Dear Markie, Aphaia, Mido,

Thanks for your feedback. You’ll understand that all I’m trying to do here is suggest ways for wikimedia communications to be bought into the 21st century. I have no bias as to which tools might suit global groups. I’m simply pointing to ones that are often used by global groups to overcome the basics such as spending about a month talking about how, and when, to get a global conversation together, so the word can be spread and related events (co)organized. Let me be thorough about your reply of the 21st of last month as if you have not used a forum, you may not be aware of how easy things are made by keeping a conversation to one thread rather than spreading an announcement over a number of separate elists or wikis.

Markie said,“ >>>the link there is wrong and i have now fixed it. it should have pointed to HYPERLINK "http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Meetings%22http://wikimania... 008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Planning/Meetings instead of the page it was pointing to which was the unstable version of the homepage for design changes etc... also "make it more obvious", okay... the meeting announcement was IIRC sent to the foundation mailing list, wikimania mailing list, in wikizine and was mentioned on the meta wiki and mania wiki. it was also put up in various IRC channel topics and was probably sent elsewhere.. so if youve got any ideas as to where else we should put it ill try to find time to put meetings announcements there

Thanks for the fix (knew it had to be something like that but lack your experience). An “obvious” starting point would be here. HYPERLINK "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events%22http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Event... . You might take Mike Halterman’s approach (just below at the COTA conference) Delete the history lesson(s) and link as if we are talking about just this year’s Wikimania, cause this page should. Seems like a collaboration between these two conference groups would halve the workload for both and double their returns, but that’s up to them. And thanks for the IRC for dummies. It’s what is needed on the CPG page (if you have an interest).

Markie said “….vertical walls and narrow channels, im not sure what that means..” Vertical walls are those mental ones that are created by separate email lists and WMF projects. They won’t exist in your mind so much as you seem to have been here awhile. But it causes the obvious things to be missed like that link off the main meta events page ro the wikimania page, which would be a starting point for most outsiders. It also means so much spam through the habit of sending the same message to the incrowds’ lists. Narrow channels are similar things like the Foundation elist; Jimmy’s “sewer” as he calls it. People are obviously ambitious for the monster he’s created, and the supposed system for dealing with all their proposals is almost dead = HYPERLINK "http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimedia_Outreac h"http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikimedia_Outrea ch So they go to one list = one narrow channel = where they vent their frustrations, rather than being offered a system & tools where they can meet potential peers and rev a project or put it to bed. Eric and Sue provide ‘new’ eyes here so hopefully we might see an outcome this year.

Aphaia, said; “as a non native speaker of English, and as Transcom chair, regarding the potential translation, I strongly oppose to have our regular meeting on voice chat” That’s fair, completely agree, and why I said Skype “would seem friendlier than > IRC (by itself)”. All I’m proposing is to investigate tools which are often used by global groups to see which combinations will fall into useful routines.

Re: Skypecast. You’ll notice I also put a link to Wikipedia Weekly immediately below the one to skype (on the CPG page). I really don’t give a stuff which tool is used here. What I’m trying to encourage is a place where people can get together, have a conversation, stream it if they want, and perhaps take minutes and/or record for podcasting, etc, systematically. Skype’s just one freebie that seems useful. I could have suggested a couple of tools that UK’s Open uni would probably provide tools for nix if it was considered useful. E.g HYPERLINK "http://kmi.open.ac.uk/technologies/msg/2007/11/21/video-chat/%22http://kmi.o... en.ac.uk/technologies/msg/2007/11/21/video-chat/ HYPERLINK "http://oufm.open.ac.uk/%22http://oufm.open.ac.uk/ (NB Forget the video, but we could chat, talk and view (i.e. work on) pages together) 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.

Most isolated groups seem to believe the world runs as they see it, so feedback like “irc is fine and is used by many people to communicate normally” is pretty “normal”. In other places, the forum approach is considered normal. HYPERLINK "http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/%22http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ And so “wikis for communicating? You’ve got to be joking” is their normal response.

Mido. You obviously have the Bibliotech onside, which as far as I can see means that the National Library (NL) must be involved. Forget COTA for a bit, although their programme will obviously coincide nicely with your own in spots. The greatest sell as I would put to your NL is to compare between the “Old world, New World”. Get some bright Egyptian (TV or locally respected) presenter to compare Alexander’s library to Wikipedia. The Library will have tons of content through their global connections. I’ve spent part of my life trying to inspire some nice old Rotarians at these kind of annual events, which usually means coming up with something to wake them up before their sleepy sessions begin. < it’s just a suggestion, but if the idea is to raise the WMF profile over there, then this is one point in time, and place, where the comparison could get some old and new heads nodding in unison. If they need spoonfeeding just compare this HYPERLINK "http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/project/english/%22http://www.worlddigita... library.org/project/english/ to 46 million users/month.

OK. To summarise. The HYPERLINK "http://www.accessgrid.org/%22http://www.accessgrid.org/ (AG) is just the fattest version of Skypecast or the OU’s meeting rooms. There are lots of others. The AG would be a useful tool for tying together conferences (and/or their sessions) in different countries at the same time, and streaming to non attendees so they could ask question or give input when its wanted. They are all just global classrooms. We already have a framework for a global library, which is more than the UN has done, so we might as well try to include a few National librarians to help fill some gaps.

Excuse the length of this loaf. But it’s better than 3 half baked cookies. Happy New Year.

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