<div>Having open editing for accounts only sounds great to me :-)<br></div><div></div><div>If this idea could gain consensus, and get done by christmas I think that would be wonderful :-)</div><div></div><div>cheers,</div>
<div></div><div>Peter,</div><div>PM.</div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Craig Franklin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:craig@halo-17.net">craig@halo-17.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Cheers,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Craig</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">
<a href="mailto:wikimediaau-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">wikimediaau-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:wikimediaau-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">wikimediaau-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Andrew<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Wikimedia-au<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki</span></p>
</div><div><div class="h5">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">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.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
cheers<br>
Andrew</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">2009/12/12 Peter Halasz <<a href="mailto:qubero@gmail.com" target="_blank">qubero@gmail.com</a>></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sarah,<br>
<br>
The only actual reason you've given for not opening up the wiki to<br>
non-members is because of fear of vandalism.<br>
<br>
Ok, so we have a problem: Potential vandalism.<br>
<br>
Solutions?<br>
<br>
1. Actually observe actual vandalism before locking anything down.<br>
2. Assign a couple of people to patrolling recent changes once a week<br>
3. Locking individual pages when we require their integrity to be preserved.<br>
4. Requiring wiki users to sign in<br>
5. Requiring new wiki users to wait 3 days before editing<br>
6. Banning everyone but paid members, who, after paying their<br>
membership, can apply for an account, which, when it expires, is no<br>
longer allowed to edit.<br>
<br>
C'mon, seriously? You went with #6? To combat vandalism?<br>
<br>
Although, as you say, we CAN keep the wiki locked up, why SHOULD we?<br>
And why with such tight control?<br>
<span style="color:#888888"><br>
Peter Halasz.<br>
User:Pengo<br>
(Lapsed member)</span></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
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