Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-15 Thread Michelle Gallaway
This might be silly, but can you set it so that IPs and non-members can only
edit pages in the Talk: space or something?  That would allow discussion to
occur around important issues while keeping the integrity of things like the
minutes and the constitution protected.

Of course as Angela said there's no way of really defending against a
rogue financial member changing the constitution to ENCYCLOPEDIAS ARE
GAY, but I guess that's the price you pay for accessibility.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:05 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:

 It seems there are a variety of arguments that have now been put forward
 against opening up editing to non-members:

 * It's a member benefit - I think we all agree that this is no longer
 held as a valid claim. IIRC this was the SOLE reason why we didn't have open
 editing to start with, but no matter.

 * There'll be lots of vandalism - This has been responded to with the
 proposal that only logged-in editing be allowed and some form of
 CAPTCHA/email confirmation be used to stop spambots.

 * We need to keep the official pages stable - The official pages (rules,
 minutes, donation info...) can be easily locked from editing in just the
 same way that the copyright notice page on Wikipedia is locked. We could
 even use some form of flagged-revs if we chose.

 * It will look bad to our potential partner organisations - I have heard
 many criticisms or complaints from external organisations/professionals
 about Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wikimedia-Australia and none of them have been
 about the potential for unruly discussion on the chapter wiki. If an
 organisation is unwilling to work with the Chapter on the basis that there
 might be some disucssion on the wiki that they don't like, then they've
 obviously never heard of Wikipedia. Many organisations have some form of
 public discussion section on their website (e.g. comments on company blogs)
 and this does not meant that people think less of the company.

 If we hope to get more grassroots involvement in the chapter then IMO we
 cannot force people to pay $40 and register an account before they can
 engage in chapter activities. Volunteers should not be forced to pay money
 to volunteer. Any organisation that choses not to associate itself with
 WM-Au on the basis that we operate a wiki that members of the general public
 can edit is more than likely not ready to work with an organisation that
 promotes free-culture at all. And, just like on WP, we can indeed include
 layers of locks or tags that indicate 'this page is official policy' or
 'this page is for general discussion'.

 -Liam



 wittylama.com/blog
 Peace, love  metadata


 On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Brian Salter-Duke b_d...@bigpond.net.au
  wrote:

 There has been a lot of discussion about the official wiki and who
 should be able to edit it. This is in response to the whole debate, so I
 have not kept any other comments.

 This wiki is the official wiki. It is how we present ourselves, not just
 to members, but to prospective members, to regulatory bodies, to Glam
 institutions who we hope to work with, with a range of other bodies and
 with the general public.

 It is the only place where our rules are displayed, where minutes of
 general and committee meetings are recorded, and a host of other
 official stuff. We are incorporated. We are a legal entity.  We now
 have approval to fund raise in Victoria. We need to apply for fund
 raising approval to all other States and Territories, except the NT. We
 have an ABN. We will be applying for deductible gift recipient (DGR)
 status. All this has to be reflected in our official pages.

 We are trying hard to relate in a professional manner with a large range
 of GLAM institutions across the country. They will look to our official
 wiki for reliable information about us. They will judge how serious we
 are by how professional we present ourselves.

 The issue is not really about vandalism, but the integrity and
 professionalism of the whole official wiki. Vandalism with certainly
 destroy that, but so will edits that discuss ideas that are not
 officially approved, and edits that are inappropriate. If readers find
 information that they find to be inaccurate or inappropriate, they will
 conclude that we are not a serious professional body that they can work
 with, and they may doubt the accuracy of material on what are clearly
 official pages.

 This does not mean that we have to restrict editing to the committee,
 but we have to make sure that integrity and professionalism is preserved
 and indeed enhanced. It is not just a question of removing vandalism.
 There are some pages that must never be allowed to be vandalised. Karl
 has suggested that the committee does not need to be involved in
 removing vandalism, but this misses the point. Certainly non-committee
 members can assist with improving and preserving the wiki, but the
 committee has to be involved. That is what the committee is elected for.
 The 

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-15 Thread Andrew
2009/12/14 Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com

 If we hope to get more grassroots involvement in the chapter then IMO we
 cannot force people to pay $40 and register an account before they can
 engage in chapter activities. Volunteers should not be forced to pay money
 to volunteer.


Why is it assumed that volunteering == editing the chapter wiki? It
seems like a strange argument to me.

We're getting projects happening here in Perth and as far as I know neither
of our other financial members, both of whom are fully entitled to accounts,
have one or have asked for one (if they did we'd certainly enable it, but my
point stands.) Increasingly our future is likely going to be with a majority
of members who support our mission who are not even from a WMF-project
background, and are much more likely to engage with us through social media,
messenger, email, telephone and in person.

Additionally, there isn't enough people involved on the wiki as it is to
justify an argument that more people should be at the table. We have 47
members - if I saw even 10 editing productively, I'd say there could be an
argument for more open involvement. As it is, three already busy committee
members are the main editors.

cheers
Andrew
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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-15 Thread private musings
'...As it is, three already busy committee members are the main
editors.'

cough cough !! ;-) (ps. I think Andrew's post sort of has cause and
effect a bit bassackwards ;-)
I see it this way - if engaging and growing membership is a priority then
lowering the bar for engagement is a good thing. I have had quite a few
conversations with folk who I believe would be quite interested in Chapter
based activity, and I'd really like to say things like 'hey, head over to
our wiki and you can sign up' or 'hey, that's a good idea, you should join
our wiki, and we can work on it' - or even just organising having the
ability to RSVP, leave a note or a question.
I think wikis are wonderful collaborative environments, and (as others have
said) it feels a bit odd to me to have to try and wave the flag for more
open editing here - what about the old 'let's be bold, give it a go, and
see!' approach? If the barbarians are at the gates, and the wiki gets taken
over with nonsense we could just flip the switch back, no?
Any Father Ted fans out there will know what I mean if I say 'ah go on... go
on go on go on..'
cheers,
Peter,
PM.
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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Andrew
PM, things are decided on Wikimedia Australia by committee, not consensus -
this isn't Wikipedia. And I've had a few financial members write to me or
chat with me since this debate of sorts opened with concerns similar to
Craig's re observations on WM-UK - basically saying the committee members
would end up wasting their time dealing with silliness on the Wiki rather
than stuff we need to do to grow the chapter. As one said, and I think they
won't mind me quoting, this is navel-gazing.

I have some other semi-related comments but I'll make a new thread for those
as I doubt too many are reading this one at this point.

cheers
Andrew

2009/12/13 private musings thepmacco...@gmail.com

 Having open editing for accounts only sounds great to me :-)
 If this idea could gain consensus, and get done by christmas I think that
 would be wonderful :-)
 cheers,
 Peter,
 PM.

 On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Craig Franklin cr...@halo-17.net wrote:

  I think that presenting editing access to the chapter wiki as a
 “benefit” of membership is a bit silly really.  When I spruik membership to
 potential members, “the ability to edit our wiki!” doesn’t even register on
 the things I tell them.



 Perhaps a compromise between the “no access for non-members” and “open
 access” viewpoints is in order.  We could open access to everyone, provided
 they had an account.  Accounts would still need to be approved by someone to
 weed out spam bots and the like (having managed a public-facing Wiki, I know
 that this is often a serious problem), and perhaps the accounts of
 non-members could be sequestered into the user space or something.  If you
 look at Wikimedia UK’s “Recent Changes” page, there is a lot of rubbish
 there that their admins are having to spend their time cleaning up – frankly
 I think our people have better things to do than play janitor on the chapter
 wiki.



 I don’t know, apart from the whole “open philosophy”, I don’t see any real
 reasons why anyone who is not a member would want to post on our Wiki, and
 the fact that the Billabong is quiet… I don’t really see that as a problem
 since most of the communication and discussion occurs on this list, which is
 essentially open to the public anyway.



 Cheers,

 Craig





 *From:* wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
 wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrew
 *Sent:* Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM
 *To:* Wikimedia-au
 *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki



 At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
 understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the
 official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way
 that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit
 freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
 editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
 (and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
 meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.

 As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective
 problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will
 be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
 partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess
 seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal
 and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
 organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
 attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
 We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
 credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
 official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
 that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
 speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
 imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
 benefit from it, as against the costs?

 cheers
 Andrew

 2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

 Sarah,

 The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
 non-members is because of fear of vandalism.

 Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.

 Solutions?

 1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
 2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
 3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be
 preserved.
 4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
 5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
 6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
 membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
 longer allowed to edit.

 C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?

 Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up

[Wikimediaau-l] Official Wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Virtual Steve

As the new treasurer of the Wiki-Aus I have been reading this discussion with 
some interest and I now make the following comment.

I am in support of Sarah's continual point that only financial members should 
be able to edit the official wiki for many reasons,
however the below snippet from Andrew's comment is particularly useful and 
valid.
 
Quite frankly folks the committee members of this chapter already have 
absolutely far too many things to read - 
to the extent that there is a very great chance that we will come awash with 
the excess of that information 
(and indeed there are clear instances where we have already).  

Adding to that situation with open editing of the official wiki is neither 
practical nor reflective of real world boards,
and quite frankly we are a real world board with real world responsibilities as 
a part of corporate governance requirements.
In a nutshell we are responsible in the main to the financial members of this 
chapter and 
it is only their material that should take any more of our time or effort at 
the the official chapter pages.

There are plenty of ways to draw our attention to issues of concern at other 
open wikis and 
so I for one do not support open editing in any form.

 *Andrew comment sent Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM
 Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
 speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
 imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
 benefit from it, as against the costs?
  
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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Brian Salter-Duke
On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 11:15:35PM +1030, Karl Goetz wrote:
 On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:57:02 +1100
 Brian Salter-Duke b_d...@bigpond.net.au wrote:
 
  On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:09:58AM +1100, Peter Halasz wrote:
   So lock those specific pages. Have you ever used Wikipedia? Do you
   think it would exist if they were worried only about representation?
  
  I will try to respond to this debate, wearing my hat as Public Officer
  of WMAU later, but for now let me just say that our official wiki is
  not like wikipedia. It is much more like:
 
 I assume this means this is your personal view?

It is my personal view but based on my experience as Public Officer
since the start of Wikimedia Australia. 
 
   http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Main_Page
  
  As an incorporated association we have legal obligations to the
  community via CAV, not only to the membership. This means the issue of
 
 For those of us not in the know, what is CAV, and can you provide a
 reference to it for us to look at?

CAV is Consumer Affairs Victoria and is the body that administers our
incorporation. The general link is:-

http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/

but you need to click on to look under Associations, Clubs  Fundraising 
and then to incorporated associations. It is not just incorporation. We
are a legal entitity. We now have approval to fund raise in Victoria. We
have an ABN. We will be applying for deductible gift recipient (DGR)
status. I will give a more thought through response to the question of
access later when I have woken up properly.

Brian.

  access is not simple and it requires thought.  There is also a real
 
 Not simple on the backend? I assume whatever sits behind the login
 process is able to automatically remove people who didn't pay (ldap?
 sql?). If thats the case its also easy to work out who should be in
 certain edit groups: they have valid memberships or not.
 
  tension here, not only about access. For example, there is also a
  tension between the project's love of anonymity for users, with the
  legal requirements imposed by incorporating.
 
 Aye. Its entirely possible annon edits will not be a possibility. That
 doesn't mean that only members should be able to edit though.
 kk
 
  Cheers, Brian.
   
 
 
 -- 
 Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
 Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
 http://www.kgoetz.id.au
 No, I won't join your social networking group



-- 
Brian Salter-Duke bd...@wikimedia.org.au publicoffi...@wikimedia.org.au  
 Committee member and Public Officer, Wikimedia Australia Inc.
   Active on English Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki, Wikiversity, and others.
[[User:Bduke]] is single user account with en:Wikipedia main account.

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Brian Salter-Duke
There has been a lot of discussion about the official wiki and who
should be able to edit it. This is in response to the whole debate, so I
have not kept any other comments.

This wiki is the official wiki. It is how we present ourselves, not just
to members, but to prospective members, to regulatory bodies, to Glam
institutions who we hope to work with, with a range of other bodies and
with the general public. 

It is the only place where our rules are displayed, where minutes of
general and committee meetings are recorded, and a host of other
official stuff. We are incorporated. We are a legal entity.  We now
have approval to fund raise in Victoria. We need to apply for fund
raising approval to all other States and Territories, except the NT. We
have an ABN. We will be applying for deductible gift recipient (DGR)
status. All this has to be reflected in our official pages.

We are trying hard to relate in a professional manner with a large range
of GLAM institutions across the country. They will look to our official
wiki for reliable information about us. They will judge how serious we
are by how professional we present ourselves.

The issue is not really about vandalism, but the integrity and
professionalism of the whole official wiki. Vandalism with certainly
destroy that, but so will edits that discuss ideas that are not
officially approved, and edits that are inappropriate. If readers find
information that they find to be inaccurate or inappropriate, they will
conclude that we are not a serious professional body that they can work
with, and they may doubt the accuracy of material on what are clearly
official pages.

This does not mean that we have to restrict editing to the committee,
but we have to make sure that integrity and professionalism is preserved
and indeed enhanced. It is not just a question of removing vandalism.
There are some pages that must never be allowed to be vandalised. Karl
has suggested that the committee does not need to be involved in
removing vandalism, but this misses the point. Certainly non-committee
members can assist with improving and preserving the wiki, but the
committee has to be involved. That is what the committee is elected for.
The committee is responsible for the integrity and professionalism of
our official presentation outside the association. 

As a wikimedian, of course I am in favour of opening up the wiki as much
as we can, but as a member of the committee and as Public Officer
responsible for reporting on our work to Consumer Affairs Victoria, I am
very conscious of the responsibility to preserve the integrity and
professionalism of the official wiki. If we decide to open it up, we
must be quite open about what we are doing. We can not just protect some
pages, or restrict editing of some pages to certain groups. We must be
clear to the readers. 

I therefore propose that all pages be clearly tagged with a statement of
their status. Pages of rules, minutes, etc. should be tagged with
something like This page is an official page of Wikimedia Australia
Inc. and is approved by the association. Editing is restricted to
members of the committee. Other pages might be tagged with something
like This page is for the development of ideas by members and supports.
Editing is open to all. The page does not necessarily reflect the
official views of Wikimedia Australia Inc. We might have a whole series
of different tags. The idea is that the reader will not be mislead about
our official views and will be quite clear where authentic information
is to be found. The committee, because it is responsible, must have the
total right to tag any page on the wiki with the first tag above and to
restrict editing of that page to the committee. There can be no debate
about this. The committee is responsible.

Of course these tags will be criticised as being ugly, but to me they
are essential. I can only support opening up editing on the official
wiki, if we do clearly tag all articles to make their status absolutely
clear.

Cheers, Brian.

-- 
Brian Salter-Duke bd...@wikimedia.org.au publicoffi...@wikimedia.org.au  
 Committee member and Public Officer, Wikimedia Australia Inc.
   Active on English Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki, Wikiversity, and others.
[[User:Bduke]] is single user account with en:Wikipedia main account.

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Liam Wyatt
It seems there are a variety of arguments that have now been put forward
against opening up editing to non-members:

* It's a member benefit - I think we all agree that this is no longer held
as a valid claim. IIRC this was the SOLE reason why we didn't have open
editing to start with, but no matter.

* There'll be lots of vandalism - This has been responded to with the
proposal that only logged-in editing be allowed and some form of
CAPTCHA/email confirmation be used to stop spambots.

* We need to keep the official pages stable - The official pages (rules,
minutes, donation info...) can be easily locked from editing in just the
same way that the copyright notice page on Wikipedia is locked. We could
even use some form of flagged-revs if we chose.

* It will look bad to our potential partner organisations - I have heard
many criticisms or complaints from external organisations/professionals
about Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wikimedia-Australia and none of them have been
about the potential for unruly discussion on the chapter wiki. If an
organisation is unwilling to work with the Chapter on the basis that there
might be some disucssion on the wiki that they don't like, then they've
obviously never heard of Wikipedia. Many organisations have some form of
public discussion section on their website (e.g. comments on company blogs)
and this does not meant that people think less of the company.

If we hope to get more grassroots involvement in the chapter then IMO we
cannot force people to pay $40 and register an account before they can
engage in chapter activities. Volunteers should not be forced to pay money
to volunteer. Any organisation that choses not to associate itself with
WM-Au on the basis that we operate a wiki that members of the general public
can edit is more than likely not ready to work with an organisation that
promotes free-culture at all. And, just like on WP, we can indeed include
layers of locks or tags that indicate 'this page is official policy' or
'this page is for general discussion'.

-Liam


wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love  metadata


On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Brian Salter-Duke
b_d...@bigpond.net.auwrote:

 There has been a lot of discussion about the official wiki and who
 should be able to edit it. This is in response to the whole debate, so I
 have not kept any other comments.

 This wiki is the official wiki. It is how we present ourselves, not just
 to members, but to prospective members, to regulatory bodies, to Glam
 institutions who we hope to work with, with a range of other bodies and
 with the general public.

 It is the only place where our rules are displayed, where minutes of
 general and committee meetings are recorded, and a host of other
 official stuff. We are incorporated. We are a legal entity.  We now
 have approval to fund raise in Victoria. We need to apply for fund
 raising approval to all other States and Territories, except the NT. We
 have an ABN. We will be applying for deductible gift recipient (DGR)
 status. All this has to be reflected in our official pages.

 We are trying hard to relate in a professional manner with a large range
 of GLAM institutions across the country. They will look to our official
 wiki for reliable information about us. They will judge how serious we
 are by how professional we present ourselves.

 The issue is not really about vandalism, but the integrity and
 professionalism of the whole official wiki. Vandalism with certainly
 destroy that, but so will edits that discuss ideas that are not
 officially approved, and edits that are inappropriate. If readers find
 information that they find to be inaccurate or inappropriate, they will
 conclude that we are not a serious professional body that they can work
 with, and they may doubt the accuracy of material on what are clearly
 official pages.

 This does not mean that we have to restrict editing to the committee,
 but we have to make sure that integrity and professionalism is preserved
 and indeed enhanced. It is not just a question of removing vandalism.
 There are some pages that must never be allowed to be vandalised. Karl
 has suggested that the committee does not need to be involved in
 removing vandalism, but this misses the point. Certainly non-committee
 members can assist with improving and preserving the wiki, but the
 committee has to be involved. That is what the committee is elected for.
 The committee is responsible for the integrity and professionalism of
 our official presentation outside the association.

 As a wikimedian, of course I am in favour of opening up the wiki as much
 as we can, but as a member of the committee and as Public Officer
 responsible for reporting on our work to Consumer Affairs Victoria, I am
 very conscious of the responsibility to preserve the integrity and
 professionalism of the official wiki. If we decide to open it up, we
 must be quite open about what we are doing. We can not just protect some
 pages, or restrict editing of some 

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-13 Thread Brian Salter-Duke
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 02:05:42PM +1100, Liam Wyatt wrote:
 It seems there are a variety of arguments that have now been put forward
 against opening up editing to non-members:
 
 * It's a member benefit - I think we all agree that this is no longer held
 as a valid claim. IIRC this was the SOLE reason why we didn't have open
 editing to start with, but no matter.

I agree.
 
 * There'll be lots of vandalism - This has been responded to with the
 proposal that only logged-in editing be allowed and some form of
 CAPTCHA/email confirmation be used to stop spambots.

Still a pain, like the spam on the mailing list.
 
 * We need to keep the official pages stable - The official pages (rules,
 minutes, donation info...) can be easily locked from editing in just the
 same way that the copyright notice page on Wikipedia is locked. We could
 even use some form of flagged-revs if we chose.

It is more than stable. Some, like minutes, must never change. Soem,
like rules, need a general meeting to change them. The process is quite
different from most wikis.

 * It will look bad to our potential partner organisations - I have heard
 many criticisms or complaints from external organisations/professionals
 about Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wikimedia-Australia and none of them have been
 about the potential for unruly discussion on the chapter wiki. If an
 organisation is unwilling to work with the Chapter on the basis that there
 might be some disucssion on the wiki that they don't like, then they've
 obviously never heard of Wikipedia. Many organisations have some form of
 public discussion section on their website (e.g. comments on company blogs)
 and this does not meant that people think less of the company.

Right now they probably do not know about our wiki. I am certainly not
saying that they will consciously say they are unwilling to work with
the Chapter on the basis that there might be some discussion on the wiki
that they don't like. I would say that they may get put off if they get
the impression that our wiki is not professional about who and what we
are. They might not recognise why they are being put off.
 
 If we hope to get more grassroots involvement in the chapter then IMO we
 cannot force people to pay $40 and register an account before they can
 engage in chapter activities. Volunteers should not be forced to pay money
 to volunteer. 

I agree.

 Any organisation that choses not to associate itself with WM-Au on the
 basis that we operate a wiki that members of the general public can
 edit is more than likely not ready to work with an organisation that
 promotes free-culture at all. 

See above.

 And, just like on WP, we can indeed include layers of locks or tags
 that indicate 'this page is official policy' or 'this page is for
 general discussion'.

It is not like WP. WP policies can be changed by consensus so we can
have edit wars on policy pages. Much of our stuff can only be changed by
either the committee or a General Meeting (Annual or Special). That is
why I say that for these pages we have to lock down and explain with a
tag.

Maybe we should move stuff that is not wiki-editable to a non-wiki web
site on the same server. We can give links to it from the wiki. That
would make it clear that it is fixed approved stuff. It would free up
the wiki to be like a wiki. At present most of it is not like a wiki. 

Brian.

 -Liam
 
 
 wittylama.com/blog
 Peace, love  metadata
 
 
 On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Brian Salter-Duke
 b_d...@bigpond.net.auwrote:
 
  There has been a lot of discussion about the official wiki and who
  should be able to edit it. This is in response to the whole debate, so I
  have not kept any other comments.
 
  This wiki is the official wiki. It is how we present ourselves, not just
  to members, but to prospective members, to regulatory bodies, to Glam
  institutions who we hope to work with, with a range of other bodies and
  with the general public.
 
  It is the only place where our rules are displayed, where minutes of
  general and committee meetings are recorded, and a host of other
  official stuff. We are incorporated. We are a legal entity.  We now
  have approval to fund raise in Victoria. We need to apply for fund
  raising approval to all other States and Territories, except the NT. We
  have an ABN. We will be applying for deductible gift recipient (DGR)
  status. All this has to be reflected in our official pages.
 
  We are trying hard to relate in a professional manner with a large range
  of GLAM institutions across the country. They will look to our official
  wiki for reliable information about us. They will judge how serious we
  are by how professional we present ourselves.
 
  The issue is not really about vandalism, but the integrity and
  professionalism of the whole official wiki. Vandalism with certainly
  destroy that, but so will edits that discuss ideas that are not
  officially approved, and edits that are inappropriate. If readers find
  

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-12 Thread Gnangarra
2009/12/12 Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com

 Peter (Halasz), um... your last post is probably not helpful. I happen to
 agree with you that it is a good idea to make the chapter Wiki more open to
 editing. However, this is a discussion about the
 validity/importance/appropriateness of doing so and making inflammatory
 statements risks you falling foul of 'godwins law' and, by corollary, losing
 automatically. :-)

 This discussion here has heard from people who are members, elected
 committee and lapsed members, but I think we've yet to hear from anyone who
 is not a member as to whether they would be more willing to be involved with
 chapter activities. I would like to point to the UK chapter's water
 cooler http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler as an example of the
 kind of active conversations that I think the Chapter should be hosting on
 our Billabong http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Billabong - which is where
 this whole discussion started from. I note with interest that they recently
 had a discussion on that page about whether their wiki should allow IP
 editing or not.

 Could any non-members who are following this discussion please pipe up, as,
 all current discussants are members and by definition are already allowed to
 edit and therefore any change wouldn't affect them very much.



Umm I'm a non-member, well past member who is no longer financial and
believe my editing status has been changed





 In any case, I have added to the agenda of the forthcoming committee
 meeting an item about whether we should change editing rights.

 -Liam [[witty lama]]



 wittylama.com/blog
 Peace, love  metadata


 On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 12:44 AM, Angela bees...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm not sure why there's an assumption that edits by members are
 trustworthy (and edits by others are not). Since anyone can become a
 member, it's not reasonable to expect none of them will ever do
 anything bad on the wiki. And you're going to have a problem blocking
 them from the wiki if editing that is supposed to be something that
 they've been promised in return for their membership fee - do you want
 to have to give back their money if you find you need to block them? A
 better option might be to protect important pages and be quick to
 block problem users.

 Angela

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-- 
GN.
http://gnangarra.redbubble.com/
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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-12 Thread Craig Franklin
I think that presenting editing access to the chapter wiki as a benefit of
membership is a bit silly really.  When I spruik membership to potential
members, the ability to edit our wiki! doesn't even register on the things
I tell them.

 

Perhaps a compromise between the no access for non-members and open
access viewpoints is in order.  We could open access to everyone, provided
they had an account.  Accounts would still need to be approved by someone to
weed out spam bots and the like (having managed a public-facing Wiki, I know
that this is often a serious problem), and perhaps the accounts of
non-members could be sequestered into the user space or something.  If you
look at Wikimedia UK's Recent Changes page, there is a lot of rubbish
there that their admins are having to spend their time cleaning up - frankly
I think our people have better things to do than play janitor on the chapter
wiki.

 

I don't know, apart from the whole open philosophy, I don't see any real
reasons why anyone who is not a member would want to post on our Wiki, and
the fact that the Billabong is quiet. I don't really see that as a problem
since most of the communication and discussion occurs on this list, which is
essentially open to the public anyway.

 

Cheers,

Craig

 

 

From: wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew
Sent: Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM
To: Wikimedia-au
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

 

At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the
official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way
that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit
freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
(and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.

As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective
problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will
be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess
seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal
and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
benefit from it, as against the costs?

cheers
Andrew

2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

Sarah,

The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
non-members is because of fear of vandalism.

Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.

Solutions?

1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be preserved.
4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
longer allowed to edit.

C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?

Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?
And why with such tight control?

Peter Halasz.
User:Pengo
(Lapsed member)


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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-12 Thread private musings
Having open editing for accounts only sounds great to me :-)
If this idea could gain consensus, and get done by christmas I think that
would be wonderful :-)
cheers,
Peter,
PM.

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Craig Franklin cr...@halo-17.net wrote:

  I think that presenting editing access to the chapter wiki as a “benefit”
 of membership is a bit silly really.  When I spruik membership to potential
 members, “the ability to edit our wiki!” doesn’t even register on the things
 I tell them.



 Perhaps a compromise between the “no access for non-members” and “open
 access” viewpoints is in order.  We could open access to everyone, provided
 they had an account.  Accounts would still need to be approved by someone to
 weed out spam bots and the like (having managed a public-facing Wiki, I know
 that this is often a serious problem), and perhaps the accounts of
 non-members could be sequestered into the user space or something.  If you
 look at Wikimedia UK’s “Recent Changes” page, there is a lot of rubbish
 there that their admins are having to spend their time cleaning up – frankly
 I think our people have better things to do than play janitor on the chapter
 wiki.



 I don’t know, apart from the whole “open philosophy”, I don’t see any real
 reasons why anyone who is not a member would want to post on our Wiki, and
 the fact that the Billabong is quiet… I don’t really see that as a problem
 since most of the communication and discussion occurs on this list, which is
 essentially open to the public anyway.



 Cheers,

 Craig





 *From:* wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
 wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Andrew
 *Sent:* Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM
 *To:* Wikimedia-au
 *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki



 At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
 understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the
 official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way
 that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit
 freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
 editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
 (and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
 meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.

 As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective
 problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will
 be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
 partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess
 seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal
 and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
 organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
 attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
 We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
 credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
 official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
 that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
 speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
 imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
 benefit from it, as against the costs?

 cheers
 Andrew

 2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

 Sarah,

 The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
 non-members is because of fear of vandalism.

 Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.

 Solutions?

 1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
 2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
 3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be
 preserved.
 4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
 5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
 6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
 membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
 longer allowed to edit.

 C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?

 Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?
 And why with such tight control?

 Peter Halasz.
 User:Pengo
 (Lapsed member)


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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Andrew
I don't think it's a good idea to remove it - we want to get more member
participation happening in 2010, and there simply wasn't the scope for that
in 2009, hence why it wasn't utilised.

cheers
Andrew

2009/12/11 K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au

 Yes it is possible to edit it, for details:
 mwbot-deux To edit the navigation menu on the left, edit
 [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]] using its special syntax. For more details, see
 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface/Sidebar.

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Liam Wyatt
I too would like to see the chapter wiki being used more, especially for
planning IRL events.
Perhaps the issue is not so much that the Billabong isn't the right place
but that (as mentioned) it's not used by many people as yet - this is
largely a factor of the relatively low number of people who are allowed to
edit. Currently editing rights on the Australian chapter wiki are restricted
to members. I note that the UK chapter's wiki
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Pageallows IP editing (though not on the
mainpage) whilst the other English language chapter (NYC) focuses their
attention on the meta-wiki
pagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_New_York_City(which is
also open for IP editing).

Given this discussion is happening on the wikimedia-au list, rather than the
members'-only list, perhaps it is pertinent to ask: would the subscribers to
this list be more willing to become involved with the Australian chapter's
wiki, events, and eventually perhaps also join the chapter if the Wiki was
open for at least logged-in editing from all people?

One advantage of this would be that we could centralise discussion about
planning activities in Australia on the Australian chapter's wiki rather
than having to split it across Wikipedia's meetup pages. One disadvantage of
this would be that one of the promoted benefits of membership (being able to
edit the wiki) is no longer exclusive.

From a personal point of view, I believe that increasing the editability of
the chapter wiki will increase the number and range of things happening in
Australia and therefore become a driver of membership and activity. But, I'd
like to hear what the current non-members think.

-Liam
(yes, I'm a member)

wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love  metadata


On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Sarah Ewart sarahew...@gmail.com wrote:

 I assume it's the same with our wiki though I haven't actually checked
 myself, but usually editing the MediaWiki interface pages requires admin
 rights. We really don't want people stuffing around at will with the main
 interface. I also agree with Andrew about the Billabong page. It's meant to
 be a page where people can make suggestions and ask for help or whatever and
 we don't want to make it harder for people to find the central
 discussion/help page if they need it. I don't see how it not being used much
 makes a difference. There's only a small number of people who even have
 accounts with edit rights and the website is still very young so you could
 justify removing just about all the sidebar links by saying they're not
 currently used much. As Andrew said, we want to build the membership and as
 the active members grow the central discussion page will become more useful
 and important and in the interim it's there for anyone who needs it.



 On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Andrew orderinchao...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't think it's a good idea to remove it - we want to get more member
 participation happening in 2010, and there simply wasn't the scope for that
 in 2009, hence why it wasn't utilised.

 cheers
 Andrew

 2009/12/11 K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au

 Yes it is possible to edit it, for details:
 mwbot-deux To edit the navigation menu on the left, edit
 [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]] using its special syntax. For more details, see
 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface/Sidebar.

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Andrew
Re planning activities - there doesn't seem much evidence of the meetup
pages being used for planning of any kind at present. Most of the meetup
pages are deadzones, with only Sydney having any recent editing activity
whatsoever (Melbourne and Canberra both show their August meetups as being
next rather than last).

The problem we have is that we're still very much in the outreach phase and
do not yet have critical mass, so discussing events (beyond planning them)
in areas where people are unlikely to find them is somewhat
counterproductive.

I'm not in favour of open editing simply because it is, and should be, a
membership benefit - it is after all our official wiki and announcement
area. I'm not opposed to individuals being granted access from outside when
it suits our purposes to do so - eg our partners in GLAM and elsewhere, or
any other official collaborations which explicitly pull in non-Wikimedians.

cheers
Andrew

2009/12/11 Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com

 I too would like to see the chapter wiki being used more, especially for
 planning IRL events.
 Perhaps the issue is not so much that the Billabong isn't the right place
 but that (as mentioned) it's not used by many people as yet - this is
 largely a factor of the relatively low number of people who are allowed to
 edit. Currently editing rights on the Australian chapter wiki are restricted
 to members. I note that the UK chapter's wiki
 http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Pageallows IP editing (though not on
 the mainpage) whilst the other English language chapter (NYC) focuses their
 attention on the meta-wiki 
 pagehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_New_York_City(which is also 
 open for IP editing).

 Given this discussion is happening on the wikimedia-au list, rather than
 the members'-only list, perhaps it is pertinent to ask: would the
 subscribers to this list be more willing to become involved with the
 Australian chapter's wiki, events, and eventually perhaps also join the
 chapter if the Wiki was open for at least logged-in editing from all people?

 One advantage of this would be that we could centralise discussion about
 planning activities in Australia on the Australian chapter's wiki rather
 than having to split it across Wikipedia's meetup pages. One disadvantage of
 this would be that one of the promoted benefits of membership (being able to
 edit the wiki) is no longer exclusive.

 From a personal point of view, I believe that increasing the editability of
 the chapter wiki will increase the number and range of things happening in
 Australia and therefore become a driver of membership and activity. But, I'd
 like to hear what the current non-members think.

 -Liam
 (yes, I'm a member)

 wittylama.com/blog
 Peace, love  metadata



 On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Sarah Ewart sarahew...@gmail.comwrote:

 I assume it's the same with our wiki though I haven't actually checked
 myself, but usually editing the MediaWiki interface pages requires admin
 rights. We really don't want people stuffing around at will with the main
 interface. I also agree with Andrew about the Billabong page. It's meant to
 be a page where people can make suggestions and ask for help or whatever and
 we don't want to make it harder for people to find the central
 discussion/help page if they need it. I don't see how it not being used much
 makes a difference. There's only a small number of people who even have
 accounts with edit rights and the website is still very young so you could
 justify removing just about all the sidebar links by saying they're not
 currently used much. As Andrew said, we want to build the membership and as
 the active members grow the central discussion page will become more useful
 and important and in the interim it's there for anyone who needs it.



 On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Andrew orderinchao...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't think it's a good idea to remove it - we want to get more member
 participation happening in 2010, and there simply wasn't the scope for that
 in 2009, hence why it wasn't utilised.

 cheers
 Andrew

 2009/12/11 K. Peachey p858sn...@yahoo.com.au

 Yes it is possible to edit it, for details:
 mwbot-deux To edit the navigation menu on the left, edit
 [[MediaWiki:Sidebar]] using its special syntax. For more details, see
 http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Interface/Sidebar.

 ___
 Wikimediaau-l mailing list
 Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l


 n

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 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l



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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Liam Wyatt
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Sarah Ewart sarahew...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:01 AM, Gnangarra gnanga...@gmail.com wrote:


 2009/12/11 Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com

 One disadvantage of this would be that one of the promoted benefits of
 membership (being able to edit the wiki) is no longer exclusive.


 Seriously is this a benefit,
 whats the wiki for
 why would anyone join up just to edit the wiki


 No one will ever join the chapter to get editing rights. The connection of
 editing rights granted to members and motivation for membership is a step
 too far and illogical. I don't think anyone really believes that editing
 rights is a motivation for joining, but it is a right granted to members.
 Most, possibly all, people join the chapter because they want to support it
 and that's it.

 However, I don't support opening editing for the reasons that were raised
 by several people when this was last discussed a few months ago. We have in
 the past granted editing rights to people for special reasons (as Andrew
 referred to, we gave GLAM partners access for organising and working on
 GLAM) but in general I support editing remaining as a membership right.


If no one will join in order to get the right to edit then its value as a
right is relatively small. Maybe in the future it will indeed be a valuable
right (like some professional associations have log-in websites too) but for
the moment having it closed seem to be benefiting neither the members or the
non-(potential)-members.

The giving of the special access to people has happened, IIRC with two
accounts. Both were War Memorial staff who were helping with the preparation
of GLAM-WIKI and not as a thankyou or benefit of having been a partner in
the event. On the other hand, the reason why the GLAM-WIKI
recommendationshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_Recommendationslive
at meta rather than at the chapter wiki (where they, ideally, should
have resided) was to allow people to comment on them.




  though that Wikimedia is built on a philopsy of anyone can edit, surely
 promoting that philopsy is the aim of the chapter. Wouldnt it be wise for
 Wikimedia-Australia to hold that as corner stone of its purpose. Does anyone
 think that the goals and ideals which we hold dear should not be what we
 present in our public place.


 I think this is flawed logic too. The Wikimedia Foundation's own website is
 invitation only, as is the internal wiki, the Chapter's wiki, the OTRS wiki,
 the ArbCom wiki, etc. All for different reasons, but the idea that we should
 open editing to anyone because Wikipedia is built on a philosphy of open
 editing is a wonky rationale IMO. We aren't Wikipedia and we're not
 obligated to run the chapter in the same way Wikipedia runs. The main reason
 I don't support opening editing up is that we lack an online community to
 deal with the problematic edits and vandalism etc that we'll inevitably have
 to deal with. It's the public face of the chapter and the pages need to be
 maintained accurately, the membership pages, minutes and resolutions need to
 have integrity.

 The UK chapters' website restricts editability to the various pages that
are of importance e.g. meeting minuteshttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings,
donation http://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/,
constitutionhttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Constitution...
but because it allows editing by default anyone can contribute to
volunteerhttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer
and water cooler http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler. The
integrity of the things that need to remain stable is maintained, but it
still allows for people to engage. On the other hand, neither the
Frenchhttp://www.wikimedia.fr/and
German http://www.wikimedia.de/ chapter websites are wikis - they're
normal read-only websites. I think both of these latter chapters are
something that the Australia can aspire to in terms of capacity, activities,
members and pretty-website-ness, but the UK chapter is probably a fairer
comparison because our chapters are effectively the same age and have the
same budgets (up till now).



 The chapter Wiki as a way of facilitating discussion within the Australian
 community is a good starting point, let it be a host for members to write
 about their wiki experiences, to seek help in opening doors to the GLAM
 sector, let it be somewhere for non wiki people to seek assistance in
 opening their doors and making what they have collected freely available to
 all.


 I also disagree with this. The chapter's wiki is a special purpose wiki,
 its official website and public face, it's not a free all-purpose hosting
 venue.


I don't think that being a place where people who are interested in
Australian Wikimedia activities can discuss things is considered
all-purpose hosting. Sure, if people start spamming etc. we would have to
respond somehow (I would suggest requiring login - no IP editing) but if
people start talking *too much* on the chapter wiki then I 

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread private musings
re : 'I though that Wikimedia is built on a philopsy of anyone can edit,
surely promoting that philopsy is the aim of the chapter. Wouldnt it be wise
for Wikimedia-Australia to hold that as corner stone of its purpose. Does
anyone think that the goals and ideals which we hold dear should not be
what we present in our public place.'
Yes yes yes! I'm another strong supporter of open access editing for the
wmau wiki - I think it's a really good idea, and is borderline embarassing
that it's currently restricted :-)
best,
Peter,
PM.
On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Sarah Ewart sarahew...@gmail.com wrote:


 On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 2:01 AM, Gnangarra gnanga...@gmail.com wrote:


 2009/12/11 Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com

 One disadvantage of this would be that one of the promoted benefits of
 membership (being able to edit the wiki) is no longer exclusive.


 Seriously is this a benefit,
 whats the wiki for
 why would anyone join up just to edit the wiki


 No one will ever join the chapter to get editing rights. The connection of
 editing rights granted to members and motivation for membership is a step
 too far and illogical. I don't think anyone really believes that editing
 rights is a motivation for joining, but it is a right granted to members.
 Most, possibly all, people join the chapter because they want to support it
 and that's it.

 However, I don't support opening editing for the reasons that were raised
 by several people when this was last discussed a few months ago. We have in
 the past granted editing rights to people for special reasons (as Andrew
 referred to, we gave GLAM partners access for organising and working on
 GLAM) but in general I support editing remaining as a membership right.


 If no one will join in order to get the right to edit then its value as a
 right is relatively small. Maybe in the future it will indeed be a valuable
 right (like some professional associations have log-in websites too) but for
 the moment having it closed seem to be benefiting neither the members or the
 non-(potential)-members.

 The giving of the special access to people has happened, IIRC with two
 accounts. Both were War Memorial staff who were helping with the preparation
 of GLAM-WIKI and not as a thankyou or benefit of having been a partner in
 the event. On the other hand, the reason why the GLAM-WIKI 
 recommendationshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_Recommendationslive 
 at meta rather than at the chapter wiki (where they, ideally, should
 have resided) was to allow people to comment on them.




  though that Wikimedia is built on a philopsy of anyone can edit, surely
 promoting that philopsy is the aim of the chapter. Wouldnt it be wise for
 Wikimedia-Australia to hold that as corner stone of its purpose. Does anyone
 think that the goals and ideals which we hold dear should not be what we
 present in our public place.


 I think this is flawed logic too. The Wikimedia Foundation's own website
 is invitation only, as is the internal wiki, the Chapter's wiki, the OTRS
 wiki, the ArbCom wiki, etc. All for different reasons, but the idea that we
 should open editing to anyone because Wikipedia is built on a philosphy of
 open editing is a wonky rationale IMO. We aren't Wikipedia and we're not
 obligated to run the chapter in the same way Wikipedia runs. The main reason
 I don't support opening editing up is that we lack an online community to
 deal with the problematic edits and vandalism etc that we'll inevitably have
 to deal with. It's the public face of the chapter and the pages need to be
 maintained accurately, the membership pages, minutes and resolutions need to
 have integrity.

 The UK chapters' website restricts editability to the various pages that
 are of importance e.g. meeting minuteshttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings,
 donation http://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/, 
 constitutionhttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Constitution...
 but because it allows editing by default anyone can contribute to 
 volunteer http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer and water 
 coolerhttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler.
 The integrity of the things that need to remain stable is maintained, but it
 still allows for people to engage. On the other hand, neither the 
 Frenchhttp://www.wikimedia.fr/and
 German http://www.wikimedia.de/ chapter websites are wikis - they're
 normal read-only websites. I think both of these latter chapters are
 something that the Australia can aspire to in terms of capacity, activities,
 members and pretty-website-ness, but the UK chapter is probably a fairer
 comparison because our chapters are effectively the same age and have the
 same budgets (up till now).



 The chapter Wiki as a way of facilitating discussion within the
 Australian community is a good starting point, let it be a host for members
 to write about their wiki experiences, to seek help in opening doors to the
 GLAM sector, let 

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Andrew
At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the
official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way
that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit
freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
(and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.

As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective
problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will
be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess
seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal
and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
benefit from it, as against the costs?

cheers
Andrew

2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

 Sarah,

 The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
 non-members is because of fear of vandalism.

 Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.

 Solutions?

 1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
 2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
 3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be
 preserved.
 4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
 5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
 6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
 membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
 longer allowed to edit.

 C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?

 Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?
 And why with such tight control?

 Peter Halasz.
 User:Pengo
 (Lapsed member)

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Andrew
(Note that my comments above are addressed to a hypothetical situation of
open editing, not the current situation which is manageable by any objective
standard.)

2009/12/12 Andrew orderinchao...@gmail.com

 At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
 understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is the
 official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a way
 that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can edit
 freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
 editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
 (and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
 meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.

 As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest prospective
 problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we will
 be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
 partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture, edginess
 seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our legal
 and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
 organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
 attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
 We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
 credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
 official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
 that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
 speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
 imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
 benefit from it, as against the costs?

 cheers
 Andrew

 2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

 Sarah,

 The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
 non-members is because of fear of vandalism.

 Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.

 Solutions?

 1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
 2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
 3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be
 preserved.
 4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
 5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
 6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
 membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
 longer allowed to edit.

 C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?

 Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?
 And why with such tight control?

 Peter Halasz.
 User:Pengo
 (Lapsed member)

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 Wikimediaau-l mailing list
 Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l



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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Peter Halasz
Here's my reasons for why ordinary people (i.e. non-members) just
might like to edit the site from the last time this discussion was
had:

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Lloyd Nguyen zero1...@gmail.com wrote:

I think I have to ask, what kind of things could/would a non-member
edit on the site?

They might like to RSVP to an event. That's the main thing that comes to mind.

Also discussion pages (discuss a policy or concern), or fix a typo or
formatting.

And they might like to be able to contribute in the time leading up to
taking on membership.

And there will be unforeseen reasons too. I know this is a friendly
discussion, but it feels odd having to justify why a wiki should be
open here.

Lastly, it's a bit of a turn off having to email someone and waiting
for response to get access, and I'm sure there are people who simply
would see that requirement as being too much bother in comparison to
the edit they want to make, or even take the restriction as being less
than than welcoming.

If spam is the main reason to have accounts, would using a CAPTCHA for
non-confirmed accounts help? (is that a simple option in Mediawiki?)

Otherwise I'd recommend nothing more restrictive than confirm email
address to edit

Peter Halasz

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Andrew
That is called framing the question. Of course *that* kind of
participation would be unproblematic. But let's not forget the minutes,
resolutions and official activities of the chapter are hosted there, along
with our Statement of Purpose and etc. Like I said, as a non-profit
organisation we have obligations both to the membership and to the registry
(CAV in our case), and those who visit our site should be able to trust what
they read as far as it pertains to our organisation and its activities.

2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com

 You think that by opening the wiki up to users with autoconfirmed
 email addresses, so that they might put themselves down as attending
 an event, we are at risk of being misrepresented and discredited?

 I'm sorry I'm not bothering to participate in this conversation any longer.

 Peter Halasz
 User:Pengo

 On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Andrew orderinchao...@gmail.com wrote:
  At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
  understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this is
 the
  official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up in such a
 way
  that those that are willing to support the aims of the organisation can
 edit
  freely. I don't know of any other similar organisations which offer open
  editing or participation - one I know that runs meetings for its members
  (and this is just networking!) charges $10 for non-members to attend a
  meeting; another runs closed email lists that non-members can't even see.
 
  As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest
 prospective
  problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the risk that we
 will
  be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of those we seek to build
  partnerships with. In the relatively insular world of free culture,
 edginess
  seems like a good thing, but in the real world, quite apart from our
 legal
  and other obligations with CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large
  organisations, governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their
  attention with more professional outfits which can offer them something.
  We're asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
  credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our
  official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem in
  that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not even
  speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such circumstances is an
  imposition on them and a completely unnecessary one - what do we stand to
  benefit from it, as against the costs?
 
  cheers
  Andrew
 
  2009/12/12 Peter Halasz qub...@gmail.com
 
  Sarah,
 
  The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to
  non-members is because of fear of vandalism.
 
  Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.
 
  Solutions?
 
  1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.
  2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week
  3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be
  preserved.
  4. Requiring wiki users to sign in
  5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing
  6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their
  membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no
  longer allowed to edit.
 
  C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?
 
  Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?
  And why with such tight control?
 
  Peter Halasz.
  User:Pengo
  (Lapsed member)
 
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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Peter Halasz
So lock those specific pages. Have you ever used Wikipedia? Do you
think it would exist if they were worried only about representation?

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Peter Halasz
You are charging volunteers to help you.

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Peter Halasz
Omg the terrorists are coming! They are armed with web browsers of
mass destruction and are going to change our constitution to say jimmy
wales is a poo!

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Angela
I'm not sure why there's an assumption that edits by members are
trustworthy (and edits by others are not). Since anyone can become a
member, it's not reasonable to expect none of them will ever do
anything bad on the wiki. And you're going to have a problem blocking
them from the wiki if editing that is supposed to be something that
they've been promised in return for their membership fee - do you want
to have to give back their money if you find you need to block them? A
better option might be to protect important pages and be quick to
block problem users.

Angela

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Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

2009-12-11 Thread Liam Wyatt
Peter (Halasz), um... your last post is probably not helpful. I happen to
agree with you that it is a good idea to make the chapter Wiki more open to
editing. However, this is a discussion about the
validity/importance/appropriateness of doing so and making inflammatory
statements risks you falling foul of 'godwins law' and, by corollary, losing
automatically. :-)

This discussion here has heard from people who are members, elected
committee and lapsed members, but I think we've yet to hear from anyone who
is not a member as to whether they would be more willing to be involved with
chapter activities. I would like to point to the UK chapter's water
coolerhttp://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler
as an example of the kind of active conversations that I think the Chapter
should be hosting on our Billabong http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Billabong
- which is where this whole discussion started from. I note with interest
that they recently had a discussion on that page about whether their wiki
should allow IP editing or not.

Could any non-members who are following this discussion please pipe up, as,
all current discussants are members and by definition are already allowed to
edit and therefore any change wouldn't affect them very much.

In any case, I have added to the agenda of the forthcoming committee meeting
an item about whether we should change editing rights.

-Liam [[witty lama]]


wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love  metadata


On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 12:44 AM, Angela bees...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm not sure why there's an assumption that edits by members are
 trustworthy (and edits by others are not). Since anyone can become a
 member, it's not reasonable to expect none of them will ever do
 anything bad on the wiki. And you're going to have a problem blocking
 them from the wiki if editing that is supposed to be something that
 they've been promised in return for their membership fee - do you want
 to have to give back their money if you find you need to block them? A
 better option might be to protect important pages and be quick to
 block problem users.

 Angela

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