Thanks for your feedback, Lane and Peaceray.
I do recognize Lane's concerns with moving outside of Meta and Wikipedia.
Building a community at Cascadia.wiki and having to maintain the site will
have its challenges. However, like Peacray mentioned, asking someone to
visit Meta-Wiki and find the Cascadia Wikimedians page, or even asking
someone to go to Wikipedia to find a theoretical project page for Cascadia
Wikimedians has its own challenges.
If we are to be seen as a group organizing "real life" activities and
event, I think we need to have a website with the standard info we find
online about other organizations: "about us", goals, bios for board members
and volunteers/staff, calendar of upcoming events, grant requests and
reports, contact info, etc.) Even if we organized our activities mostly
using Meta-Wiki or English Wikipedia, I can still see benefits to having an
external wiki... Possibly as an information/reporting repository moreso
than a hub for organizing projects. Really, we would just have to see what
happens organically.
Having our own website will also mean we have the opportunity to brand
ourselves a bit, to have a hub for social media links, signing up for an
email mailing list, etc. Essentially, having an online presence and
appearing more professional, like Lane mentioned.
As for a redirect, I can speak with my colleagues, but I think it should
not come as a surprise that a company donating a domain and hosting
services might expect the domain to be used (I am speaking personally and
independently of my employer). I'll try to start work on an agreement b/w
TLD and WCUG, while also recognizing that this is an ongoing conversation
re: both .wiki and even the use of an external website for the group.
Jason
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Raymond Leonard <
raymond.f.leonard.jr(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everybody,
I really like the idea of Cascadia.wiki. I agree with some of the
sentiments about having it initially be a redirect to a Wikimedia project
page even if we decide to eventually be separate from the WMF web
properties. I think that the ability to tell people to go to Cascadia.wiki
will be much simpler and so much more direct than having people go to
meta.wikimedia.org then search for Cascadia Wikimedians or Wikimedia
Cascadia. The casual user is probably unaware of
meta.wikimedia.org;
Cascadia.wiki is just easy to remember.
I trust both Another Believer's / Jason's company & the company that hosts
SeaFOSS on your (plural) recommendations. Thus, it seems to be basically a
matter of logistics. I just think that we need to hash it out via a
face-to-face whether that is in the same room or via Skype or Google
Hangouts.
Yours,
Peaceray
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Lane Rasberry <lane(a)bluerasberry.com>
wrote:
Hello,
I support the use of a .wiki endorsement. I would support affiliation
with Top Level Design, Jason's company, because I feel that anyone using
wikis in any context is a benefit to the entire Wikimedia project, and
because I feel like the favoritism given to the registrar for this domain
is not significantly different as compared to favoritism given to someone
doing a .com or .org registration. Also I feel that an affiliation with
that company is an ideal partnership, because their very existence is
premised on the past and future success of Wikimedia projects and the
strength of any community groups in the region.
Having a website off the Wikimedia projects might look professional but
without multiple people to manage it then I am not convinced this is a
priority. There is no Wikimedia group which has built community around
their off-wiki website in the English language, and I doubt there is one at
all. Off-wiki websites can be present past achieves to impress people who
do project review, perhaps as part of a grant evaluation. Going off wiki
typically means going off watchlists and out of touch with the Wikimedia
community. In my opinion, staying in Wikimedia projects, perhaps with a
.wiki redirect to a project page, is the most natural choice until there is
a volunteer labor surplus and the organization navigates past its first
cycle of grant requesting and reporting. Setting up a website achieves no
stated early goal that I recognize. Content on Wikipedia could always be
migrated to another website at a later time.
yours,
On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 7:02 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, as of right now the board hasn't
delegated any of its authority,
which is an issue that will be addressed when we have bylaws so that a
board vote isn't necessary for every decision. We may also pass some
resolutions for temporary delegation of responsibility until the bylaws are
finalized. For now, though, we'll need a board vote to approve obtaining
property. Our Meta talk page would be a good place to do this for matters
that aren't confidential. Jason, I suggest that you ask the relevant person
in your org to draft a contract that specifies that Cascadia Wikimedians
User Group will be donated ownership of the cascadia.wiki domain, and
specifies how hosting arrangements and costs will be arranged (no cost is
great), and the procedure for transferring hosting of the domain if we
decide to host elsewhere. After we get a copyof the proposal, our board can
review it, and discuss and vote on our Meta talk page. It would be nice if
the agreement is produced under a Commons-compatible license so it can be
reviewed by the public on Commons and potentially reused by others.
Thanks!
Pine
On Dec 8, 2014 5:03 PM, "Jason Moore" <anotherbelieverwp(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
And transferring ownership of the domain may be
fine with the company,
too. I'm not sure if/how domain registrations differ between individuals
and organizations (not my area of expertise), but again I am happy to
continue liaising between CWUG and the company and answer any specific
questions re: registration and hosting.
I've not heard any resistance to the domain cascadia.wiki for our
group, so shall we continue moving forward with this plan or do we need to
raise the question with other board members or at meta?
Jason
On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Benj. Mako Hill <mako(a)atdot.cc> wrote:
>
> <quote who="Jason Moore" date="Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:14:00PM
-0800">
> > Cascadia.wiki is currently being reserved and could be made
> available at my
> > request despite being considered a "premium" name.
>
> Got it. :)
>
> > That being said, if the group is more comfortable with tasking
> > someone to accept transfer of the domain and maintain
> > hosting/renewals under his/her own name, we can help with those
> > arrangements, too. I am not sure what additional detail is needed,
> > but if you have specific questions or concerns, I'd be happy to
> > respond.
>
> I think that our long term plan should to have the domain ownership
> transfered to our organization. I don't mind if the technical contact,
> registration fees, and hosting is donated (in fact, that sounds
> wonderful!) but I think it is wise that our organization and its board
> have ownership and ultimate over the domain that people use to find
> us.
>
> Thank you so much for offering to organize this!
>
> Regards,
> Mako
>
>
> --
> Benjamin Mako Hill
>
http://mako.cc/
>
> Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far
> as society is free to use the results. --GNU Manifesto
>
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user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com
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