The MediaWiki Stakeholders is a WMF-affiliated user group made up mostly
of consultants and enterprise-level users of MediaWiki. We held our
meetings monthly.
We hold meetings on the first Friday of every month at 10:30EDT and our
next meeting is on July 6th (https://mwstake.org/mwstake/wiki/Event:72).
>From the etherpad at https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/mwstake-2018-06,
these are the contents of the etherpad that we use for keeping notes for
yesterday's meeting (Friday, June 1):
phab: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/E892
last month: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/mwstake-2018-05
Report:
Barcelona report
Incorporation (Bryan, Frank)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lPT3D2gv3OeSQY8srCn9NYzyEt4KEURMy4lyZ62…
I (Mark) checked about WMF giving funds to 503c6. I haven't yet
(5/12) talked to anyone in grants, but when I applied for the MABS
grant, it explicitly stated:
Are you an incorporated organization able to provide local
proof of nonprofit status within your country? (For-profit
organizations are ineligible to receive grants through the
PEG program.)
This seems to indicate that a 503c6 is acceptable. Additionally,
someone pointed out that WM User Groups like #mwstake are
incorporated in various ways and their affiliation with the WMF
is the important thing. As long as we are not for-profit
(eliminating B-Corp possibility?) then it seems we're in the
clear.
Bryan is working on a mission statement.
As Bryan said: "I'm glad to hear you guys talk about your ideas, and
I'll consolidate...." EACH person attending should have the action
item of writing a brief 500 words (or long if desired) statement of
what they would like to see/gain from collaboration in MWStake (on
User page of MWStake).
It would be helpful of these brief statements address both Mission
and Membership, which are both relevant to the selection of the type
of incorporation or other organizational form.
GOALS / MISSION ideas Who are we? What are we? Our Mission
Statement:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group/Mission
raise and distribute funds for development of projects/code that are
neglected by WMF, but critical for 3rd parties
raise and manage funds for conferences / marketing /
documentation / or all the non-code activities associated with
technology associations
Remove single point of failure for collection of money
All-volunteer / non-profit; but we want to more formally
organize/manage volunteers (money for membership coordinator +
membership management system (e.g. CiviCRM) + website management
(MWStake.org)
CiviCRM has a similar bug bounty program
Perhaps we should collect our different conceptualizations of the
mission or goals and reconcile them.
Clearing house for trusted consultants (if orgs want to do a
MediaWiki project, MWStake could be the "Angies's List" for
MediaWiki consultants) - Greg (and I've never used Angie's List
either)
Create and run Training / Certification programs for MediaWiki
consultants (grant funded by WMF?) which increases adoption
Full Disclosure: Greg is actively working to grow
eQuality-Technology as a worker-led cooperative to create a
"Super Consulting Firm" for MediaWiki
"Note": I think an organization requires a "board" that has regular
recorded meetings.
Add a layer of representation to other MediaWiki users
Lex's comment on a body that acts like a company's support desk
that can receive money and provides a service
The group can help decide what are the "needed" features or
missing pieces and if the group has money, pay developers to do
this.
There is already a "Mission" of MWStake:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group/Mission
which can serve as a basis for further discussion
Membership model (Markus, ??)
Half of existing groups seem fairly unorganized
Other half have a more formal policy incl sometimes approval for
membership
See membership section below.
Examine WikiMed more .... MARKUS
Main purpose of membership
Make legitimate decisions
Representation
Any patreon followup? (Ginger, Chris)
xMWCon (Lex)
Riot/Matrix server <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193961>
Waiting for the creation of the cloud
There are response time issues
WikiSpaces refugee effort (Gergő, Bryan)
Bryan reached out to parent copany TES
Bryan also said Yaron got WikiWorks listed as a place to go but no
one has had success working with TES to seamlessly roll over their
users.
Possible maint script to do the conversion from WikiSpaces to MW:
https://gist.github.com/ilhooq/65c1e2490fdb616413dfede8647f2691
Contribute: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikispaces
Greg has been connecting with some Wikispaces users from what I
(Bryan) hear and has some experience with migration.
EMW Mailing list (Mark)
active now, not much traffic yet
regularly post minutes of our meeting -> MARK == link to Etherpad? :-)
Tech Working Group (from Strategy process)
Nominations by June 8:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2018-May/090014.html
We need to nominate representatives.
The Wikimedia Technical Conference will take place in Portland, OR, USA on October 22-25, 2018.
And, as mentioned in previous emails [1][2] and on the wiki page
[3], this conference will be focused on the cross-departmental
program called Platform Evolution. We will be providing more
information and context as we go along in the process.For this
conference, we are looking for diverse stakeholders, perspectives,
and experiences that will help us to make informed decisions for the
future evolution of the platform. We need people who can create and
architect solutions, as well as those who actually make decisions on
funding and prioritization for the projects.
Provide input on the future direction of MediaWiki's extension management system:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Extension_management_fe…
As part of the MediaWiki Platform Team's goal to develop a roadmap
for MediaWiki, we want to solicit input on the future direction of
MediaWiki's extension management system. One of MediaWiki's greatest
strengths is the diverse extension ecosystem. But navigating that
ecosystem and managing those extensions can be difficult and
cumbersome.
If time, I'd like to briefly discuss the (archived) AWS extension.
== Membership ==
Membership models
* Sign up via official form
** pro: members mailing list
** pro: required for entities -> preparation
** pro: identification
** types: pdf or google doc
** no money (membership fees) involved in other groups
** examples
*** WikiMed: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/Membership
*** WikiToLearn (create account on their platform): https://de.wikitolearn.org/Mitmachen
*** Shared Knowledge: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Shared_Knowledge#Membership
* Informal application
** examples
*** WikiJournal: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group#WikiJournal_Council
* Informal (sign with name)
** pro: low barrier
** con: unknown state of group
** examples
*** Whose knowledge?: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Whose_Knowledge%3F
*** Wiki Women: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_User_Group#Members
*** Wikimedia LGBT: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT%2B/Participants/de
* Informal (participate)
** examples
*** Wikisource Community: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource_Community_User_Group#Becoming_a_…
*** Wikibase Community (need invitation to join channels) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikibase_Community_User_Group#Joining_the_G…
*** Tool developers (there are criteria, though): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Tool_Developers_Group#Membership_…
Organisation
* Informal (most)
* Council
** examples
*** WikiJournal: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group#WikiJournal_Council
*** Wikisource Community will start incorporation when 100 active members are reached: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource_Community_User_Group#Governance
*** Wikimedia LGBT: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT%2B/Participants/de
* Incorporation
** examples
*** WikiMed (Not for profit corporation, NY): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med/Membership#Administrative_…
*** Shared Knowledge (Macedonia): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Shared_Knowledge/Constitution
Bylaws
* examples
** WikiJournal: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Bylaws
** Shared Knowledge: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Shared_Knowledge/Constitution