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"http://wikimania2
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"http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events
. 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_…
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/"http://kmi.op
en.ac.uk/technologies/msg/2007/11/21/video-chat/
HYPERLINK "http://oufm.open.ac.uk/"http://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/"http://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/"http://www.worlddigital
library.org/project/english/ to 46 million users/month.
OK. To summarise. The HYPERLINK
"http://www.accessgrid.org/"http://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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