Guys,
I do check this list from time to time, and stay across the conversations at
the foundation- l list although, like so many others I'd never go there. But
we are starting to see something approaching a strategy now, so can I bring
up what Samuel was saying earlier about the proliferation of mail lists, and
Guillaume Came back with about "the foundation forgetting their volunteer
basis".
We seem to be stuck in this limbo, even while people make the obvious points
continuously. E.g I had the pleasure of meeting Sue Garner at the GLAMwiki
in Australia. You might know that we've got some recommendations that will
apply in other countries as well as Australia (just by the by)
http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/GLAM. The main one being Publish stable and
clean URLs for individual item records in collections, incorporating
persistent identifiers.
The other main one is, Use a "free-culture" Creative Commons license (either
CC-by or CC-by-SA) for content on GLAM websites. I think it will require a
Minister to create a policy for this, and I'm working on that, not just for
Wikimedia project but others. In the meantime , you can see wikiaus are
trying to coordinate with the GLAM's over here, and around the globe
(because GLAMs have global communities like wikimedians, for much longer
periods of time).
So we need to coordinate our activities with other people in other
countries; many of whom have asked for a moderated web forum ever since I
came here years ago. I seen others set up forums on the side, which
disappeared after a while because they were strategically ignored by head
office. Hey, I can't figure out why the culture closed down over the years.
I take it there are a million emails going backwards and forwards to and
from San Fran, below the radar, all duplicating similar messages ad
infinitum. Just read through this mail list to get some idea. (The GT tool
helps to make sense of an overpopulated email list. (with entries not
people). I'll point you at an entry by Tim, as he's usually so quiet,
knowledgeable and patient.)
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/177857#177857
Now I'm not a young man, and my eyes are poor, and twitter is out of the
questions, because i need time to think what needs to be done all the way
through. So IRC is OK for my younger peers but nothing I can communicate
with, and emails are scattered around a hundred lists. So my 30 years of
starting and running companies is nothing which I might contribute to WMF's
strategy. Like Samuel, I need some modicum of structure. So let me just
point at two web forums. http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ and
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ The content isn't important, just the
design. I'm sure others would have their suggestions, which I'd like to
hear. All I can suggest is that HO might give forums a try, like so may have
ask for continuously over the years. If you see how these two communities
moderate, they rarely delete, they just move distractions and repetitions to
a 'room's thread, where people can talk through what's on their mind, as
loudly and as passionately as they like. And keep the record of a subject
where it can be found, easily.
With regard to the "real time" stuff, well that's something I'm working on
as well, again, not just for wikimedians but for people who they might want
to collaborate with. It's hampered primarily because no telcos are designing
cheapo conferencing tools for global communities, and unis don't (seem to)
have relationships with the WMF, and are funded nationally, so we can't get
serious about running a few globally distributed conferences.
http://www.accessgrid.org/nodes
So you ask for projects, and these are two. But please, don't include them
in a long drawn out strategy. Cast your mind back a long way before the WMF
got professional, when we didn't have people abiding by what they were
taught in an educational institutions. Cause that IS the problem. In
Australia, we used to say, "just have a go" and often people would. But you
know how it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
BTW Eugene. We're using this tool in an open gov initiative, which you might
find useful. http://gov2taskforce.ideascale.com/ And please give my regards
to Sue.