Sounds good.

I think I would advocate for more content than only a redirect. I think there should be a placeholder with contact info, and a link to meta. We can keep it simple and maintainable for now, with links to discussions on Meta. Perhaps we could eventually have the externally-oriented information like email signups, blogs and social media info on cascadia.wiki, while having relatively internal discussion on Meta? Jason, you're our social media person anyway, and if you want to maintain social media and communications info on cascadia.wiki, I think that might work well.

Thanks a lot for working on this.

Pine

On Dec 9, 2014 10:24 PM, "Jason Moore" <anotherbelieverwp@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for your feedback, Lane and Peaceray.

I do recognize Lane's concerns with moving outside of Meta and Wikipedia. Building a community at Cascadia.wiki and having to maintain the site will have its challenges. However, like Peacray mentioned, asking someone to visit Meta-Wiki and find the Cascadia Wikimedians page, or even asking someone to go to Wikipedia to find a theoretical project page for Cascadia Wikimedians has its own challenges. 

If we are to be seen as a group organizing "real life" activities and event, I think we need to have a website with the standard info we find online about other organizations: "about us", goals, bios for board members and volunteers/staff, calendar of upcoming events, grant requests and reports, contact info, etc.) Even if we organized our activities mostly using Meta-Wiki or English Wikipedia, I can still see benefits to having an external wiki... Possibly as an information/reporting repository moreso than a hub for organizing projects. Really, we would just have to see what happens organically.

Having our own website will also mean we have the opportunity to brand ourselves a bit, to have a hub for social media links, signing up for an email mailing list, etc. Essentially, having an online presence and appearing more professional, like Lane mentioned.

As for a redirect, I can speak with my colleagues, but I think it should not come as a surprise that a company donating a domain and hosting services might expect the domain to be used (I am speaking personally and independently of my employer). I'll try to start work on an agreement b/w TLD and WCUG, while also recognizing that this is an ongoing conversation re: both .wiki and even the use of an external website for the group.

Jason

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 8:41 PM, Raymond Leonard <raymond.f.leonard.jr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everybody,

I really like the idea of Cascadia.wiki. I agree with some of the sentiments about having it initially be a redirect to a Wikimedia project page even if we decide to eventually be separate from the WMF web properties. I think that the ability to tell people to go to Cascadia.wiki will be much simpler and so much more direct than having people go to meta.wikimedia.org then search for Cascadia Wikimedians or Wikimedia Cascadia. The casual user is probably unaware of meta.wikimedia.org; Cascadia.wiki is just easy to remember.

I trust both Another Believer's / Jason's company & the company that hosts SeaFOSS on your (plural) recommendations. Thus, it seems to be basically a matter of logistics. I just think that we need to hash it out via a face-to-face whether that is in the same room or via Skype  or Google Hangouts.

Yours,
Peaceray

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Lane Rasberry <lane@bluerasberry.com> wrote:
Hello,

I support the use of a .wiki endorsement. I would support affiliation with Top Level Design, Jason's company, because I feel that anyone using wikis in any context is a benefit to the entire Wikimedia project, and because I feel like the favoritism given to the registrar for this domain is not significantly different as compared to favoritism given to someone doing a .com or .org registration. Also I feel that an affiliation with that company is an ideal partnership, because their very existence is premised on the past and future success of Wikimedia projects and the strength of any community groups in the region.

Having a website off the Wikimedia projects might look professional but without multiple people to manage it then I am not convinced this is a priority. There is no Wikimedia group which has built community around their off-wiki website in the English language, and I doubt there is one at all. Off-wiki websites can be present past achieves to impress people who do project review, perhaps as part of a grant evaluation. Going off wiki typically means going off watchlists and out of touch with the Wikimedia community. In my opinion, staying in Wikimedia projects, perhaps with a .wiki redirect to a project page, is the most natural choice until there is a volunteer labor surplus and the organization navigates past its first cycle of grant requesting and reporting. Setting up a website achieves no stated early goal that I recognize. Content on Wikipedia could always be migrated to another website at a later time.

yours,








On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 7:02 PM, Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, as of right now the board hasn't delegated any of its authority, which is an issue that will be addressed when we have bylaws so that a board vote isn't necessary for every decision. We may also pass some resolutions for temporary delegation of responsibility until the bylaws are finalized. For now, though, we'll need a board vote to approve obtaining property. Our Meta talk page would be a good place to do this for matters that aren't confidential. Jason, I suggest that you ask the relevant person in your org to draft a contract that specifies that Cascadia Wikimedians User Group will be donated ownership of the cascadia.wiki domain, and specifies how hosting arrangements and costs will be arranged (no cost is great), and the procedure for transferring hosting of the domain if we decide to host elsewhere. After we get a copyof the proposal, our board can review it, and discuss and vote on our Meta talk page. It would be nice if the agreement is produced under a Commons-compatible license so it can be reviewed by the public on Commons and potentially reused by others.

Thanks!

Pine

On Dec 8, 2014 5:03 PM, "Jason Moore" <anotherbelieverwp@gmail.com> wrote:
And transferring ownership of the domain may be fine with the company, too. I'm not sure if/how domain registrations differ between individuals and organizations (not my area of expertise), but again I am happy to continue liaising between CWUG and the company and answer any specific questions re: registration and hosting.

I've not heard any resistance to the domain cascadia.wiki for our group, so shall we continue moving forward with this plan or do we need to raise the question with other board members or at meta? 
Jason

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Benj. Mako Hill <mako@atdot.cc> wrote:

<quote who="Jason Moore" date="Mon, Dec 08, 2014 at 03:14:00PM -0800">
> Cascadia.wiki is currently being reserved and could be made available at my
> request despite being considered a "premium" name.

Got it. :)

> That being said, if the group is more comfortable with tasking
> someone to accept transfer of the domain and maintain
> hosting/renewals under his/her own name, we can help with those
> arrangements, too. I am not sure what additional detail is needed,
> but if you have specific questions or concerns, I'd be happy to
> respond.

I think that our long term plan should to have the domain ownership
transfered to our organization. I don't mind if the technical contact,
registration fees, and hosting is donated (in fact, that sounds
wonderful!) but I think it is wise that our organization and its board
have ownership and ultimate over the domain that people use to find
us.

Thank you so much for offering to organize this!

Regards,
Mako


--
Benjamin Mako Hill
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far
as society is free to use the results. --GNU Manifesto


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--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia

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