Hey Guys,

 

Just making some points with the Wikimania group, where most of the discussion is about improving communication. I put in “But inertia seems to be in the wikimedia culture just now. I’m sure Casey will have the pulse across remote groups better than I do.” I don’t want to appear as I’m just criticizing for the sake of it, so let me note a few points.

 

Casey wants to put Wikizine participation on the agenda, which makes a lot of sense as we sure need a few channels which are a bit fatter than elists and IRC. You’ve seen I’ve flagged wikipedia weekly (WW) as well, underneath the skypecast link, as from my perspective, all we are trying to do here is, as Eric suggested last year, improve communications, primarily between remote groups. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-January/026707.html

 

I just suggested skypecast room as it’s a place to help the guys from WW to have a place where different groups could assemble and while their having their chat or being interviewed, have it combined with others, and perhaps edited and WW podcast later. I,e link the input channels and output channel. Wikizine is about much the same thing in text = One channel, a number of editors. I’d really like to get a brain dump from Casey (after talking to Eric) to see which buttons he sees as being the most appropriate to push. And Sean, Michael, if you have a proposition, please put it our here, with a header so we can talk it through. There’s so much going on at the moment in which I would like to involve this group, particularly if you don’t mind trying a few different comms tools, with some other global groups, most of which are in academia. NB These guys are training the authors, journalists, etc of tomorrow. Here’s a taste. http://blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/

 

One of my groups - this domain is owned by the ministers of education in OZ - http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=19911 really like my comment

'If Wikipedia has taught us anything; if the right tool, structured simply, is offered to a world of learners, they'll find and share it.' After saying it for a few years, it’s getting some acceptance now here and in a few other global traps. The message is “All we are doing is trying to find the virtual classrooms (the combination of comms tools) which could best complement the WMF’s virtual libraries”.

 

So when Essjay says, “As a comcom member I've sent press releases to some media people but I haven't seen them use those PR materials directly, if I recall correctly. Rather they love to get AP, Reuters or BBC coverage and then translate those worldwide famous press coverage”, you’ll understand my comment on the Wikimania list about “vertical walls and narrow channels”. It’s not so much that broadcast media are not interested. It’s just that they, like most media people, are locked into “feeding the machine” and this is the easiest, risk free, way to do it. Don’t take my word. Ask Sue Gardiner. NB. In commercial media, content is there to separate the adsJ 

I sure feel for Aphaia when he says “in general Japanese media and academics have criticized themselves "we import everything cultural but seldom expert". (ExpOrt very little, yes?). The cultural cringe is not limited to just Japan but the US is just starting its recession so the Asian focus will change to China this year. And “While I don't think he can be the key figure in a long term, if you are looking for someone who is noticeable a part of both global community and part of ja to some extent, I think he may be a good choice” “I trust Alexsh”. This really is the challenge, finding the people that people trust, although we need to view things in terms of teams or groups, which we join and leave as needs be, not “project leaders”, as it’s the way of the interactive world. This CPG just happens to be the founding one as it’s the meat in the meta sandwich. 

Happy New Year.