Just to back up what Jonathan said: WMUK don't have a veto power, and we
don't give expenses to every volunteer who attends - although we do offer
expenses to key volunteers (eg trainers) if they otherwise can't attend. An
example of this would be sending a female volunteer to a WikiWomen event -
having a only male volunteers attend would be inappropriate!
Employees *emphatically* don't need to agree to editathons happening - that
would, as Marc says, be wrong*. *The claim that that is the case is untrue
and if one of our volunteers feels that, then please get in touch with us
(or with me privately on Facebook!) and we'll try and work out what's
happened.
We do (I'll admit) need to know in advance if we need to book sandwiches
(for example) or if people need to loan laptops, mobile wifi hubs, cameras
- or support equipment like hearing loops.
Although I haven't always agreed with Oliver in the past, Oliver: your
comments are spot on. "People who can't afford a lunch out
whenever they want" is a big demographic, and it's important that the cost
of supporting less visible demographics doesn't dissuade us from doing so.
Outreach to some communities is hard - very hard - but is worth it even if
incurs an additional cost.
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 19 March 2015 at 15:49, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Wikimedia UK certainly doesn't have a veto power
on editathon's in the UK,
we do try to coordinate in order to minimise clashes, but all we can do
there is to request that people not have multiple editathons in the same
city on the same day. There are things that we have that make editathon's
easier to do or more inclusive - trained trainers, spare laptops, mobile
Wifi and a hearing loop for starters, though the price for that support is
that we do need to collect data for metrics. When someone independently
organises an event in the UK we are likely to get in touch and offer spare
laptops and other support.
Spare laptops in particular are very frequently used at UK editathons, and
I believe "bring a laptop or book one of ours" is a much more inclusive way
to run an event. Than "bring a laptop", and when someone discovers that
they don't have a power lead or they weren't given the password for the
laptop they brought it is really nice to be able to just hand them a
laptop. So I always try to have one more than was ordered.
Regards
Jonathan Cardy
GLAM Organiser Wikimedia UK
> after that it started to become impossible to
organize an editathon
> without first having an employee agreeing it
That seems... wrong.
For one, that experience may be WMUK's but
it's certainly far from
universal. WMCA organizes monthly editathons in Montréal, at the very
least, at zero cost. (They are organized/moderated by volunteers and
the venue is provided at no cost by the Bibilothèque et Archive
Nationale du Québec). I've never attended, but I'm told that they are
fairly popular and well-liked.
If WMUK /chose/ do have a more structured (and
more expensive) framework
to organize similar events themselves, it in no way prevents volunteers
or other organisms to do so without a penny of Foundation (or chapter)
funding.
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