Dear all,
I'd like to draw to your attention this joint statement with the Foundation
which I have just, with the authority of the Board, posted on our blog
regarding the management of conflicts of interests and this year's
fundraiser.
http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/joint-statement-from-wikimedia-foundat…
Regards,
Chris Keating
Chair, Wikimedia UK
FYI,
No website for 2013 as yet, but see...
http://2012.foss4g.org/http://foss4g.org/
Context:
1) Open Source, Open Knowledge, Open Data.
2) A major international conference comes to the UK.
Gordo
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [OSGeo-UK] FOSS4G is coming to Nottingham!
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 09:32:58 +0100
From: Jo Cook <jocook(a)astuntechnology.com>
To: uk(a)lists.osgeo.org uk(a)lists.osgeo.org <uk(a)lists.osgeo.org>
Dear All,
As you may have heard, FOSS4G will be coming to Nottingham in 2013! Our
heartfelt thanks to anyone who helped with the bidding process,
particularly those people that wrote a letter of support for the bid.
Keep listening for further announcements and news as organisation
progresses!
Thanks again
Jo
--
*Jo Cook*
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey,
KT18 7RL, UK
t:+44 750 095 8167
iShare - Data integration and publishing platform
<http://www.isharemaps.com/>
*****************************************
Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales.
Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no.
864201149.
Dear all,
It's Ada Lovelace Day on 16 October and it's most suitable for Wikimedia UK
to get involved. The day exists to celebrate the contributions of women in
the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As you may
know, Ada Lovelace is considered the first programmer, due to her work on
Charles Babbage's analytical engine. As such, she's someone we can very
much hold up as a role model. Wikimedia UK is organising a Women in Science
themed editing event for Ada Lovelace Day on* Friday 19 October* 2012 and
would like to invite you to attend!
We have organised a group 'Edit-a-thon' to improve Wikipedia articles about
women in science, held at the Royal Society's library, London, 2:30-6pm. We
had a very high response from the academic community, and we filled many
more spaces than expected! However, there are still a couple of places free
for people who would like to help train new contributors - please get in
touch if you are interested. There will also be opportunities to get
involved online, which we will publish at our Wikimedia UK event's
page<http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace_Day_2012>(see below).
Following the Edit-a-thon there will be an panel discussion with Uta Frith
from the Royal Society and other female scientists on women in science (the
focus will be much broader than just the representation of the topic on
Wikipedia). The panel discussion will take place from* 6:30pm - 8:00pm, *and
you are most welcome to attend - there are still free places available, so
please feel free to register here
*http://royalsociety.org/events/2012/wikipedia-workshop/*
Wikimedia UK also has a page for the event, which you can see here
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace_Day_2012
Hope to see many of you there.
Best,
Daria
--
Daria Cybulska - Events Organiser, Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 207 065 0994
+44 7803 505 170
--
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).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
Certainly my sense of the various discussions over the past 18 months is
that there's near-consensus on STV as the best alternative to the current
system. I intend to draft a motion with new election rules for STV; if
anyone has other systems they'd like to put forward I'll be happy to draft
election rules for them.
However, if we have more than two systems to choose between, we then have
to decide which system to choose to decide which system we use...
On 17 September 2012 22:54, rexx <rexx(a)blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> The problem probably lies with the volume of business on each board
> meeting agenda. We're only just keeping up with the business, and as much
> as I'd like to see a constructive discussion and a positive decision made
> on the future election process, I personally won't find the time in the
> near future to organise an EGM.
>
> I'm encouraged by James' offer, and the more volunteers we have who would
> be willing to devote some time into defining the parameters for discussion
> (maybe a proposer and seconder for a resolution?), or suggesting possible
> timescales and venues for an EGM, the easier it gets to fulfil our
> commitment to having a new process in place by the next AGM.
>
> All contributions are welcome.
>
> --
> Doug
>
>
>
> On 17 September 2012 22:24, James Farrar <james.farrar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Now that I am no longer in the process of getting married, I can start
>> making some progress on this.
>> On Sep 17, 2012 9:48 PM, "Chris Keating" <chriskeatingwiki(a)gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:37 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Chris, if I may at least ask for a very short clarification of the no:
>>>> are you confirming there has been no communication/decision on the issue on
>>>> board level, or do you confirm there will be no such EGM (as far as the
>>>> board is concerned)?
>>>
>>>
>>> There has been no progress. :-)
>>>
>>> Personally I would quite like some progress, and think we ought to use
>>> STV - it would be great if people could get drafting resolutions.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>>> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
>> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>
>>
>
Hi,
The Wikimedia UK Conference Committee is currently considering location
for the 2013 WikiConference UK and AGM. So far we have quotes for the
following locations.
* Birmingham x 1
* Coventry x 1
* Edinburgh x 1
* Lincoln x 1-2
* Manchester x 3
* Oxford x 2-3
Do you consider that's enough to make a decision from, or do you believe
the committee should gather more quotes from possibly other cities first?
Please comment at
<http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:WikiConference_UK_2013#Location_decision>
regarding the above, including any specific comments on the location itself.
Thanks,
Katie
--
Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
- Heinrich Heine
Hi all,
I would like to thank Thomas Morton for his well thought explanation
addressed to Roger (Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:51:10 +0100). It covered a number
of points I felt need addressing and Tom put them in a useful and tactful
way - much better than I could have hoped to do.
However, I would like to address some ramifications of this.
>This is one reason why charities are often run by older, retired, types who
>do not need to go out and earn a living.
Quite so. However, one of the consequences of the phenomenal success of WP
is that the potential development of where we are now has created space
for activity beyond that which WMUK as a charity is best placed to carry
out.
a) Wikiversity has a great potential, however the development of such a
repository of Open Educational Resources (OERs) will be very slow without
people being paid - not so much for editing but for delivering teaching
which uses WV as a platform, creating OERs free for other people to use.
The dynamic for this is quite different from WP and Wikicommons.
I have not been involved in all the sister projects, but suspect that they
will each have their own dynamic, which needs to be addressed in its own
terms.
b) Linked to a) is the delivery of training in how to use WP. It seems to
me very straight forward to see WV as an ideal platform for this. There is
also much to be learnt from WikiEducator, which uses a Mediawiki in
conjunction wit the moodle software.
c) Another aspect of this is that I have noticed that some of the people
who attend WMUK training sessions are people who are employed by learned
societies as Social Media Officers. While I find volunteering to train
other volunteers quite attractive, when it comes to giving time freely in
order help in the training for paid workers of organisations I am
confident that i am not the only person who finds this a bit awkward.
Likewise as we welcome academics who stipulate that their students achieve
certain goals in order to pass a course, this to me creates a market for
delivering training outside a volunteer - to -volunteer framework.
Aside from the problems which have arisen from Roger being a trustee, I
think the work he has done is amazing and really innovative. I would like
to see it continue. However what I feel would really facilitate this is
the creation of a not-for-profit social enterprise which would provide a
structured way in which innovations like QRpedia could be placed in
relation to both WMUK, WMF and the broader community.
I feel that our community has an amazing range of diverse talents, and
that if the possibilities provoked by WPs success are to be realised, then
we need to develop a way in which the ethos of unpaid editing of WP itself
can be balanced with other roles which are emerging which are peripheral
to editing but which can greatly enhance WP and its sister projects.
I hope that the recent experiences at WMUK will stimulate a discussion
about how such a social enterprise might be set up, how the ethos of
collaborative working and sharing of resources might be taken forward, how
this can be done in a way which does not disrupt the very success which WP
has enjoyed, and how such a social enterprise can contribute towards
fundraising for WMUK to deliver its charitable goals.
If such a discussion is got going now, there is some prospect that we
could have a concrete proposal which has been mulled over by the community
in time for the next AGM.
As Tom said:
>Bottom line; you (as a board), we even, fucked up. Not maliciously, but
>very badly. You lost sight of the wider objective.
>But it's not something to beat each other up over. Learn from it, make
>improvements, move on.
I am proposing this as a way of moving on in a way which keeps people like
Roger with their brilliant ideas involved but not as trustees.
all the best
Fabian
(User:Leutha)
Three unconference events in the next fortnight:
I shall be at MuseumCamp in Birmingham tomorrow:
http://museumcamp.eventbrite.co.uk
Do we have anyone attending "BarCampNFP":
http://barcampnonprofits.com
in London on Thursday this week? All tickets are sold out. I've only
just heard of it.
Do we have anyone attending LibraryCamp (LibCamp) in Birmingham:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3931870330
on Saturday 13 October? I was going, but I'm going to Wikimedia CCE instead.
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
I appreciate that recent events have overtaken things to an extent but I
wondered what the status is with
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012_Five_Year_Plan? On the page ist says "This
version will be discussed at a special board meeting to be held during
Wikimania in Washington" - did that happen?
It seems in fairly good shape, although it could do with a section saying
how progress towards achieving the plan will be reviewed. The best thing
may be to adopt it as is until the next review.
We do five year plans at our work and they work in a rolling format - i.e.
each year you do another five year plan based on the last and extending out
another year. This works fairly well and I'd recommend it as an approach.
--
Andrew Turvey
--
07403 216 991
@AndrewTurvey <https://twitter.com/#!/AndrewTurvey>
http://www.facebook.com/andrew.turveyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/User:AndrewRThttp://englishwikipedian.blogspot.co.uk/
I see Jon has gone through the 2013 plan cutting it back:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=2013_Activity_Plan&diff=29303&old…
With a comment on the talk page saying: "adjusted to reflect board
agreement to draw back on 2013 commitments".
I don't know if my suggestion to it cut it back played a part in the
board's decision, but if it did than thank you for listening! However,
I am concerned about the way the budget has been cut back. They've
just gone through reducing each budget item, rather than actually
removing anything (apart from two of the developer posts).
Without a breakdown of the budgets, it is difficult to know what they
are actually planning, but if you want to reduce the budget you have
to do it by planning to do less, not just planning to do it cheaper.
For example, the GLAM conference budget has been cut from £25k to
£15k. If £25k is what it costs to run the conference, then you need to
either budget £25k for it or cancel it. Likewise, the VLE project has
been cut from £10k to £5k - it's a set amount of work, so either you
have to pay what it costs or not do it, you can't just do half of it
(I suppose you could spread it over two years, but that means there
would be very little gain in the first year, so why not just postpone
it completely?).
If you just cut the budget like this, but still plan to do all the
same things, you're just going to find you are going over budget on
everything...
Ok, the decision has been made and Wikimedia UK will not be taking part in
the annual fundraiser. It's ridiculous management speak, but let's view
this as an opportunity.
Wikimedia UK now has a fundraiser on staff who will unexpectedly have a lot
spare time. This is an excellent opportunity to start broadening the
charity's revenue sources. Perhaps Katherine can produce an options paper?