powerful visions is more likely > to lull us to sleep, rather than help. The "sum of human knowledge" is not about internet technology of the moment, or limited to the next 5 years. If the WMF and the leading figures in our movement cannot produce a vision or even a highest possible level strategy for 100 years, then the case for having a billion dollar endowment looks exceedingly weak and probably idle dreaming. There is no sensible case for an endowment fund that only imagines the next couple of years - that is in fact why we talk about reserve funds that cover that period and short term risks that might arise. If I am looking to leave a million dollars in my will to benefit human knowledge, I would want the comfort of knowing the organization that will use my money will exist *long* after my death, it will not "repurpose" funds in unexpected ways, or waste it on an empire building bureaucracy that has the natural priority of paying benefits to careerist senior management types involved in operations. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 11:28, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: ... > I honestly don't believe that anyone with some basic understanding of > principles of organizational strategic planning would dispute that. > However, I entirely agree with Fae that we need a powerful, long-term > vision (and I believe that making all knowledge universally accessible is > quite good in this respect, and also appealing to donors for endowment). As I have a MBA specializing in international strategy, hand in hand with a couple of decades as a consultant, I would count myself as having a basic understanding. ;-) > In other words, I completely do not understand why you insist that in spite > of a long term vision we also need a 100-year spanning strategy. But let's > assume we do: could you give examples of goals, say for year 10, year 20, > year 50?... I suggest you step away from the technology component before this becomes a mantra. Given a span of 100 years, assumptions become rather large. We can start to assume that within one or two decades, *everyone* on the planet is data-connected, we can assume that language barriers break down or become irrelevant, we can assume that connection and hardware costs become vanishingly small and we can assume that engagement with human knowledge is fully immersive. Developing a strategy would require some big thinking of scenarios: * Does Wikimedia get subsumed into a new ecology of open knowledge organizations? * Does "operations" become irrelevant as it will be naturally factored out? * In a future of cheap as chips access, does "access" mean socialization and education? Classically, one might bounce around environmental scenarios such as religious division, hyper-connection social instability (meme threats), population crisis etc. It's a big talk, and above was mentioned spending 5 years on this. Consider how darn slow us unpaid Wikimedia volunteers are to nit-pick our way forward, thinking of how we take longer than a year+ to reach some conclusions is not unreasonable, and it is not as easy as saying "quote examples" as if this was a discussion short-cut. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 12:14, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: ... > As long as it is not really a strategy creation exercise, but rather an > imagination stimulation and concept brainstorming, I think it is a great > idea. But we should not mistake trying to look way too far beyond what we > can see as great vision. It is guesswork. I'm happy to continue calling this part of strategy creation, while you call it speculation or guesswork. However I believe it is perfectly clear that if the movement has no 100 year plan, even in concept, and cannot set some top level goals to show our commitment to a century long view, then a public call to create a billion dollar endowment will quickly be shot down as banking money for the sake of job security. An easy-peasy goal is to ensure all project knowledge content is actively archived in a way that the commitment to preservation is meaningfully demonstrated. Pointing to a reasonably future-proofed but cost effective 100-year (multi-location) archive is one obvious way of explaining what an endowment is for. PS I have heard the archive question answered recently by a representative of the WMF on a radio interview as "Oh, it's all over the internet, if we disappear it could always be re-created" (or words to that effect) - I thought this a particularly naff answer for an organization with many millions in the bank to spend on operational risks. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 13:24, Dariusz Jemielniak wrote: > Fine, let's call it strategy. Off-the-record, can you name some other > organizations, preferably more or less in our industry, which have > strategies longer than 20 years? Google it - some random reading: * 100 year project http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2199247/The-100-year-Starship-project-plans-transport-humans-solar-system.html * 100 year plan http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Unigen-pens-100-year-plan * 100 year plan http://www.cnv.org/server.aspx?c=3&i=541 * 100 year scenario planning http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Technology-in-the-next-100-years-the-futurologists-view * How Google and Virgin wanted to be on Mars in 100 years http://www.google.com/virgle/plan_1.html :-D A business search might discover some more down to earth long term strategy examples. If this gets a bit more serious, I might spend a couple of hours in the British Library business center tracking some down. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Free as in Wikimedia Foundation
Re: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values Perhaps it is time to revisit these values as a community and, if needed, update them to be more in line with values that can be demonstrated by actions. Freedom An essential part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is encouraging the development of free-content educational resources that may be created, used, *and reused by the entire human community*. We believe that this mission requires thriving open formats and open standards on the web to allow the creation of content **not subject to restrictions on creation, use, and reuse**. Just sayin' Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Toolserver-l] [TS logo] Fwd: Free as in Wikimedia Foundation
> Sorry, but this is alarmist hippie crap and typical "netizen-outrage". LOL. I feel like a young hippie again. :-) Fae mobile ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Toolserver-l] [TS logo] Fwd: Free as in Wikimedia Foundation
On 21 March 2013 00:32, Samuel Klein wrote: ... > +1. Thanks to all who commented on this thread. Nice to know you don't believe in marginalizing those commenting as "alarmist hippie crap". Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Office hour inside out (program evaluation)
On 29 March 2013 19:22, Balázs Viczián wrote: > I'd rather be interested in how do you measure _success_ (this question is > for everybody) > By hard outcomes measured against the original project goals. Turning that around - projects should not be funded without defined measurable goals, and good governance reviews would halt funding for a project that stops regularly reporting against the agreed goals. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] How gay friendly is Wikimedia and where do LGBT Wikimedians hang out?
The answer is we have real idea how gay friendly the projects are, but LGBT Wikimedians have been doing a lot more outreach recently and we think this is great evidence for our increasing diversity. From a few chats over tea at the GLAMwiki conference last weekend, I realised that most folks with an interest in LGBT matters were either unaware that anything had changed in the last year, or just had not got around to finding out where to go for more information (apart from asking me). So, here are 4 new global resources created in the last 12 months for you to investigate, share with friends or bookmark for later: * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT If you are interested in discussing and helping with LGBT related open knowledge content, projects, partnerships, issues or events then you can find out more about what's going on and contribute new proposals here. * https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:LGBT_Free_Media_Collective This is a Commons wikiproject to encourage more LGBT friendly photos and other media for use on all projects. So if you have an archive of photos from LGBT events, or are part of an organization with educational media to release, this might be a good place to find out how to share them with the world. * https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/lgbt This is a managed email list for any LGBT interested Wikimedians to safely bounce around new ideas, raise questions, discuss ways of increasing LGBT participation in Wikimedia projects and general coordination. It is low volume, with around 3 threads a month at the moment. Drop an email to one of the list admins if you want to know more about how it is managed before joining up. * irc://irc.wikimedia.org/wikimedia-lgbt Our friendly open IRC channel. Good for chat about LGBT projects and recent news, though you may need a lot of patience and wait a few hours for replies - others logged in might be asleep, the other side of the planet, or working and will not see your message until home time. But it's not a dating line, other sites are available for that :-) Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Are you interested in being interviewed about your LGBT experience with Wikimedia?
Hi, While I am at the Wikimedia conference in Milan, meeting a wide selection of Wikimedians from around the globe, I would love to use the opportunity to start recording a few short interviews with LGBT/queer/gay contributors about their experiences on our projects. I am happy to keep your identity confidential, though I would like to be free to publish transcripts after they are reviewed with you and anything you are no longer happy with is deleted. If you would like to meet up with me for a short chat during the conference, please do either track me down or send me an email and we will try to coordinate a time. For those not at Milan, I would love to chat. Drop me an email and perhaps we can arrange a Skype call and pen a few notes together on etherpad at some point. If I can get a few interviews on record, I would like to eventually write a short piece for Wikinews about what the culture on different Wikimedia projects feels like for both open LGBT contributors or those that prefer to keep their sexual orientation (or gender) a secret. There's no hurry, I'm not a fast article writer. :-D Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Question: How much does administration in Chapters cost the Wikimedia movement?
After seeing a few recent facts and figures about Wikimedia Chapters (at the Milan conference), I think that "administration" versus "project" activities is highly varied and may be something like 15% to 40% out of the overall budget. Unfortunately this figure can be a bit hard to work out and (I think) almost impossible to ensure we would be comparing like for like based on current reports. It would make a great top level key performance indicator for our organizations if this could be reported using an agreed standard definition as to what administration means, with such a definition we could even make this an expectation for the public annual financial reports. Hopefully reporting such a ratio could then be a target for improvement and any strategic plans for growth could be accountable against this and other top level performance measures. My rule of thumb would be that "administration" is composed of: * Staff salaries, contractor payments and professional advice fees * Offices and fixed or hired assets used for non-project activity (such as financial reporting, accounts, board meetings) * Expenses for non-project activity I have yet to have a confirmed figure for WMUK, but I would be interested any any current figures for other chapters for comparison/benchmarking and any explanation of the 'norms' we might expect to calculate these. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Question: How do we define lobbying?
In a workshop in the Milan conference, there was a break-out discussion led by Iolanda (WMIT) on lobbying. There is a lot of interest in finding ways of supporting change in copyright legislation and open knowledge access in as many countries as possible. One of the interesting features of the WMF agreement when providing funds under the FDC process is that this money should not be used for lobbying. During the coffee break I had a quick chat with Garfield (the WMF CFO) about a possible clarification. My understanding from that chat was that if there were valid reasons for lobbying in support of our cause, this should be a separate grant for traceability reasons, it is not intended to imply a blanket ban, but traceability is needed to satisfy the IRS. If a chapter has separate income from the WMF, then there is no concern as this is a matter for the individual chapter board and membership to worry about. I think this is a useful clarification, and this ought to be followed up as an action from our workshop. I would welcome any comments from the wider community on what sorts of lobbying as a movement that we definitely want to support, encourage and possibly provide funds for, and if we could come to a clearer definition of what lobbying is (such as political protest) and things we do as a community that is not quite lobbying, even though it may relate to government legislation (such as publishing a white paper with our summary of the benefits of changes in copyright law). Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Question: How do we define lobbying?
There are some useful draft definitions here. It would be handy to get a page on meta started as a list of best practices for chapters and other groups that may not be sure of what are normal sorts of lobbying accepted within the Wikimedia movement that could be okay for funding support. From my personal experience I have done some stuff that might be called lobbying in the last year: * Given evidence to parliament on Wikimedia projects as part of a joint fact finding committee on (failed) super injunctions. * Researched proposed changes in UK copyright legislation (open publishing and recognition of orphan works) and then supported a position paper back to the parliamentary committee inviting feedback. * Taken part in hosting a workshop for academic bodies on open publishing which included how to help Jimmy Wales with approaching the right political stakeholders in government. * Written to government funded bodies and the official holders of Crown Copyright to clarify interpretations claims of copyright over public domain works. None of the above amounted to much in terms of costs to the movement (apart from my unpaid volunteer time), however I think all could be valid for UK Chapter staff support, travel claims or supporting legal advice, were we to have asked for any. Cheers, Fae On 20 April 2013 08:19, Andre Engels wrote: > Lobbying is any activity that has the intention of influencing the opinions > of politicians and other influential people on issues. I think a clear (or > at least, at first look clear) between black (corruption-like) and white > (ethic) lobbying would be that white lobbying consists of bringing > information and opinions to politicians and/or the general public, black > lobbying consists of bringing them advantages or promises. > > In general, lobbying consists of sending letters, petitions and such to > politicians, parliaments, governments and such, and talking with those > about subjects we are interested in. It's comparable to propaganda > (political advertising), but directed at 'those in power' rather than the > population as a whole. > > -- > André Engels, andreeng...@gmail.com > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Proposal: [WCA][Governance] Training for chapter and thematic org. board members
The majority of chapter boards (and the proposed thematic organizations) do not routinely have an induction process with training in expected reporting requirements, liability as directors, the role of oversight and how to maintain a competent and professional board function, etc. At the Milan conference, I shall be proposing that the WCA takes a lead in arranging a shared training course and workshop with the aim of this being a regular planned activity, so that chapters and other groups agree basic expectations for the behaviours and competencies of board members, and benefit from the efficiencies of a shared training event, hopefully hosted by one of the chapters with handy facilities to support it. I have chatted about this proposition during coffee breaks with 4 different 'large' chapters, and the feedback so far is that this would be an easy way of improving the quality of our governance and of definite direct benefit to many of our organizations. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Info: Wikimedia Conference feedback - Grazie mille!
I would like to give a personal thankyou to WMIT for successfully taking on the scary challenge of hosting the Wikimedia Conference. We can all see the team has put in a huge amount of effort and creativity into the conference. I loved visiting Milan for the first time, and being hosted in such a lovely venue and hotel (I can recommend eating out in Milan, all the food I have had here has been excellent). I look forward to being invited again :-D I'm in the feedback session right now, and I think there are excellent learning points to make to make life easier for our next host. Grazie mille! Fae -- Fae fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Breivik: My Biggest Influence Was Wikipedia
I find this context upsetting regardless of the points being raised. My personal request for any reader of this email thread, is that if there are any changes you would like to see on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects, please don't use anything that this monster says as a reason for action. It would be a terrible starting point and taint any discussion. Nothing he has to say has any chance of being notable or rational enough for us to concern ourselves about. I look forward to him being permanently locked away from society and we can turn our backs and move on. Thanks, Fae -- http://enwp.org/user_talk:Fae http://enwp.org/user:Fae/events ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Breivik: My Biggest Influence Was Wikipedia
On 18 April 2012 14:44, Mike Dupont wrote: > Yes, I also found it upsetting, but I decided to bring this topic up as > someone had sent it to me, > and thought that it is better that we know about what is going on before it > hits us and we dont know about it. I'm not having a poke at you Mike, I agree we should note it as possibly newsworthy and be prepared for questions that might arise. I just would prefer that this not be a launch pad for change or tangential discussions. Thanks, Fae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
