Hi all,
There's currently a proposal on the internal mailing list to close it, as well as the internal wiki. Although I don't disagree with closing the internal-l mailing list (it's definitely served its time), I would like us to collectively reconsider using the internal wiki.
There is information within the Wikimedia movement that can't be shared publicly. Some of that information has been shared on the internal wiki, but much has been kept confidential within the various Wikimedia organisations that now exist. I think there's a lot of benefit to sharing more of that information in a confidential fashion on an internal wiki, and that we should start doing that much more than we're currently doing.
Some examples of what I mean here are: # Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they affect more than one Wikimedia organisation. Part of the recent Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia situation was caused by a lack of transparency about who had signed what agreements, and when they had been signed - if these had all been shared on an internal wiki then some of this could have been avoided. There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date). # Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from a Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here. # Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations. # Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway. # Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki. # … and I'm sure there's more examples that can go here, this isn't trying to be a complete list!
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
Thanks, Mike (Note: this is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily that of WMUK.)
FYI, list of private wikis: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Private_wikis There are 27 private wikis hosted by the WMF, of which 15 for WMF internal organisation (including committees) and 3 for more general Wikimedia matters.
Nemo
On 3 Apr 2013, at 12:40, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
FYI, list of private wikis: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Private_wikis There are 27 private wikis hosted by the WMF, of which 15 for WMF internal organisation (including committees) and 3 for more general Wikimedia matters.
Thanks Nemo - that's a very useful link. It's good to see that there's a number of "merge w/ internal" comments/suggestions there, which would make a lot of sense to me.
Thanks, Mike (Personal viewpoint)
Michael Peel, 03/04/2013 12:43:
Thanks Nemo - that's a very useful link. It's good to see that there's a number of "merge w/ internal" comments/suggestions there, which would make a lot of sense to me.
Disclaimer: I didn't add those notes. :)
Second technical note: a merge from a private wiki to another is very simple, because you don't have to check for confidentiality. For small wikis without files it's just a matter of Special:Export and Special:Import by a user with sufficient rights. Pages can be imported into a new namespace to avoid conflicts and to add namespace-specific user permissions if needed. Sysadmins are able to do it right, the only missing piece being the logs; it was recently done with wikitech-old merged into http://wikitech.wikimedia.org .
Nemo
On Apr 3, 2013 12:07 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Second technical note: a merge from a private wiki to another is very
simple, because you don't have to check for confidentiality
That's not true. Just because it is private doesn't mean it is restricted to the same people.
Things on a private wiki shouldn't be shared more widely without consultation than the people that posted them could have reasonably expected when they posted them.
Thomas Dalton, 03/04/2013 13:12:
On Apr 3, 2013 12:07 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Second technical note: a merge from a private wiki to another is very
simple, because you don't have to check for confidentiality
That's not true. Just because it is private doesn't mean it is restricted to the same people.
Things on a private wiki shouldn't be shared more widely without consultation than the people that posted them could have reasonably expected when they posted them.
May be, or may be not. (Members of internalwiki change constantly, so e.g. there's no way I could know who has had access to what I wrote there 5 years ago. I don't remember being consulted about every new user created there after I got myself removed.) At any rate, if you're moving content to another restricted wiki with trusted members, you don't have to worry about private stuff being published by mistake forever: if a mistake happens, you just have to delete it. Finally, namespaces can take care of ensuring that stuff keeps being restricted to the same groups as usual, if really needed.
Nemo
On Apr 3, 2013 12:27 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
May be, or may be not. (Members of internalwiki change constantly, so
e.g. there's no way I could know who has had access to what I wrote there 5 years ago. I don't remember being consulted about every new user created there after I got myself removed.)
But you knew the basis on which internal access is determined and that hasn't changed. You knew when you posted stuff there that new people would continue to be added, but could reasonably expect that it would continue to be restricted to the same kind of people as it was restricted to at the time, even if the actual people themselves changed.
If it was decided to open up internal more widely, as has been discussed from time to time, it would be necessary to either seek permission from people or, more simply, delete things (or move them to a closed wiki that is still restricted). That has generally been part of any discussions on the subject.
Thomas Dalton, 03/04/2013 16:03:
On Apr 3, 2013 12:27 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" <nemowiki@gmail.com mailto:nemowiki@gmail.com> wrote:
May be, or may be not. (Members of internalwiki change constantly, so
e.g. there's no way I could know who has had access to what I wrote there 5 years ago. I don't remember being consulted about every new user created there after I got myself removed.)
But you knew the basis on which internal access is determined and that hasn't changed.
Not true. It changed.
You knew when you posted stuff there that new people would continue to be added, but could reasonably expect that it would continue to be restricted to the same kind of people as it was restricted to at the time, even if the actual people themselves changed.
If it was decided to open up internal more widely, as has been discussed from time to time, it would be necessary to either seek permission from people or, more simply, delete things (or move them to a closed wiki that is still restricted). That has generally been part of any discussions on the subject.
Not true. It was expanded and nobody asked my opinion. :)
Nemo
On Apr 3, 2013 3:43 PM, "Federico Leva (Nemo)" nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
But you knew the basis on which internal access is determined and that hasn't changed.
Not true. It changed.
Membership is still determined according to the WMF board's resolution from 2006. How long ago were you on there?
This back and forth is tangential to Mike's proposal. Maybe make it a separate thread?
I must confess, I have access to two of those "general" private wikis but very seldom use them all, which probably indicates that in their current form they don't serve much purpose. So bravo to Michael for raising the issue to see if we can squeeze some more function out of them! I'm intruiged by "noboard_chapterswikimedia" though - what is this for?
To those wondering what sort of mysterious secrets are held on them, the answer is "not much interesting". Mainly contact details and a semi-out-of-date listing for the internal-l mailing list, as far as I can see.
Cheers, Craig Franklin
On 3 April 2013 20:40, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
FYI, list of private wikis: https://meta.wikimedia.org/** wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Private_**wikishttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Private_wikis There are 27 private wikis hosted by the WMF, of which 15 for WMF internal organisation (including committees) and 3 for more general Wikimedia matters.
Nemo
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Craig Franklin, 03/04/2013 14:18:
I must confess, I have access to two of those "general" private wikis but very seldom use them all, which probably indicates that in their current form they don't serve much purpose. So bravo to Michael for raising the issue to see if we can squeeze some more function out of them! I'm intruiged by "noboard_chapterswikimedia" though - what is this for?
That's just the private wiki for the WMNO board. It will probably be renamed to a domain other than noboard.chapters.wikimedia.org because it breaks SSL certificates.
Nemo
On Apr 3, 2013 11:34 AM, "Michael Peel" michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
# Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they
affect more than one Wikimedia organisation. Part of the recent Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia situation was caused by a lack of transparency about who had signed what agreements, and when they had been signed - if these had all been shared on an internal wiki then some of this could have been avoided. There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date).
I'd like to see that kind of thing made public. There are rarely good reasons not to other than vague expectations that they be private based on what other people do.
# Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from
a Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here.
wmfcc-l sounds like the right venue to me. Pre-publication press release are transient things, so a mailing list works well. Wikis are better for long term storage of information.
# Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is
actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations.
A proper domain name policy making clear who should own what is what is needed there. Having domain names owned by random people is the problem, not the lack of a list of those random people.
# Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be
done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway.
All organisations should have public contact details... We're not a secret society...
# Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of
law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki.
Again, this is transient so is better suited to a mailing list.
I think internal-l has a purpose, but the internal wiki was abandoned long long ago because it wasn't actually useful. I once had a go at cleaning up the wiki (never did finish) and pretty much everything on there was several years out of date (and that was about 3 years ago - it's hardly been edited since).
Thanks Mike,
I'm very much in favor of a redesign, with a reset of internal subscribers.
What about a session during wikimedia conf in Milan about improving tools for communication within the movement partners?
Charles
Le 3 avr. 2013 à 12:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk a écrit :
Hi all,
There's currently a proposal on the internal mailing list to close it, as well as the internal wiki. Although I don't disagree with closing the internal-l mailing list (it's definitely served its time), I would like us to collectively reconsider using the internal wiki.
There is information within the Wikimedia movement that can't be shared publicly. Some of that information has been shared on the internal wiki, but much has been kept confidential within the various Wikimedia organisations that now exist. I think there's a lot of benefit to sharing more of that information in a confidential fashion on an internal wiki, and that we should start doing that much more than we're currently doing.
Some examples of what I mean here are: # Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they affect more than one Wikimedia organisation. Part of the recent Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia situation was caused by a lack of transparency about who had signed what agreements, and when they had been signed - if these had all been shared on an internal wiki then some of this could have been avoided. There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date). # Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from a Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here. # Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations. # Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway. # Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki. # … and I'm sure there's more examples that can go here, this isn't trying to be a complete list!
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
Thanks, Mike (Note: this is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily that of WMUK.)
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Charles,
I'd very much like to see such a session at Wikimedia conf. Just today we had a situation in wca where it was not clear where relevant information about a topic is to be found.
Ziko proposed a session on "Communications internally and within the movement - reaching the right people efficiently". Maybe we could do a workshop afterwards? Would you be willing to take a lead on this?
Best, Markus
Am 03.04.2013 13:03, schrieb Charles Andres:
Thanks Mike,
I'm very much in favor of a redesign, with a reset of internal subscribers.
What about a session during wikimedia conf in Milan about improving tools for communication within the movement partners?
Charles
Le 3 avr. 2013 à 12:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk a écrit :
Hi all,
There's currently a proposal on the internal mailing list to close it, as well as the internal wiki. Although I don't disagree with closing the internal-l mailing list (it's definitely served its time), I would like us to collectively reconsider using the internal wiki.
There is information within the Wikimedia movement that can't be shared publicly. Some of that information has been shared on the internal wiki, but much has been kept confidential within the various Wikimedia organisations that now exist. I think there's a lot of benefit to sharing more of that information in a confidential fashion on an internal wiki, and that we should start doing that much more than we're currently doing.
Some examples of what I mean here are: # Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they affect more than one Wikimedia organisation. Part of the recent Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia situation was caused by a lack of transparency about who had signed what agreements, and when they had been signed - if these had all been shared on an internal wiki then some of this could have been avoided. There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date). # Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from a Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here. # Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations. # Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway. # Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki. # … and I'm sure there's more examples that can go here, this isn't trying to be a complete list!
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
Thanks, Mike (Note: this is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily that of WMUK.)
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Le 2013-04-03 12:34, Michael Peel a écrit :
# Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they affect more than one Wikimedia organisation. Part of the recent Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia situation was caused by a lack of transparency about who had signed what agreements, and when they had been signed - if these had all been shared on an internal wiki then some of this could have been avoided. There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date).
Can you provide more information on this case? I never heard about Monmouthpedia/Gibraltarpedia despite they had a "global impact".
Would anyone be kind enough to explain me what kind of secret stuff we are talking about?
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Thanks, Sue
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Thanks, Sue
Yes, our work needs to be pubic and accessible.
Fred Bauder USA
On 3 Apr 2013, at 19:46, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Would you be willing to close down the WMF office wiki and list at the same time, then?
Thanks, Mike (From mobile)
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Michael Peel <michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:
On 3 Apr 2013, at 19:46, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical
redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Would you be willing to close down the WMF office wiki and list at the same time, then?
Thanks, Mike (From mobile)
You're being snarky, but I am going to take this as a good-faith question....
I have access to the office wiki, left-over from being a board member, though I do not edit there and have only accessed it a couple of times over the years. I think I can safely say without violating confidentiality that it is mainly used as a tool to run a discrete, physical, boring office. It is where you will find things like staff phone numbers, info on the employee health plans, how to send to the office printers, and how to submit an expense report.
As on internal, there's also lots of outdated stuff, like old notes from 2008 staff meetings; there are scratchpad idea pages that probably could be elsewhere, and there are some pages about department functions and project drafts that I'm sure no one would mind being on meta, but much of the interesting stuff is public (the annual plan, the communications calendar), and as far as I can see with a quick scan there are not large-scale discussions happening there.
So, back to the start of the thread: using a wiki effectively does seem like a scoping question, yes, and I think internal (and any other internal/private wiki) would benefit from specific scoping like Mike proposes; his suggestions seem reasonable to me. I think I can also say without violating confidentiality that almost all of the mail to the internal list in the last few months has not been discussion focused, but rather has been notices of chapter board elections, meetings and reports, and I would love to see all that traffic be public (even if it's on a separate list so not everyone has to get the notices if they're not interested) -- there's nothing inherently confidential about it, and it would be nice for that info to be easily findable.
-- phoebe
Hi Phoebe and all,
I am not say if saying this is wrong or brakes the confidentiality contract I've signed as a contractor. My apologies if it is wrong, but I think it is not. I am sorry to say there are some documents of projects I have been working on that I believe could be done directly on meta or some other public wiki. There are some cases, yes, some more elaborated document should be done to be released in public, but I don't think it is always the case.
I believe we are wasting resources and energy in some cases not using the community intelligence and knowledge, even having very high qualified professionals working on this documents, as it is the case I have seen so far. Closed mailing lists, closed wikis, closed working groups, closed meetings... all this doesn't make me feel comfortable, to be honest.
I don't want create a pandemonium here. My opinion here is just to share one thing I've felt that can diminish the power of crowdsourcing we are all used to and I believe we have to think ways to improve that. Wikimediaworld it too complex, there is too much information, projects and opinions going on and it is really difficult to organize all that.
For instance, there is this https://collab.wikimedia.org What is this for?! I have receive (maybe?) one e-mail about this wiki and once I've seen a lot of crucial and important answers for the Brazil program were there. I cannot understand why it is not public. Really. Just to you have an idea, I've asked in December to have this collab (Collab of collaboration?) wiki to be on the main page of office wiki, but no answer so far.
The organization has grown too fast and maybe it is time to rethink our best practices and how we operate, analysing everything we are using, creating a kind of guide, mainly for those professionals that will arrive? If I am not wrong, how can we do that?
I love this from another group
"Running through all of our activities is a strong emphasis on *decentralized collaboration*. In particular, a primary aim is to help others develop open material as well as creating it ourselves. We believe that the future lies in collaboration between a multitude of different groups and that *no one group or organisation can, or should try to, “do it all*”. It is when we work together that we are the strongest."
and I am not saying it is easy to implement it. But we have to be self critical on how to achieve this, for those who agree it is a better way to work.
Tom
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:39 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
You're being snarky, but I am going to take this as a good-faith question....
I have access to the office wiki, left-over from being a board member, though I do not edit there and have only accessed it a couple of times over the years. I think I can safely say without violating confidentiality that it is mainly used as a tool to run a discrete, physical, boring office. It is where you will find things like staff phone numbers, info on the employee health plans, how to send to the office printers, and how to submit an expense report.
As on internal, there's also lots of outdated stuff, like old notes from 2008 staff meetings; there are scratchpad idea pages that probably could be elsewhere, and there are some pages about department functions and project drafts that I'm sure no one would mind being on meta, but much of the interesting stuff is public (the annual plan, the communications calendar), and as far as I can see with a quick scan there are not large-scale discussions happening there.
So, back to the start of the thread: using a wiki effectively does seem like a scoping question, yes, and I think internal (and any other internal/private wiki) would benefit from specific scoping like Mike proposes; his suggestions seem reasonable to me. I think I can also say without violating confidentiality that almost all of the mail to the internal list in the last few months has not been discussion focused, but rather has been notices of chapter board elections, meetings and reports, and I would love to see all that traffic be public (even if it's on a separate list so not everyone has to get the notices if they're not interested) -- there's nothing inherently confidential about it, and it would be nice for that info to be easily findable.
-- phoebe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
From my perspective:
In my role as storyteller I conduct many personal interviews with Wikimedia volunteers, donors and staff.
I have several pages of interviews and photos of volunteers and donors(!) that have been gracious enough to share their story with me and the WMF. Each person who has been interviewed as part of my role has signed a legal release to 'share their story'. I keep the raw, unpolished interviews on pages on the password protected: https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Stories knowing that they are available only to myself and staff at the WMF. I use that raw material to release polished works like this: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All . During the course of an interview, people sometimes say things that when reviewed later, they wish they hadn't. Out of respect and decency for those interviewed, I want each person alerted every time WMF plans to use their story, should that person not want that information released. I won't 'hide' behind a legal waiver and do whatever when someone shares a story with the WMF.
I also need to be able to share the interviews with others at WMF because they may have instances when they need to illustrate something with a personal story (that is my job) and it can be more convenient for them to review these stories on an organized page than to have to ask me to be a librarian for them and suggest a story.
Privacy is very important, and I have to take it seriously. I could remove all the interviews from the office wiki and keep them offline, but I would not feel comfortable making the material public without passing it by all those interviewed first, which would take a lot of time to do, since I'm nearing almost 2 years of interviews.
All this said, I am all in favor of making as much content as possible on https://collab.wikimedia.org/ and https://office.wikimedia.org/ public.
Victor
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 8:07 AM, Everton Zanella Alvarenga < tom@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi Phoebe and all,
I am not say if saying this is wrong or brakes the confidentiality contract I've signed as a contractor. My apologies if it is wrong, but I think it is not. I am sorry to say there are some documents of projects I have been working on that I believe could be done directly on meta or some other public wiki. There are some cases, yes, some more elaborated document should be done to be released in public, but I don't think it is always the case.
I believe we are wasting resources and energy in some cases not using the community intelligence and knowledge, even having very high qualified professionals working on this documents, as it is the case I have seen so far. Closed mailing lists, closed wikis, closed working groups, closed meetings... all this doesn't make me feel comfortable, to be honest.
I don't want create a pandemonium here. My opinion here is just to share one thing I've felt that can diminish the power of crowdsourcing we are all used to and I believe we have to think ways to improve that. Wikimediaworld it too complex, there is too much information, projects and opinions going on and it is really difficult to organize all that.
For instance, there is this https://collab.wikimedia.org What is this for?! I have receive (maybe?) one e-mail about this wiki and once I've seen a lot of crucial and important answers for the Brazil program were there. I cannot understand why it is not public. Really. Just to you have an idea, I've asked in December to have this collab (Collab of collaboration?) wiki to be on the main page of office wiki, but no answer so far.
The organization has grown too fast and maybe it is time to rethink our best practices and how we operate, analysing everything we are using, creating a kind of guide, mainly for those professionals that will arrive? If I am not wrong, how can we do that?
I love this from another group
"Running through all of our activities is a strong emphasis on *decentralized collaboration*. In particular, a primary aim is to help others develop open material as well as creating it ourselves. We believe that the future lies in collaboration between a multitude of different groups and that *no one group or organisation can, or should try to, “do it all*”. It is when we work together that we are the strongest."
and I am not saying it is easy to implement it. But we have to be self critical on how to achieve this, for those who agree it is a better way to work.
Tom
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:39 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
You're being snarky, but I am going to take this as a good-faith question....
I have access to the office wiki, left-over from being a board member, though I do not edit there and have only accessed it a couple of times
over
the years. I think I can safely say without violating confidentiality
that
it is mainly used as a tool to run a discrete, physical, boring office.
It
is where you will find things like staff phone numbers, info on the employee health plans, how to send to the office printers, and how to submit an expense report.
As on internal, there's also lots of outdated stuff, like old notes from 2008 staff meetings; there are scratchpad idea pages that probably could
be
elsewhere, and there are some pages about department functions and
project
drafts that I'm sure no one would mind being on meta, but much of the interesting stuff is public (the annual plan, the communications
calendar),
and as far as I can see with a quick scan there are not large-scale discussions happening there.
So, back to the start of the thread: using a wiki effectively does seem like a scoping question, yes, and I think internal (and any other internal/private wiki) would benefit from specific scoping like Mike proposes; his suggestions seem reasonable to me. I think I can also say without violating confidentiality that almost all of the mail to the internal list in the last few months has not been discussion focused, but rather has been notices of chapter board elections, meetings and reports, and I would love to see all that traffic be public (even if it's on a separate list so not everyone has to get the notices if they're not interested) -- there's nothing inherently confidential about it, and it would be nice for that info to be easily findable.
-- phoebe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
-- Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom) "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Victor Grigas, 10/04/2013 19:22:
I keep the raw, unpolished interviews on pages on the password protected: https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Stories knowing that they are available only to myself and staff at the WMF.
What about a limited set of trusted wikimedians?
I use that raw material to release polished works like this: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All . During the course of an interview, people sometimes say things that when reviewed later, they wish they hadn't. Out of respect and decency for those interviewed, [...]
Privacy is very important, and I have to take it seriously. [...]
All very right, just highlighting two passages to complement the question above: respect and decency are not the same as privacy; would this material be something that requires everyone with access to it signing a NDA, or being a PII-handling designated officer (or whatever the English name for the thing under EU laws)?
Nemo
On 10 April 2013 18:48, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Victor Grigas, 10/04/2013 19:22:
I keep the raw, unpolished interviews
on pages on the password protected: https://office.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikipedia_Storieshttps://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Storiesknowing that they are available only to myself and staff at the WMF.
What about a limited set of trusted wikimedians?
Trusted to know the real names and backgrounds of other editors? There
should never be a situation where volunteers are read into that kind of thing in a post-hoc fashion.
Oliver Keyes, 10/04/2013 22:25:
On 10 April 2013 18:48, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Victor Grigas, 10/04/2013 19:22:
I keep the raw, unpolished interviews
on pages on the password protected: https://office.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikipedia_Storieshttps://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Storiesknowing that they are available only to myself and staff at the WMF.
What about a limited set of trusted wikimedians?
Trusted to know the real names and backgrounds of other editors? There should never be a situation where volunteers are read into that kind of thing in a post-hoc fashion.
Are you speaking of yourself here? :)
Nemo
Are you speaking of yourself here? :)
As opposed to, speaking as a staffer? Well, I work for Product Development. So the chances of me giving binding policy statements on privacy issues are slim to none :).
Speaking personally: I can't think of a single good reason why Victor's stuff should be released. Speaking as a staffer: I'd rather everyone and their pet dog didn't have my phone number, even if we saw Everyone's passport at one point :). There's definitely stuff on officewiki that should be more public (speaking just for my own work, there's a lot of strategic planning there) but I'd argue the docs available on officewiki don't accuratey represent the public availability *of* those docs; we can see that docX exists on officewiki, and is to do with something the communities care about, but that doesn't mean a concrete form of docX wasn't then /released/ to the community for their perusal, consideration, comment and vote.
An illustration here would be: I've got my engagement strategy for what became Page Curation on officewiki. It's a place where I can write and rewrite it, my bosses can check it for stupid, and if there *is* stupid we catch it before it causes problems. Someone looking at that in isolation would go "this should totally be public! It's about engagement and deployment timetables,and we should be transparent about it". And we are transparent about it - because the document later became public, in an altered and finalised form. But the two aren't necessarily linked together, which makes this rather opaque.
There are totally some docs on office-wiki that could do with more publicity. But there are far more that are private - fully private - for a good reason, and I'd imagine some of those that look ready for public release were, in fact, released.
Apologies for the TL;DR rant :)
Oliver Keyes, 10/04/2013 22:43:
Are you speaking of yourself here? :)As opposed to, speaking as a staffer? Well, I work for Product Development. So the chances of me giving binding policy statements on privacy issues are slim to none :).
No: as opposed to, a staffer that is also not a very active editor. :) The part on personal identifying information is one I understand and that's why I asked about it, but I don't think it should be on officewiki either; the other part on editor background I didn't understand, and I think staffer or editor is the same for that.
Speaking personally: I can't think of a single good reason why Victor's stuff should be released. [...]
Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance "use the internal wiki more", given that's the thread we're in).
An illustration here would be: I've got my engagement strategy for what became Page Curation on officewiki. It's a place where I can write and rewrite it, my bosses can check it for stupid, and if there *is* stupid we catch it before it causes problems.
This is fine. Way better than Google Docs shared with few people and then quickly lost!
Someone looking at that in isolation would go "this should totally be public! It's about engagement and deployment timetables,and we should be transparent about it".
I really can't imagine who this naïve someone could be. :)
And we are transparent about it - because the document later became public, in an altered and finalised form. But the two aren't necessarily linked together, which makes this rather opaque.
There are totally some docs on office-wiki that could do with more publicity. But there are far more that are private - fully private - for a good reason, and I'd imagine some of those that look ready for public release were, in fact, released.
Again, I'm not the one arguing for a "bias towards putting information on public wikis" for the sake of it, in this thread. ;-)
I know that some things are always going to be private, and I also think that we're not a totalitarian state, so even we officially disallowed anything to be private then people would just hide better (e.g. documents on private gdocs rather than private wikis; or the good old local hard disk + private email).
Nemo
I don't know that anyone else really wants another example, but I'll offer a couple thoughts. On a personal level, I'm happy that my contact information is not public, but I'm also happy that the other staff members have access to it if they need to get in touch with me urgently.
The primary benefit of a closed wiki that I see from my work perspective is for upcoming press launches with partners when we need to embargo the information prior to the release date. The most common example is Wikipedia Zero. We regularly prepare documents, like the Q&A that goes with the launch, on Office Wiki and then copy it to Foundation Wiki once the press release is public. We could just do it in Google Docs, but we do need to keep this information private until the launch (obviously, we wouldn't be able to manage the story if the press got to it before we wanted them to). Our PR work is often also part of the contract signed with the partner and is one of the primary values they see in the partnership, so they are usually quite concerned with keeping a tight lock on the info until the release date.
There are also a number of password registrations to the various social media accounts we manage, the various admin keys for the press release distribution list and to the various lists like Wikimedia Announce-l that would also need to stay private in some capacity. Office Wiki proves useful for that, but theoretically there could be another arrangement, I'm sure.
Of the other material that is in the Communications corner on Office Wiki, almost all of it is links to public wikis, so it doesn't do much more than provide an easy location for organizing the links. That could happen just as easily on Meta or elsewhere.
-Matthew
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.comwrote:
Oliver Keyes, 10/04/2013 22:43:
Are you speaking of yourself here? :)As opposed to, speaking as a staffer? Well, I work for Product Development. So the chances of me giving binding policy statements on privacy issues are slim to none :).
No: as opposed to, a staffer that is also not a very active editor. :) The part on personal identifying information is one I understand and that's why I asked about it, but I don't think it should be on officewiki either; the other part on editor background I didn't understand, and I think staffer or editor is the same for that.
Speaking personally: I can't think of a single good reason why Victor's stuff should be released. [...]
Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance "use the internal wiki more", given that's the thread we're in).
An illustration here would be: I've got my engagement strategy for what became Page Curation on officewiki. It's a place where I can write and rewrite it, my bosses can check it for stupid, and if there *is* stupid we catch it before it causes problems.
This is fine. Way better than Google Docs shared with few people and then quickly lost!
Someone looking at that in
isolation would go "this should totally be public! It's about engagement and deployment timetables,and we should be transparent about it".
I really can't imagine who this naïve someone could be. :)
And we
are transparent about it - because the document later became public, in an altered and finalised form. But the two aren't necessarily linked together, which makes this rather opaque.
There are totally some docs on office-wiki that could do with more publicity. But there are far more that are private - fully private - for a good reason, and I'd imagine some of those that look ready for public release were, in fact, released.
Again, I'm not the one arguing for a "bias towards putting information on public wikis" for the sake of it, in this thread. ;-)
I know that some things are always going to be private, and I also think that we're not a totalitarian state, so even we officially disallowed anything to be private then people would just hide better (e.g. documents on private gdocs rather than private wikis; or the good old local hard disk
- private email).
Nemo
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On 10 April 2013 22:07, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Oliver Keyes, 10/04/2013 22:43:
Are you speaking of yourself here? :)As opposed to, speaking as a staffer? Well, I work for Product Development. So the chances of me giving binding policy statements on privacy issues are slim to none :).
No: as opposed to, a staffer that is also not a very active editor. :) The part on personal identifying information is one I understand and that's why I asked about it, but I don't think it should be on officewiki either; the other part on editor background I didn't understand, and I think staffer or editor is the same for that.
When I say "editor background" I mean things like their name, their
personal background - from those interviews I've seen, things like job and location frequently come into it - so on and so forth. I see a fairly substantive difference, there, in whether we give that information to staffers (on a need-to-know basis) or decide to give it to volunteers who are "trusted", for a given value of trusted.
Speaking personally: I can't think of a single good reason why Victor's stuff should be released. [...]
Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance "use the internal wiki more", given that's the thread we're in).
Yep; there's no reason we should be giving that sort of thing out to
random chapters people or trusted volunteers; they have no use case for it.
An illustration here would be: I've got my engagement strategy for what became Page Curation on officewiki. It's a place where I can write and rewrite it, my bosses can check it for stupid, and if there *is* stupid we catch it before it causes problems.
This is fine. Way better than Google Docs shared with few people and then quickly lost!
Agreed. Every time someone says "we can just use a google doc!" I groan
;p. It's like: you know, if only we *built* a collaborative document editing too-wait.
The problem of internal communication came up again at WMCON, but only about internal-l, see the couple quick opinions expressed: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013/Documentation/Day_2/WMF_board#Charles:_We_need_Internal-l.2C_what_do_you_think.3F
Oliver Keyes, 11/04/2013 17:33:
[...] Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance "use the internal wiki more", given that's the thread we're in).
Yep; there's no reason we should be giving that sort of thing out to random chapters people or trusted volunteers; they have no use case
for it.
"No reason to" is not a reason not to, so your "yes" means "no" given my question. (And also by analogy, because most people in officewiki won't have a use case for that stuff either.)
Nemo
On 28 April 2013 09:49, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
The problem of internal communication came up again at WMCON, but only about internal-l, see the couple quick opinions expressed: < https://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_** 2013/Documentation/Day_2/WMF_**board#Charles:_We_need_** Internal-l.2C_what_do_you_**think.3Fhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013/Documentation/Day_2/WMF_board#Charles:_We_need_Internal-l.2C_what_do_you_think.3F
Oliver Keyes, 11/04/2013 17:33:
[...] Neither I do. I only asked if they *require* the compartmentalisation that e.g. Tom described – otherwise they could as well happen in a slightly different context (like for instance "use the internal wiki more", given that's the thread we're in).
Yep; there's no reason we should be giving that sort of thing out to random chapters people or trusted volunteers; they have no use case for
it.
"No reason to" is not a reason not to, so your "yes" means "no" given my question. (And also by analogy, because most people in officewiki won't have a use case for that stuff either.)
When the information contains personal data, it is totally a reason not
to.
Oliver Keyes, 29/04/2013 05:24:
"No reason to" is not a reason not to, so your "yes" means "no" given my question. (And also by analogy, because most people in officewiki won't have a use case for that stuff either.)When the information contains personal data, it is totally a reason not to.
If you really share people's personal data on officewiki, I'm very glad I never participated to the interviews sessions at Wikimania.
Nemo
Based on just flicking though the conversation, The main issue here is historical content that is mostly in the way of the re-purposing?
Why not just close down internal.wiki and start a Internal.wiki 2.0 with a more defined scope that suits the purpose?
On 29 April 2013 10:35, K. Peachey p858snake@gmail.com wrote:
Based on just flicking though the conversation, The main issue here is historical content that is mostly in the way of the re-purposing?
Why not just close down internal.wiki and start a Internal.wiki 2.0 with a more defined scope that suits the purpose?
Was there any further progress with these discussions to shut down or re-purpose internal-l and internal wiki? It's been brought up recently as a questionhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/Board_elections/2013/Questions/2#Dozens_WMF_private_wikis_and_.22no_place_to_work_together.22 for candidates in the community Board of Trustees elections (for which voting starts tomorrow).
Sure, it's so much better to ask to one WMF staff to use his payed time to collect the mail and phone number of each chapters board member, whereas all of this could have been done efficiently with no cost on Internal wiki.
The problem is that "old" wikimedians continue to consider internal like a place to do lobbying or secret stuff, whereas new wikimedians just want a place to share efficiently informations that cannot be displayed publicly like for example draft agreement between a chapter and an institution!
There is millions way to improve the usage of donors money, and the position "no place to work together" is not one of these.
Charles
___________________________________________________________ Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
Le 3 avr. 2013 à 19:46, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org a écrit :
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Thanks, Sue
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Incidently... given that most people would not be willing to publicly post their phone number and possibly other personal information... and that a wiki is actually not necessarily the best place to do such a thing, has it ever been considered to set up something dedicated to actually host contact information ?
Florence
On 4/4/13 12:27 PM, Charles Andrès wrote:
Sure, it's so much better to ask to one WMF staff to use his payed time to collect the mail and phone number of each chapters board member, whereas all of this could have been done efficiently with no cost on Internal wiki.
The problem is that "old" wikimedians continue to consider internal like a place to do lobbying or secret stuff, whereas new wikimedians just want a place to share efficiently informations that cannot be displayed publicly like for example draft agreement between a chapter and an institution!
There is millions way to improve the usage of donors money, and the position "no place to work together" is not one of these.
Charles
Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
Le 3 avr. 2013 à 19:46, Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org a écrit :
On 3 April 2013 03:34, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
I'd argue against this. From the perspective of the Wikimedia Foundation, I would rather staff bias towards putting information on public wikis wherever possible, and I'd worry that staff energy going into updating a closed private wiki would by necessity pull focus from public work. I'd argue for closing both the internal wiki and the internal mailing list: IMO there's nothing on either that needs to be confidential.
Thanks, Sue
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On 4 April 2013 13:16, Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Incidently... given that most people would not be willing to publicly post their phone number and possibly other personal information... and that a wiki is actually not necessarily the best place to do such a thing, has it ever been considered to set up something dedicated to actually host contact information ?
Why do we need to share individual phone numbers? I'm no longer on a chapter board, but when I was I don't think I would have appreciated random people I don't know from other chapters phoning me unexpectedly. I'd much rather they either called the main chapter phone number (which is available publicly) and left me a message or emailed me (using the "Email this user" function on the chapter wiki) and asked when would be a good time to call and what number they should call me on. As with most volunteers, I have to fit my voluntary work around the rest of my life, so phone calls aren't a good way to initiate a conversation.
On 4/8/13 7:18 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 4 April 2013 13:16, Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Incidently... given that most people would not be willing to publicly post their phone number and possibly other personal information... and that a wiki is actually not necessarily the best place to do such a thing, has it ever been considered to set up something dedicated to actually host contact information ?
Why do we need to share individual phone numbers? I'm no longer on a chapter board, but when I was I don't think I would have appreciated random people I don't know from other chapters phoning me unexpectedly. I'd much rather they either called the main chapter phone number (which is available publicly) and left me a message or emailed me (using the "Email this user" function on the chapter wiki) and asked when would be a good time to call and what number they should call me on. As with most volunteers, I have to fit my voluntary work around the rest of my life, so phone calls aren't a good way to initiate a conversation.
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I understand your position Thomas.
But favorite mode of communication is the individual choice of each of us. We may share or not share our phone number. We have the choice. Anyone can also add a note to say he prefers not to be contacted by phone unless really necessary, or not at certain hours or certain days.
Why would you impose to others your own dislike ?
Not every chapter has a "main phone number" (often, it is the president personal phone number). Why would the president becomes a human answering machine for others ? Last, I have shared my phone number with others quite liberally. I have no memory of any abuse from fellow chapter members. When they do use the phone, it is either because it is mega super urgent, or because the topic can not be discussed by email or because the internet connexion is not working.
Flo
On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.comwrote:
Incidently... given that most people would not be willing to publicly post their phone number and possibly other personal information... and that a wiki is actually not necessarily the best place to do such a thing, has it ever been considered to set up something dedicated to actually host contact information ?
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/
Voilà.
Interesting that you don't know.
The question by Florence on contacts is still pending. :) I know/think officewiki is used for most WMF internal contact info, except emergency contact info hosted (also) elsewhere (or on dev' mobiles :p ) for when the cluster is down. Something more general and scalable would be nice.
Charles Andrès, 04/04/2013 12:27:
[...] There is millions way to improve the usage of donors money, and the position "no place to work together" is not one of these.
Given that the thread is dormant (WMF board members nothing to say?), we could maybe look at best practices around Wikimedia. For instance, WMDE recently (2011) created a private wiki ("forum") for its members, to foster discussion and collaboration within the association (all of it: board, office, members). AFAICS, WMDE has always used mainly Meta talk pages and the public list for their general discussions, but the private wiki was an effective addition to broaden participation. I see it's fairly active, with over 17k edits. It seems that one «place to work together» is always a better solution than none.
Nemo
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 3:34 AM, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:
Hi all,
# Press releases. When there's an upcoming significant press release from a
Wikimedia organisation, then it should be good practice to share it with the other movement partners prior to its release, so that they are aware of it, can provide feedback, and can plan around it. Some of this already happens on wmfcc-l, but not consistently - much more could be done here.
I really hope we continue to use the Communications Committee list for this purpose. I think if anything, more groups could share more of their press releases and information there. We try to do it with every press release at the WMF. It is an active part of our communications strategy for announcements. It's even something we explicitly state when we first liaise with press reps from the big telecommunications companies for Wikipedia Zero announcements. They probably aren't super comfortable with it, but we insist that the community who works in press will be given the embargoed release before it is public.
# Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already, which is actually being maintained by some people. Tackling squatted domain names and keeping track of who owns what is a global problem that should be done collaboratively, but in confidence, rather than just by individual organisations. # Contact information for the various organisations. Some of this can be done publicly, but not all, and it would be good to have a central place for this information anyway. # Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations, etc. then it would be good to be able to share these and ask for help without publishing them to the world at the same time. That doesn't need a mailing list - it can be done on a wiki. # … and I'm sure there's more examples that can go here, this isn't trying to be a complete list!
So, rather than close the internal wiki, I'd like to propose a radical redesign and repurposing of it. Is there the interest and willingness in the WMF and the chapters to share such information with each other?
Thanks, Mike (Note: this is a personal viewpoint, not necessarily that of WMUK.)
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Mike - fine points.
On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 6:34 AM, Michael Peel michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
There is information within the Wikimedia movement that can't be shared publicly. # Agreements, particularly those with global impact, and/or where they affect more than one Wikimedia organisation.
Should be public where possible; some may need to be private for a time.
There's also a lot of experience now with existing agreements that could be reused when new agreements are being written, e.g. for Wikimedians in Residences. Sadly, not all of these can be made publicly available (or at least, they haven't been to date).
I think many can, actually. It just hasn't happened yet; requires asking the right people for each agreement.
# Press releases, prior to release
Yes.
# Domain names. There is a list of these on internal already
Yes.
# Contact information for the various organisations.
Can be public. Some personal #s can be privat.e
# Notices of sensitive activities. E.g. if there's an upcoming risk of law suits, infrastructure difficulties within organisations,
Yes.
If we carefully scope what's there, and review for material that doesn't need (or no longer needs) that secrecy, it can be useful. I think muc hof the material that is posted on smaller-group wikis (committees, individual chapters, &c) could be shared among all chapters and movement entities on the internal wiki. If everyone finds private things they currently work on which could benefit from being shared on internal, it will find life and purpose.
Worth a discussion among people who use other private wikis. I know I would like to use *fewer* private wikis, not more. [and right now I only use the Board wiki. But some of that material would be ok on internal, and some of it - including the drafting of many of our resolutions - would be fine to do in public on meta]
Florence writes:
has it ever been considered to set up something dedicated to actually host contact information ?
A wiki table works, and is simple, for small groups. A more structured solution could work for our entire larger social network... we already use CiviCRM heavily in other ways.
Sam.
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